Re: [ga] Notes from June 25

[William X Walsh <william@wxsoft.info>]

You only have yourself to blame for a lot of this Jamie.

I warned you that your little motion game here in the GA would be used
as a justification for dismantling the DNSO GA.

You got exactly what you asked for.

Tuesday, June 25, 2002, 4:44:18 PM, James Love wrote:

> Bucharest, Romania
> Tuesday, June 25, 2002
> James Love (james.love@cptech.org, local cell
> +40.72.164.3737)

> I'm here at the ICANN meeting, having arrived in the
> late afternoon.  I briefly sat in the on a meeting
> about the .org bids, and in another meeting organized
> by the "icannatlarge.com" organizing effort, which
> featured quite surprising presentations by Esther
> Dyson, followed by about 5 hours of gossip, drinks and
> food in the Marriott Grand Hotel, where the meeting is
> being held.  We have wi-fi, which makes email easy.

> Everything will lead up to the ICANN board meeting on
> Friday, and so far it looks like a depressing week.
> Most people say the June 20 "Blueprint for reform"
> document will be approved with a few changes on Friday.
> Among other things, ICANN is seeking to eliminate any
> possibility that there will ever be votes from the
> general public for anything, and doing its best to pass
> this off this as some consensus decision.  ICANN
> also proposes to abandon an independent review
> board, and is seeking to adopt a statement on
> policy making that opens the door to just about
> anything.

> The main thing here is about raising fears about what
> will happen if people don't go along with the ICANN
> "reform" proposal, no matter how bad it is.  Many of
> these are seemingly inconsistent, and appeal as much to
> emotions as reason.  Top on the list is the resentment
> toward the US for its current perceived control over
> the Internet DNS.  Recent statements by members of
> Congress are being used to work people up over the US
> government taking over the ICANN functions.  A large
> number of persons here find this a compelling reason to
> sign off on almost anything here, so that ICANN can
> (drum roll) sign a new MoU with the US DoC.
> Apparently having a really bad ICANN and DoC is
> held out as much better than DoC running the DNS
> without ICANN, as if this is something to worry about
> (plausible as a sustainable alternative), or the likely
> outcome of a failed ICANN.

> Second on the list of feared things is the ITU, one
> possible replacement for the US DoC if there was
> international management of the DNS. The ITU is now
> receiving some member government support for taking a
> greater look a the DNS, particularly among developing
> countries.  One of the issues here would be the
> redelegation issue for ccTLDs, an obvious role that ITU
> could play.  A number of persons here express fear that
> this would lead to undesired national government
> involvement in the way some ccTLDs are run, on the
> theory that the current ambiguity of who controls the
> ccTLDs has prevented some countries from being too
> ambitious in regulating domestic Internet activity (or
> taking away lucrative franchises).  Clearly some ccTLD
> operators are nervous about ICANN, and some ccTLDs are
> nervous about national governments.  For those who are
> worried about domestic governments, they had hoped
> ICANN would provide a buffer.

> I asked people, if you don't want the US DoC to have
> the DNS MoU, and you don't want the ITU, what do you
> want?  The GAC?  The answer among many was, nothing -
> they want ICANN without any government involvement.
> What seems missing from this wish is any evidence that
> governments will just turn everything over to ICANN and
> give ICANN a blank check to do whatever it wants,
> without any public accountability.  Plus, ICANN is
> asking goverments to take a larger role, and they are.

> Meanwhile, ICANN itself looks more and more like a
> cartel, or a quasi-government that seeks taxes and
> unwanted supervision of a cartel.  Verisigin doesn't
> want an expansion of the name space, unless they can
> run everything, and neither do the ccTLDs.  ICANN is
> doing approximately zero to introduce new TLDs.  This
> problem is so obvious that ICANN is being warned that
> if can face antitrust law suits, an issue Joe Sims is
> advising the ICANN board on, I was told.

> The at large organizing meeting was small and even I
> was surprised at how weak the support is here for
> elections of any kind.  Esther Dyson and Denise Michel
> gave long presentations on how the board would not
> tolerate anything that involved the general public
> electing board members, and they described the new
> official ICANN "reform" version of the at large, which
> is a highly structured consultation system, that ICANN
> controls from the top, and which is not capable of
> holding votes from individuals.  Esther went on about
> how unpopular elections and were in Asia and parts of
> Latin America, and how little support there was for
> elections among the non US members of the ICANN board.

> At one point I said "look, in the White Paper,
> individuals were going to have 8 of 19 board seats.  In
> Cairo this was reduced to 5 elected members.  Then
> there was talk after Accra of having an at large as a
> supporting organization, with 3 board members.   Now in
> the blueprint document, they will have 1 of 19 members
> of a nominating committee.  Can you tell me how that 1
> member will be chosen?"  At this point, Dyson told me I
> should stop criticizing people, and be constructive.
> The answer, of course, is that the ICANN board cannot
> tolerate even the election of one person to a 19 member
> nominating committee.  Apparently the mere existence of
> a system for having elections is a taboo, because it
> might lead to demands that elections be used for more
> important things, and could provide evidence that the
> public doesn't agree with the decisions of the hand
> picked board members.  Of course, it is ironic that we
> having this meeting in Romania, and headed next to the
> People's Republic of China, to finish the job of
> eliminating democracy input or mechanisms to express
> dissent or popular opposition to ICANN Board policies.

> Three members of the atlarge.com temporary steering
> committee  (Vittorio Bertola, Izumi Aizu, and Wolfgang
> Kleinwaechter) and were at the at large meeting, and
> to my suprise, each of them
> signaled a willingness to accept the ICANN
> proposal to abandon any voting from individuals, in
> favor of a promise by ICANN to consulate with the
> public on issues.  The Dyson, Michel suggestion is to
> be very docile, or the ICANN board won't even allow the
> consultation process.   It is of course also relevant
> that the ICANN board wants to strip the ICANN General
> Assembly from the right to elect its own chair or vote
> on any motions.

> I got into a debate with Denise about the value of
> pushing for a harder line on a role for the public in
> ICANN, mentioning the possibility that the US government
> could protect the rights of individuals in the ICANN
> process.  Densie told us that she had 20 years of
> policy experience, and she knew exactly what was going
> to happen.  She said:
> The US Senate would do nothing.  The US
> House of Representatives would do nothing.  The DoC
> would accept a slightly modified MoU in the
> fall, and the ICANN board would adopt the
> blueprint, without elections, in Shanghai.

> Tonite Andy Mueller told me the ICANN board had one of
> its secret get togethers this evening, and agreed to
> approve the blueprint on Friday, with a few changes.
> The board is closing ranks, and trying only to cut
> whatever deals it needs to get the registries to go
> along.   The $.25 per domain tax is not in the bag,
> according to some, while others say it will go through.
> There is an army of registry/registrars attending, but
> very few domain holders are here to complain about the
> tax, or to ask why they should have to pay, if they
> have no voice in the organization.  The tax was just
> proposed on June 20.   People have very low
> expectations that the US DoC will do anything to back
> consumer or civil society concerns about ICANN, and
> seem willing to give up on lots of things.

> Jamie




-- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh <william@wxsoft.info>
--
Save Internet Radio!  
CARP will kill Webcasting!
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