[ga] Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] TACD letter on ICANN reform

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Jamie and all stakeholders of interested parties,

  Frankly this TACD letter on ICANN reform looks a little weak to
our members, especially those of our members in the EU.
(See more specifics below this letter)

James Love wrote:

> This is the letter the TACD sent today to the ICANN Committee
> on Evolution and Reform.   Jamie
>
> -----------
> TACD Secretariat, 24 Highbury Crescent, London N5 1RX, UK
>     Tel : (+44) 207 226 6663  Fax : (+44) 207 354 0607
>      email : tacd@consint.org  Website : www.tacd.org
>  The Steering Committee/Le comité directeur : EU/UE : Anna
>  Bartolini,  Felix Cohen, Benedicte Federspiel, Jim Murray
>      US/Etats-Unis : Jean Ann Fox, Rhoda Karpatkin, Ed
>                  Mierzwinski, Lori Wallach
>
> Committee on ICANN Evolution and Reform
> reform-comments@icann.org
>
> 29 April, 2002
>
> Dear  Members  of  the  Committee on ICANN  Evolution  and
> Reform,
>
> The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue is a forum of US and
> EU consumer organizations that develops and agrees joint
> consumer policy recommendations to the US government and
> European Union to promote the consumer interest in EU and
> US policy making.  The TACD includes 45 European and 20 US
> consumer organizations
> (http://www.tacd.org/about/participants.htm).
>
> In February 2000, TACD adopted Ecom 14-00, which is on the
> web here:
> http://www.tacd.org/docs/?id=43.
>
> Among the TACD February 2000 recommendations were the
> following:
>
> 1.   ICANN's mission should be limited so that it does not
> become a general purpose Internet governance organization.

  We agree on this point.  However it is obvious that this may not
be feasible or possible at this juncture unless a restructure of
ICANN is effected.

>
>
> 2.   The records of ICANN should be open to the public,
> including financial records, and all ICANN contracts.
> ICANN should be accountable to the public, and the public
> should be given an annual opportunity to review and
> comment on the ICANN budget.

  This seems a little weak.  Accountability to the public means
in any real sense that the public has a voice and a vote on policy
decisions.  Without an AT-Large that completely includes
a voice and a vote on any and all policies or contractual arrangements
that ICANN may enter into, there is not accountability of any viable
sense...

>
>
> 3.   Fees associated with domain registration should only
> be spent on activities essential to the management of the
> DNS system.

  Agreed.  And further these must be shown in the budget
as specific budget items along with justification for them.

>
>
> 4.   US and the EU governments were asked to report on the
> legal mechanics that would limit ICANN's power to address
> broad Internet content issues, and insure public
> accountability.
>
> TACD would like to make the following contributions to the
> discussion over ICANN evolution and reform:
>
> BOUNDARIES FOR ICANN MISSION
>
> 1.   At present, ICANN is dominated by business interests,
> and the ICANN board has blocked the election of board
> members from the general public.  The ICANN Domain Name
> Supporting Organization (DNSO) is greatly biased toward
> business interests.  Individual or non-commercial domain
> holders have only three of 21 votes in the DNSO governing
> body, and may lose voting rights to even those three votes
> in disputes over DNSO fees.
>
> 2.   A broad range of civil society groups agree that
> ICANN should not become a general purpose Internet
> governance organization.  To address the issue of mission
> creep, it is important to have a much clearer statement of
> what the ICANN mission is, and to have legal mechanisms
> that would restrain ICANN from inappropriate expansions of
> that mission.
>
> 3.   There are many Internet issues that will require
> greater global cooperation, such as the coordination of
> efforts to control Internet spam, privacy, the protection
> of    children, securities fraud, cross border marketing
> practices, and a variety of complex and sometimes
> controversial areas concerning intellectual property and
> speech.  Many of these topics are more appropriately
> addressed by national governments or by treaties or
> agreements between countries.  ICANN has neither the
> competence nor the mandate to address a wide range of
> issues.  ICANN should only address narrow issues involving
> the assignment of Internet domain names and numbers, and
> even here, only those that require global coordination.
>
> 4.   ICANN should not be empowered to use control over
> essential Internet name and numbering resources to address
> broader public policy issues.

  We [INEGroup] very much agree with this statement here and have
advocated such for some time now...

>
>
> 5.   The International Telecommunications Union has
> offered to play a role in defining the boundaries of ICANN
> policy making.   The ITU should inform TACD how consumer
> interests will be able to participate in this process.

  The ITU's participation should be no more or not less than any
other organization of it's type.

>
>
> DECENTRALIZATION
>
> 6.   Even in the area of global cooperation, ICANN should
> not rely upon excessive centralization of decision-making.
> In the areas of the assignment of Internet names and
> numbers, ICANN should defer as much as is practical to
> regional or local decision-making.

  Yes this has been one of our more important themes for some time now.

>
>
> 7.   The functions of the ICANN relating to domain names
> should be much more decentralized.  ICANN can play a
> useful role in resolving disputes over uniqueness of the
> top-level domain (TLD) space, assuming it does not act to
> restrain entry by registries in order to protect
> incumbents, or prohibit the creation of new TLDs by non-
> commercial entities.  In this respect, we express
> disappointment and indeed astonishment that ICANN did not
> approve the application by the World Health Organization
> to create the .health domain, following objections by the
> pharmaceutical     industry, or that it did not permit the
> International Federation of Free Trade Unions to create
> the .union TLD.

  Also here we [INEGroup] share common ground with TACD
as well...

>
>
> 8.   ICANN should permit national governments to authorize
> the creation of new TLDs, subject to addressing minimum
> requirements for global coordination the uniqueness of the
> TLD name, and other minimum technical requirements that
> may be essential for Internet stability.

 Agreed here as well.  In fact any organization whether or not they
are a government entity should be able to foster and create any TLD
it can reasonably demonstrate it can viable support and provide
minimal service standards for.

>
>
> CONSUMER PROTECTION FOR DOMAIN NAME HOLDERS
>
> 9.   ICANN should follow a two track strategy with respect
> to consumer protection that relates to persons who
> register domain names.
>
> 10.  ICANN should adopt minimum standards for protection
> of domain name holders, on issues such as abusive
> registration practices or privacy, that all ICANN approved
> registrars should follow.  The minimum standards for
> consumer protection should be developed by domain holders,
> subject to approval by the ICANN Government Advisory
> Committee (GAC).

  Agreed to a point here.  This is a little weak however.  The
stakeholders
should have the right to vote on such issues as AT-Large members
in some form or another that is inclusive of any and all interested
parties of stakeholders/users.

>
>
> 11.  National government should be free to supplement
> these minimum levels of protection, for example to provide
> additional protection in cases of abusive pricing or
> registration practices, to protect personal privacy, and
> to protect legitimate trademark concerns.

  We [INEGroup] are very much agreed here with TACD...

>
>
> REPRESENTATION OF CONSUMER INTERESTS
>
> 12.  Consumer interests should have at least equal
> representation to provider interests in ICANN decision-
> making.

  Here Here!  This seems to be where the crux of where the ICANN BoD
and staff are lacking.  (Also see above comments)

>
>
> 13.  Consumer interests should not be required to fund
> ICANN's fixed costs or otherwise pay unreasonable fees to
> participate in ICANN meetings or decision making bodies.
> Users have already paid fees to registrars and registries,
> and should not be required to pay twice to have a voice in
> ICANN decision making.

  Here Here again!

>
>
> 14.  The global DNSO should be reorganized to ensure that
> user interests have at least half the votes on the names
> council, and that individuals, small businesses, and non-
> commercial domain holders do not face difficult barriers
> to participate in the DNSO.
>
> TRANSPARENCY AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
>
> 15.  The ICANN board should record all of its board
> meetings, and provide pubic access to MP3 files of its
> meetings,

  Yes.  This should also include any and all of the DNSO NC, ASO,
and PSO meetings as well should those parts of the ICANN structure
remain...

>
>
> 16.  The ICANN DNSO should not permit persons with
> employment or business relations with registrars or
> registries to vote in the user constituencies in the DNSO.

  Yes this will provide at least some protection for conflict of
interest
issues...

>
>
> 17.  There should be a "cooling off" period after leaving
> ICANN staff, before representing an ICANN regulated
> registry or registrar.

  Agreed.  In industry this is somewhere between 1 and 3 years...

>
>
> 18.  ICANN board members should disclose on the ICANN web
> page any business interests with ICANN regulated registry
> or registrar interests.

  Of course.  And this is another area where the trust factor towards
the ICANN BoD and staff has been and is continuing to be effected
negatively...

>
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> Ben Wallis, TACD Coordinator
> On behalf of the TACD Steering Committee
>
> Anna Bartolini, President, CNCU (Italian National Council
> of Consumers and Users)
> Benedicte Federspiel, International Director,
> Forbrugerråadet (Danish Consumer Council)
> Jean Ann Fox, Director, Consumer Protection, Consumer
> Federation of America
> Rhoda Karpatkin, President Emeritus, Consumers' Union
> Felix Cohen, Director, Consumentenbond (Dutch Consumers
> Association)
> Ed Mierzwinski, Director, Consumer Program, Public
> Interest Research Group
> Jim Murray, Director, BEUC (European Consumers
> Organisation)
> Lori Wallach, Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen
>
> --------------------------------
> James Love mailto:james.love@cptech.org
> http://www.cptech.org +1.202.387.8030 mobile +1.202.361.3040
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss@icann-ncc.org
> http://www.icann-ncc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 121k members/stakeholdes strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


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