[ga] FW: [IFWP] A Proposal: Internet Impact Report (IIR)

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@netsol.com>]

Ellen,

In my opinion this is what the working groups should do and the counsels
should make sure that this kind of due dilligence happens.  Good idea.

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: erony [mailto:erony@marin.k12.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 2:27 AM
To: list@ifwp.org; ga@dnso.org
Subject: [IFWP] A Proposal: Internet Impact Report (IIR)


What does an expansion project for the San Francisco Airport have to do
with ICANN?

Such a project, extruding into the S.F. Bay, must wade through
presentations by many stakeholders (e.g., Save the Bay, Sierra Club, Bay
Planning Coalition, South Bay homeowners, etc.) and pass muster from a
number of agencies and commissions ( e.g., Regional Water Quality Control
Board, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Department, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a bunch of acronyms I won't
list here).

Today, I was asked to serve as a commissioner on a mock informational
hearing of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission on this proposed
expansion. The experience suggested to me a model that might be applied to
the difficult Internet names and numbering issues ahead.

The airport expansion proposal will require an Environmental Impact Report
(EIR) which examines issues related to hydrology, geology, habitat, water
quality, air quality, etc.

Why not require an IIR, Internet Impact Report, for ICANN'S most
contentious policies?

One of the most worrisome features of ICANN's byzantine structure is that
the "consensus policies" do not represent consensus so much as the
perspective of a  handful of individuals and organizations who are plying
preferred interests under the guise of shared responsibility.

Wouldn't the Internet community be better served with a process for
technical management that fully investigates the issues and formalizes a
requirement for a credible alternative analysis before adoption.

Any policy that potentially affects the technical coordination of more than
20% of the Internet stakeholders should require an Internet Impact Report.
The first step would be a scoping session, which flushes out whatever
issues surround the proposal   This would assure that policies are not
driven by well-funded stakeholders but are developed in a manner that
analyzes the technical, economic, legal, architectural and logistical
impacts.  The IIR should also provide a baseline for comparison and
adaptive set of principles, plus assess the cumulative impacts of the
proposal.

Maybe that sounds too much like bureaucracy, but I feel the existing
fast-track, quick-to-adopt, slow-to-adapt approach needs to be re-examined.
Difficult, contentious issues are informally discussed in small working
groups which submit recommendations that are considered at the SO level
with no baseline, adoptive or adaptive underlying principles.   Certainly a
deep and broad exploration of the hard issues, which an IIR could provide,
should be built into the process

The Internet is an evolving system, and decisions made today will
reverberate worldwide and affect future generations of users.  If we don't
have enough time to do all this right, we certainly don't have enough time
to do it all over.

In my humble opinion.


............................................................................
Ellen Rony                         ____             The Domain Name Handbook
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+1 (415) 435-5010    	       (oo) -^--                     ISBN 0879305150
Tiburon, CA                        W   W               erony@marin.k12.ca.us
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