ICANN SOI to fill sham noncommercial council seats

[Alex Gakuru]

This is beyond words. How wrong I was to have held ICANN in high regard.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Robin Gross<robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:
> Here is ICANN's announcement calling for Statements of Interest from those
> interested in volunteering to be appointed by the board to represent
> noncommercial users:
>    http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-05aug09-en.htm
>
> "... Of the four new Stakeholder Group Charters approved by the Board last
> week, this temporary seat selection by the Board is unique to the NCSG. It
> reflects a fundamental view that the current non-commercial community
> participation in the GNSO is not yet sufficiently diverse or robust to
> select all six of the NCSG's allocated Council seats (as was originally
> intended by the Board's GNSO Improvements initiative)...."
>
> ICANN claims we are not "sufficiently diverse or robust enough to select all
> six" GNSO Council seats.  Yet NCUC represents 137 noncommercial
> organizations and individuals from 48 countries.  Our membership has
> increased by 205% since the parity principle was established.  There never
> was any bar for us to meet - that rhetoric was invented by the commercial
> constituencies and selectively adopted by ICANN staff to justify why 137
> noncommercial organizations and individuals are not entitled to elect their
> own representation.
> Too bad noncommercial users will not be given electoral parity with
> commercial users as the BGC originally promised.  Another empty promise,
> another rigged process.  ICANN is more aggressive than ever in squeezing out
> noncommercial users in policy development.  So sad.
> Robin
>
> IP JUSTICE
> Robin Gross, Executive Director
> 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
> p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
> w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org
>
>
>