[NCSG-Discuss] Should NCSG consider filing an ombudsman complaint against ICANN senior staff for violating the organization's policy development process?

[Edward Morris]

This is a bit of a line in the sand issue for me, both in terms of policy
and process. To the extent those of us lower in the food chain, at the
Constituency level, can support and help in this effort please be so kind
as to reach out and let me know. I fully support as many efforts to get
this matter on the table for review as we can jointly muster.

I have a question for those who have been involved in this process longer
than I: Are we at the stage, is this is the sort of action, for which we
can file an an Article IV (2) reconsideration request? It certainly
involves a staff action that we hold contradicts established ICANN policy
that adversely affects each and every one of us.

Thanks for the clarification and, also,  for your leadership on this matter
Robin.


Ed Morris



On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 7:40 PM, Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:

> Thanks, Avri.  I do believe the GNSO Council should file a complaint
> against staff for this.   I'm wondering if there should be at least 2
> separate and different complaints filed.  One from the GNSO Council on how
> its role and the GNSO Policy Development Process (as stated by ICANN) was
> entirely circumvented and disregarded by senior staff in the adoption of
> its strawman.  An NCSG complaint could focus on the inequality of
> participation afforded to NCSG at the LA meeting where staff and the TM
> lobbyists cooked this up.  Remember, the CEO said in plain unequivocal
> terms that NCSG would not be allowed participate at the same level as CSG
> at that meeting.  It was 14 CSG to 2 NCSG who were allowed to participate
> (and of the 2 NCSG reps, I was on my flight back home and Kathy was on the
> phone in the middle of the night having difficulty getting the floor from
> the in-room meeting participants, who were drinking beer and wine for 3+
> hours.)  Maria filed a complaint on the inequality issue previously, but
> NCSG as a group did not.  Now that staff said it would implement the
> policies cooked up at this ad-hoc LA meeting at which NCSG was expressly
> discriminated against, the time has come for NCSG to file its complaint as
> a group.
>
> Robin
>
> On Mar 26, 2013, at 12:20 PM, Avri Doria wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I can support the NCSG filling such a complaint, though it would be better
> for the GNSO Council to file it.
>
> Perhaps we can first introduce it as a motion for the next g-council
> meeting, and if the council decides against it, then we could do it
> independently.
>
> avri
>
> On 26 Mar 2013, at 15:14, Robin Gross wrote:
>
> I think NCSG should consider filing an ombudsman complaint against the
> organization's senior management for violating the organization's policy
> development process by adopting staff's "strawman solution" which never
> went through proper process (or any process for that matter).
>
> The most dangerous part of staff's adopted proposal creates unprecedented
> new rights for trademark holders with this "once infringed" theory of new
> rights to TM+50 derivations of that mark.  This particular proposal was
> stitched together by TM lobbyists and staff when NCSG wasn't even in the
> room - because it was 10pm at night in LA and I had left for my flight on
> staff's assurances that no policy discussions would take place that evening.
> ALAC wasn't in the room either (although Evan & Alan participated remotely
> on the phone in the middle of their night).
>
> The GNSO Council said don't adopt this policy.
>
> ICANN staff admitted the proposal was a policy decision and not an
> implementation decision - a key distinction in staff's ability to make
> decisions. [Although the first time staff published its report on the mtg's
> discussion of that proposal, staff's blog report differed from what the CEO
> stated to meeting participants and said this proposal had been
> characterized as an "implementation" decision by mtg participants.  It
> took some persistence and insistence from mtg participants to correct
> staff's blog post and classify this proposal as "policy" - which was the
> truth of what the LA mtg participants had said.  Finally staff gave-in,
> as I was not the only one to complain about the inaccurate reporting, and
> they changed the web-posting to reflect that the group - and staff - had
> classified this proposal as "policy, and not implementation" at the LA mtg.
> The CEO apologize for staff's "mistake".  I'm sure it's all another
> coincidence...]
>
> The CEO told Congress only a few weeks' previously that ICANN could not
> adopt such a policy - in part because it creates new rights (and ICANN
> isn't supposed to creating new rights).
>
> The above doesn't even go into the underlying substance of the particular
> (TM+50) proposal (which turns trademark law on its head).  How is anyone
> going to criticize a company or product that was "found to abused" by
> someone else, somewhere else, in an entirely unrelated circumstance?  This
> proposal actually thumbs its nose at trademark law because trademark law
> recognizes that "once infringed" does not create some magical new category
> of rights that is allowed to trample on the expression rights of all the
> innocent and lawful uses of a word (that resembles a trademark).  But
> I'll save the complaints about how nonsensical the substance of this
> proposal is for another email.  This email is just about the insanity of
> ICANN senior staff attempting to usurp the bottom-up policy development
> process to appease powerful political interests.
>
> If ICANN staff refuses to follow the organization's own stated policies,
> the Ombudsman is supposed to be able to intercede, no?
>
> Best,
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
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