Corrected link for At Large White Paper

[Avri Doria]

On 15 Dec 2012, at 01:30, mary.wong at law.unh.edu wrote:

> Hello again, sorry, I posted the wrong link to the At Large R3 paper. Here is the correct link:http://www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/at-large-r3-white-paper-20nov12-en.htm



Hi,

First I must SoI myself in relation to the R3 paper, I am a member of the At-Large Future Challenges WG that produced this paper.  I was not an author though I have been an active commentator. Though they did not take all my edits, they took many.  I agreed with the release of the paper for community review even though there were edits I want done that did not get done.

Although I do not agree with everything in the R3 paper, I think it is a necessary thought piece.  We all know that the GNSO is messed up.  I think most everyone can recognize that  the strict direemption of the Council and the Houses was a really bad idea.  I think there is wide agreement that the GNSO needs to be be turned on its head and inside out.   I think we see stakeholders who want to be involved but can't be involved because their don't fit the US vs. THEM divisions.  I think we see attempts to shoehorn new stakeholders into groups that don't really fit. We have inconsistent application for the Constituency/Stakeholder mandate from the Board.  In the contracted house, we see a situation where soon, just about every company will belong in the two of the Stakeholder groups, so subsidiaries will join different Stakeholder groups.  In the NonContracted parties house, we have to recognize that the world is not strictly divided between the Non-Commercial and Commercial and there are Registrant/User groups that have both aspects, and that there are a variety of technical stakeholders who need a varied representation model.  We see that IPC interests come in both Commercial and Non-Commercial flavors, why can't both be part of the same Stakeholder group?

Mostly we have to review the notion of the regulated having an effective veto in regard to  their regulations.  I am well aware that this is a vestige of regulation by contract and the nature of picket fence, but once we realize that these contracts are not regular contracts but are a form of regulation, it becomes less obvious that Contracted Parties should have an effective veto over changes to the regulations.  A fully participatory set of roles and responsibilities, certainly, but not a veto.  Until that gets fixed, ICANN remains vulnerable to calls of CoI and malfeasance.

I think that if ICANN is a new form of multistakeholder regulatory organization, it should have something to say about the ccTLDs.  It is ridiculous that ccTLDs are not  bound by a  same basic rules as the gTLDs.  Sure issues of administration have a sovereign aspect to them, but the basic registrant and user protection should be equivalent.  I admit I have more sympathy for the ccTLD that focuses on their country, and perhaps its diaspora, than I do for those who walk and quack as though they were gTLDs, except for when it comes to responsibilities including registrant and user protection.  I understand that this is linked to the nature of ICANN as an organization subject to California law.  I have argued and keep arguing for progress on the evolution of becoming a free standing organization, with appropriate multistakeholder oversight, that is hosted by a country without being subject to its political whims.  I think  it is important that all TLDs have a similar basic regulatory aspect.

I was on the committee that produced this dog's breakfast of a GNSO organizational modality.  As is too often the case, I was the only dissenting voice. In the end I only agreed to stop fighting about it because it could be undone a few years later if the experiment failed.  It failed.  It is time to undo it.  I think the contributions from R3 should, and will, be fed into the analysis that is done on the upcoming GNSO review.  

Some have argued that the only reason for R3 was because ALAC wanted to increase their power.  I do not care that ALAC and GAC want to increase their power, in fact I think ALAC advice should be taken seriously and I have argued for a long time that the ALAC should get the same by-laws consideration as the GAC in terms of advice that reaches full and active consensus (and yes, I think the GAC criteria should be full and active consensus which it may or not be at the moment).   Likewise, the GNSO wants to hold on to power that they have abused and misused. If power analysis is your thing, then everything is about power.  Which is true, when i was studying Chemistry I discovered that everything is about Chemistry - then dropped out of Chemistry in favor of Philosophy. And if [economics, gender theory, Political Science, Marxism, anthropology, queer theory, sociology ...]  is your thing, then everything is about  [economics, gender theory, Political Science, Marxism, anthropology, queer theory, sociology ...] .  i beleive in a multi-denominational analysis, and argue that part of the thought in regard to R3  is generally about organizational failure and that this must be taken seriously if we want to fix ICANN in a sustainable way.

Of course if we want to destroy ICANN I think it would help to just cross our arms and say how dare the ALAC criticize the GNSO.  Let's not commit suicide by shutting our minds to the views of others about the things that are broken in our corner of the world.

avri