NCSG Statement Explaining Our Deferral of the Vote

[Robin Gross]

NCSG finds it impossible to bypass ICANN’s bottom-up policy development process in this way.  At a time when multi-stakeholder processes on the Internet are being challenged, this proposal is both questionable on the merits, and contrary to ICANN’s processes. Therefore, the NCSG has no option at this stage but to defer the vote at least until the public comment period is closed.

Here are the reasons for our deferral.

One of the most important parts of the ICANN process is the public comment period, which allows public engagement and permits those affected by policies to express their views. Public comments constitute a quintessential part of iCANN’s ecosystem.  How can ICANN depend on public comments when it makes a decision before they have all been received? The council should not hold a vote on something as important as the implicit creation of a new form of reserved names, especially one that singles out some international organisations for special consideration while ignoring others without full comment. The critical importance of public comments was recognized by our colleague Mr. Steve Metalitz, chair of the IPC in a recent comment. Mr Metalitz said:

“In trying to make the decision before the public comment period has closed, ICANN has failed to fulfill its pledge, in the Affirmation of Commitments, to employ “responsive consultation procedures that provide detailed explanations of the basis for decisions, including how comments have influenced the development of policy consideration,” and to “continually assess[] and improv[e] the processes by which ICANN receives public input (including adequate explanation of decisions taken and the rationale thereof).” [1]

We could not agree more with this statement by our fellow stakeholder group – the IPC.

The community should take the necessary time to hear all the views on this issue and examine other proposals, such as those from Portugal earlier this week as well as the proposal from the Not-for-profit Operations Constituency that are intended to create a more fair and less arbitrary standard for reserved names.

The NCSG-Policy Committee believes that this is a critical policy issue and needs the full guidance of the public comments before it can properly decide how to vote, and thus requests a deferral of this vote.

[1] http://www.icann.org/en/documents/affirmation-of-commitments-30sep09-en.htm, paragraphs 7 and 9.1.c.
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