Re: [ga] NC BS

[Bret Fausett <fausett@lextext.com>]

Philip, I think the view expressed below is mistaken. Let me explain why.

First and foremost, the interests of individual registrants are not merely
"indirectly" impacted by ICANN policies. They are directly impacted. From
the UDRP to the transfer policy to the deletion grace period to the waiting
list service, practically every issue under discussion in the DNSO
*directly* impacts a domain name registrant's use of his or her domain name.

Second, I would go farther, much farther, than to say that the collective
interests of individual domain name registrants are "valid." Taken in the
aggregate, no stakeholder is more important than the end users of the
resources under ICANN's management. If an ICANN policy benefits registries
and registrars, but is detrimental to registrants and other end-users, then
ICANN has failed. Note well that the converse is not true.

We've had difficulty finding a voice for individual registrants because of
the concern that the registrants who choose to participate in ICANN are not
sufficiently "representative" of the millions of registrants/end-users
around the world. This should be of no greater concern than whether the B&C
"represents" the world's business users or, indeed, whether even a fairly
homogeneous group like ICANN-accredited registrars are "represented" by that
subset of registrars that choose to participate in ICANN's registrar
constituency. The better question is whether the opinions expressed by those
who choose to participate in ICANN are sufficiently characteristic of the
concerns of the larger community such that ICANN and its constituent bodies
are making informed choices. I don't believe that small, relative sample
sizes necessarily preclude ICANN from making informed choices.

Third, as to the view that registrants will be best represented
federation-style by consumer-interest organizations, that's not a
requirement we place on any other group within ICANN. In the B&C, you
represent an association, but Marilyn and I represent individual companies.
You'll see that the same is true in the ISPC, IPC and NCDNHC.

Any reform model that doesn't allow individual domain name registrants to be
heard *and represented* on an equal basis with businesses, intellectual
property owners, ISPs, registries and registrars is not viable in the long
term. 

   -- Bret 

Philip Sheppard wrote:
> Individual registrants - like all consumers -  may be indirectly impacted by
> ICANN policies. Is each individual a true stakeholder in the same sense ? I do
> not know but their collective interests are clearly valid.  In the non-ICANN
> world the voice of consumers in policy development is typically heard via
> consumer organisations. Such organisations exist at national and regional (eg
> EU) level. This is the format of involvement of registrants as consumers that
> the NC envisages in recommendation 19. 

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