NCDNHC - organizational conflict of interests. (Re:[ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN Board Solicits Input

[Milton Mueller]

>>> Alexander Svensson <svensson at icannchannel.de> 07/10/02 04:10AM >>>

>I'm certain the Task Force members are aware of such an 
>organizational conflict of interest (which has not been
>created by the NCDNHC, but by one of the bidders). It's
>certainly in the interest of the NCDNHC to adhere to high
>standards in order to hold other groups to them -- if the

Alexander:
I understand your point, but I do need to emphasize one
thing: the NCDNHC is not incorporated as an "organization"
and thus cannot per se benefit from any proposal. NCDNHC
is a constituency of the DNSO with one purpose and one purpose
only: to represent noncommercial organizations in the
formulation of policies and in ICANN decisionmaking. Strictly
speaking, NCDNHC is part of ICANN itself - that is certainly
who we make our checks out to when we join.

I must admit I am a bit puzzled as to the reasoning behind
these discussions. I would be the first to admit that NCDNHC
is not a perfect or comprehensive embodiment of the
global noncommercial Internet user community. But what 
else is there? If noncommercial interests are going to be
represented, they have to be represented by something
or somebody. Either you use the entity established  for that 
purpose or you use something else. To say "use something 
else" at this moment is insane: we have exactly one month, 
and the process of creating a representative body anew 
provides no guarantee of improvement and many new 
risks and problems.

I reacted a bit too strongly to Thomas, partly because
I admit I was suspicious of this motives. I just don't know
what it means to say that it is a "conflict of interest" for
an .org applicant to offer participation or benefits to EITHER 
the NCDNHC as an entity, or the broader noncommercial
Internet community. If there is to be an evaluation of
which benefits are most appropriate for an applicant
to offer, who is supposed to do that if not the established
noncommercial constituency within ICANN's dnso?

One final point. It is a false assumption that the
evaluators will fall all over themselves salivating at the
prospect of travel funds. Ford Foundation has provided
an excellent travel program in the past, and has expressed
some interest in continuing it - so there are alternatives.
>From the standpoint of pure constituency self-interest,
DNSO dues are a much more significant economic problem
than travel. An applicant with benefits may also 
fail other tests. They may propose undesireable policies or
governance structures. We are asked to do three distinct 
evaluations, and all of them are important. We are not being 
asked for our "opinion" of applicants, we are required to do focused
assessments based on  4, 5 and 6 of the RFP.