[ga] Open and Transparent

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

Although not a frequent poster to the GA, I do try to monitor the traffic in
my free time. I would like to offer my personal insight on the current
discussion between Bret and Joe with regard to the scope and interpretation
of open and transparent. During my over three years of involvement in the
ICANN process the most defining moment I experienced occurred during Paul
Twomey's GAC presentation at the Berlin meeting, specifically his response
spanning 1 hour and 16 minutes to 1 hour and 22 minutes. See
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/berlin/archive/ His comments provide a
rather interesting backdrop to Bret and Joe's discussion.

I agree with many of the arguments raised by both Joe and Bret. Based upon
my personal experience I find myself somewhere in between both positions. As
Chair of the Registrar Constituency, I believe that the open and transparent
model by which the registrars have operated is far and a way superior to
some of the clandestine operations of other constituencies. However, the
open and transparent model has at times prevented us from engaging in
meaningful dialogue to resolve complex problems. As the constituency has
evolved, the Registrar Executive Committee has held weekly teleconferences.
Although the minutes from these meetings are made available to the
constituency, the conversations are not publicly available. In addition, the
registrar executive committee has created a mailing list which is not
achieved or publicly available. These non-publicly accessible communication
exchanges were not done to circumvent any open and transparent process. In
fact there is minimum discussion that takes here, the majority of
correspondence takes place on the general registrar mailing list which many
GA members monitor.

Based upon the recent litigation between BulkRegister and VRSN, and the
threat of other litigation involving other registrars I believe that the
open and transparent communication between registrars could be threatened.
It is with this insight that I understand the arguments put forward by Joe
and Paul Twomey over three years ago.

Turning to Bret's arguments, I must admit that on more than a few occasions
(see LA 99 and Melbourne 01 meetings) I have rather strenuously disagreed
with the positions put forth by ICANN and ICANN Staff. I share many people's
concern about the leap of faith we are collectively being asked to take in
connection with a yet uncertain and very powerful nominating committee.
However, the alternative of existing in the current model is in my opinion
not a viable alternative. The current bureaucratic nightmare has prevented
meaningful issues from being resolved in a timely manner to the detriment of
registration authorities and end users.

In the end, the comments of Paul Twomey over three years ago are rather
ominous, if ICANN fails there are bureaucrats eagerly waiting to step in and
take it over, and in that scenario how may of us will even be provided a
soap box to speak?

Just my two cents.

Best regards,

Michael D. Palage





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