[NCUC-DISCUSS] FW: Request for Information on Registration Directory Service User Accreditation (Available Until 10 March 2014)

[Edward Morris]

-----Original Message-----
From: Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
How can there be a request for information for a controversial directory 
service that HAS NOT BEEN CREATED YET and an accreditation policy that HAS 
NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED YET by the GNSO?
Is the “expert working group” on a slippery slope toward creating de 
facto policy and then present the GNSO with a fait accompli?

It sadly appears so. In an ICANN of strategy panels, expert working groups 
and the highest of high level panels  the bottom up component of our 
multi-stakeholder model appears to be lost. In TM50 we discovered that when 
policy made under GNSO auspices conflicts with the desires of connected and 
monied interests the later interests prevail and settled policy decisions 
are ignored, indeed reversed,  by staff and Board. In our SG DIDP we learned 
that staff and Board do not feel compelled to divulge the processes by which 
decisions are made nor the rationales for their decisions. Now we have an 
RFI, though couched in qualified terms, which anyone interested in 
submitting a RFP related to the  future directory may be well advised to 
participate in. Do we really believe ICANN would ask for input through a RFI 
resembling an RFP if the way forward on directory services has not largely 
been pre-determined? Of course not.

A reminder: the EWG is, as described in the RFI, is a top down committee 
"formed by ICANN's CEO, Fadi Chehade, at the request of ICANN's Board, to 
help resolve the nearly decade-long deadlock within the ICANN community on 
how to replace the current WHOIS system." It increasingly appears that  "to 
help" really means "to decide" or "to impose a decision upon". Then again,  
that appears to be the modus operandi of the new regime on many issues (see 
above).

Or perhaps that's just the cynic in me writing. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow 
and read how Mr. Chehade stopped off in Compton or South Central Los Angeles 
on his way to work to speak with and learn about the needs, hopes and 
desires of  low income internet users. A good balance to the time he 
recently spent in his cherished Davos. I anxiously await the formation of 
the Low Level Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance, scheduled 
to meet with Mr. Chehade at a community centre in Dili. I'm sure after his 
meeting with the "high level" leaders at the Annenberg Estate, Mr. Chehsde 
would relish the opportunity to meet with common folk in the least wired 
country on earth to understand their thoughts, perspectives and challenges. 
I'm sure my dear friend Paulo Anuno would be willing to help with the 
logistics. As the Eurythmics once sang "sweet dreams are made of this."

Unfortunately the theme track to this narrative appears to be more one 
written by Arrowsmith: "Dream On." Be it the procedural and substantive 
direction indicated by the RFI, the staff override of GNSO policy on TM50 or 
the lack of transparency in so many matters,  the direction of ICANN under 
Mr. Chehade and his Board is clearly towards a more staff oriented,  top 
down, opaque institution. This isn't the type of organisation I'm 
comfortable supporting; Indeed I'm finding it increasingly difficult to 
sense a major practical difference between this sort of multi-stakeholderism 
and the ugly spectre of multilateralism. A modified version of Orwell's 
Animal House seems a bit apropos to the current situation: All stakeholders 
are equal, but some stakeholders are more equal than others, and besides the 
staff and CEO reserve the right do what they want anyway regardless of any 
stakeholder. 

Hope there are some people here far more intelligent than I with thoughts 
and plans that would allow us to reverse these trends - if it isn't already 
too late. Smiling and applauding when Mr. Chehade mentions the word 
"multi-stakeholder" doesn't cut it when his operational administration 
frequently forgets the companion term "bottom up."

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20140212/29d2640e/attachment-0002.html>