Re: [ga] Re: Discussion Draft -- ICANN Reorganization

["James Love" <love@cptech.org>]

Vint,

I understand the Stuart Lynn spent a lot of time talking about Public
Private Partnerships PPPs, which are something I know about from my work in
health care.   PPPs are the instrument of choice for big pharma, because
they believe it will provide a mechanism to manage and control public health
policy, while socializing the costs, and reducing the influence of civil
society on policy making.  The public pays, but the big pharma companies
control how the money is spent.  At least, that is what they want.  There
are also some who think this is the best way to get the private sector to do
good works, with an emphasis on the incentives to the firms, coupled with
moral suasion.   And there are also some PPPs that are led more by private
donors or NGOs, and seek a cooperative relationship with companies on
specific issues.  Indeed, I was in NYC during Accra on a meeting to create a
new PPP called DNDi, a non-profit corporation to develop drugs for neglected
diseases (an effort that I am supportive of, being coordinated by the Nobel
prize winning MSF).  One thing that should be clear is the wide diversity of
structures for all of these PPPs.  You can look at info on 78 of them at
http://www.ippph.org , see the big pharma view here:
http://www.ifpma.org/PublicPrivate.htm , and some typical NGO criticism
here: http://www.haiweb.org/campaign/PPI/PPIs%20introduction.html.    Among
the typical criticisms are too little transparency, too much corporate
control, and that the public does not obtain sufficient benefits from its
investments.   But of course, some are thought to work well, some poorly.
What strikes me about the ICANN proposal is how inappropriate is the model
of having governments choose the board members.  If the ICANN staff and
board really want a large staff and a big budget and can't pay for it from
private sector funding, there is no reason to assume you have to turn ICANN
into a PPP regulator gizmo.  This is pretty much the worst way to structure
this.  One can imagine a treaty dealing with the ICANN functions, and one
can imagine a private sector group tying to do it, but putting the two
together begs the question of what type of a new governance system is being
created.   We aren't talking about funding R&D into TB or sleeping sickness.
We are talking about enormous potential power to control the Internet.  If
it looks like fascism to some it is because it looks a lot like fascism.
I'm not sure this is the way you want to go.  Why not something a little
more tame like contracts for services?  Is this because some in ICANN don't
like the idea that the contracts could ever be rebid to a different group?

    Jamie

----- Original Message -----
From: "vint cerf" <vinton.g.cerf@wcom.com>
To: "James Love" <love@cptech.org>
Cc: <ga@dnso.org>
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 5:47 AM
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: Discussion Draft -- ICANN Reorganization


> Jamie,
>
> you may well be right that this won't work - which is one reason we have
> asked the GAC to respond with its own ideas. The going-in proposal was
> that countries would have to reach consensus within regions as to a
> candidate for that region. Keep in mind that the intent of naming a
> director is NOT to "represent" a particular point of view but to serve
> all of ICANN and the Internet Community to the best of his/her ability.
>
> I do not, for example, believe that the at-large elected directors have
> a different role or responsibility than those appointed by ASO or PSO.
> Each director is responsible for all of the ICANN activities and has
> fiduciary responsibility for all Internet's constituents.
>
> Vint
>
> At 07:35 PM 3/17/2002 -0500, James Love wrote:
> >Vint, I would suggest a much different model for the governments.
Giving
> >(some) governments a direct role in choosing (some) of the directors will
> >blur issues such as the legal authority of the entity and its
accountability
> >to the public, and raises a number of concerns over the future of freedom
on
> >the Interent, in a world where repressive governments have a claim for
> >representation.  What are you going to tell China?  You can't serve?   If
> >the issue is funding for ICANN, then it may be more appropriate to think
> >about a multinational contract model.  Right now there is a contract with
> >one government, the USA.  Perhaps if other governments want to fund
ICANN,
> >and want to participate more directly, they could negotiate a joint
> >contract.   With a contract model there can at least be some clarity with
> >respect to the limits of ICANN's authority and mission.   Jamie
> >
>
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