[NCSG-Discuss] ICANN Representative Structures

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 24 March 2013 22:27, Andrew A. Adams <aaa at meiji.ac.jp> wrote:


> But Evan, you started this by saying that lots of users were
> diseinfranchised within the GNSO structure


No, the disenfranchisement was in general with ICANN.

I understand the structure. I get that, as an AC, ALAC has in some ways
greater abilities (ie, the mandate to comment on policy and implementation
about anything ICANN does, not just gTLDs) than a GNSO constituency, and in
some ways lesser (ie, no vote on GNSO council whose decisions can bind the
Board).

As Avri had mentioned, the structure of GNSO -- (generally speaking) domain
sellers in one half, domain buyers in the other -- has been the subject of
high-level commentary from the ALAC through the R3 paper. The NPOC has
already engaged us on this and I look forward to NCUC engagement as well.

At this time, the ALAC has a different path into ICANN's decision-making
than the GNSO. It gives comment, directly to the Board, staff, public
comment processes, inside work groups, wherever appropriate. The the case
of the TMCH strawman, Alan and I participated remotely in the LA meeting as
did Kathy and Robin. In fact, the four of us had a lively (and cordial!)
backchannel in which we were discussing the issues. We didn't agree on
everything but broadly did share an abhorrence for the bully tactics being
used by name owners and all fought hard against the proposals for prior
blocking.

Generally speaking (as was also witnessed in our response to the GAC
"scorecard" on the gTLD program), the ALAC took a position that was more
conciliatory than the NCSG but stopped (far) short of endorsing the many
excesses demanded by the trademark industry. I don't think the current TMCH
position is too inconsistent with that middle ground.

The At-Large response to the Strawman was drafted in early January, and put
to a vote which was passed by ALAC with a vote of 14-0-1. It -- and its
background material -- are all publicly
accessible<https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=38045993>at
the ALAC web page. So the ALAC position can be seen clearly, in both
its
similarities and differences with the NCSG's. (We did not advocate or even
envision the "50 variants".)

Did we support everything that staff ultimately announced? No. But many
things that staff wanted to do were OK, and the one thing we really didn't
want wasn't done. That's what i thought I'd originally said.

The bylaws that I referred to mandate that ALAC gives advice, but don't
demand that anyone actually listen to that advice. The GAC, when it gives
advice to the Board, *must* be responded to -- not so ALAC. In the many
many pieces of explicit policy advice that we've sent out, it seems that
much has traditionally seemed to be ignored or discarded, especially when
it was at odds with the GNSO. Thus, the disenfranchisement of which I spoke.

In this case, it did seem that our advice -- for once -- actually helped
influence the final decision even if the end result was counter to some of
the views of some GNSO constituencies. This is the channel that we have.
It's more direct than the GNSO's (and WAY more direct than any individual
GNSO constituency) and it need not differentiate between policy and
implementation. The GNSO's direction is limited to policy, and the line
between policy and implementation is an important one whose fuzziness is
only now being addressed after what seems like ages of neglect -- in part,
as a direct fallout from the TMCH meetings.

The issue is far from over. But I think that one of my main points is that
the lack of clarity between policy and implementation hurts both policy and
good execution. It has certainly been exploited before, and  IMO was at the
heart of the current re-opening of the TMCH issue.  It enables *both* staff
incursion into policy *and* levels of micromanagement that would be
intolerable in most conventional organizations, commercial or not.
Addressing this is just as critical as the core trademark issues.

Cheers,

- Evan






> and that therefore dictatorial action by the staff
> was justified because the GNSO-based MSM was at base too narrow and
> therefore
> illegitimate. Now, I haven't looked hard enough at ICANN detailed
> structures,
> so please correct me if I'm wrong, but the model is supposed to work like
> this:
>
> GNSO develops policy recommendations through a MSM
>
> ACs comment on these policy recommendations
>
> Board adopts policy from GNSO (possibly with minor amendments due to AC
> comments) or send it back to GNSO with requests to amend based on their own
> input and AC advice.
>
> Staff implements Board adopted policies.
>
>
> Instead what we have is staff proposing policy, which is sometimes in
> agreement with some or all AC's advice. Your statement is that because ALAC
> agrees substantially with the current staff policy proposals (*) that ALAC
> is
> fine with this since the GNSO MSM is too narrow and needs someone to act
> dictatorially to represent the silent majority.
>
> I suggested that you try to fix the too-narrow MSM of the GNSO and you
> pointed me to the remit of the ACs and ALAC in particular. That's not the
> problem here. You are claiming that GNSO is unrepresentative and so staff
> should be permitted to make policy. I see no reason to believe that this
> would actually give those you claim are currently diseinfranchised from the
> GNSO any more influence. Staff policy proposals this time may fit with
> their
> needs expressed through ALAC but staff change, staf are subject to highly
> capricious and capturable changes of direction and there is significant
> lack
> of transparency and accountability with staff-driven policy-making
> processes.
>
>
>
>
> (*) I'm splitting off the question of ALAC's support for this proposal from
> the structural question. See other message.
>
> --
> Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/
>



-- 
Evan Leibovitch
Toronto Canada

Em: evan at telly dot org
Sk: evanleibovitch
Tw: el56
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