[comments-review] Conclusions -- Part One

["Babybows.com" <webmaster@babybows.com>]

I entered the DNSO Review process as a member of the public believing that
change was both warranted and possible, believing that the views of the
public would eventually come to be better represented within the ICANN fold.
While the process has been such that my beliefs are now thoroughly
shattered, I am heartened by the efforts toward U.S. Government oversight on
issues relating to ICANN's procedures and structures that are being made by
the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and by the Senate Committee on
Science, Commerce and Transportation; I no longer hold out any great measure
of hope that the Names Council will fulfill its mandate and provide the
ICANN Board with a critical self-analysis and consensus-based
recommendations.  That being said, I am nonetheless amenable to being proven
wrong.
     The general public has expressed a great number of concerns that, in my
humble opinion, have not been addressed by the DNSO.  These concerns include
issues of privacy, worries about a safe domain for our children, the need to
have a suitable domain for adult material, frustration with an undefined
expired domain name policy, concerns about sunrise provisions, concerns
about domain name hoarding by registrars, multilingual concerns, concerns
about pre-registration practices, to list just a few... I have to ask, what
has the DNSO generally, or the Names Council specifically, done to consider
any of these matters?  It was my understanding that part of the mission of
the DNSO was to review matters pertaining to policy.  It doesn't appear to
me that the DNSO has been doing the job that it was mandated to do by the
ICANN Board.  I view this inattention to the Public Will to be more than
merely an affront to the premise that ICANN is a public benefit corporation;
it is a serious indictment of the management capabilities of the Names
Council (which by definition has proven itself to be no more than an
aggregate of Special Interest Groups with no particular self-motivated
interest in serving the general needs of the public).
     It's true that nobody likes a critic.  I share that sentiment as well,
and have little use for the many that have stood on the sidelines taking
potshots while offering no constructive proposals for change.  I have never
intended to be only a critic, and as a contributing member to the Review
Working Group I offer the following recommendation:  create a standing
Committee charged with the responsibility of monitoring all Public Forums
for issues pertaining to Domain Name Policy; have this Unit report their
findings to the Names Council on a quarterly basis.   You will only begin to
serve the needs of the Public by actually listening to the Public.   Too
many of us are under the impression that ICANN only says that it welcomes
our comments...