Re: [alac] verisign-settlement

[Wendy Seltzer <wendy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree, they tend to downplay the opposition to the settlement by 
not indicating who or how many expressed a given opinion, and thus 
create the appearance of balance between pro and con even when the 
comments skewed heavily con.  I'm not surprised, though, given that 
these reports come from the same staff who negotiated the settlement 
agreement in the first place.

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--Wendy

At 10:44 PM 12/12/2005 -0800, Bret Fausett wrote:
> I am disappointed in these two reports. The biggest disappointment 
> is the inexact use of the English language. Both reports rely almost 
> entirely on the passive voice. (Non-English speakers, please forgive 
> me.) For example, most of the reports are written in the following 
> style: "There was acknowledgment of....", "there appears to be broad 
> recognition that...", "It was also noted that...", "Concern was 
> expressed that...", etc. Such passive statements do not identify the 
> speaker, the speaker's interest group (if any), or whether the 
> speaker's comment was typical of other comments from the same or 
> other interest groups. The fact that the public comments are not 
> sourced or weighted serves to obscure a few areas on which I believe 
> the community found consensus (such as the relationship between 
> price caps and presumptive renewal).
>
> I also have concerns about the accuracy of the report. For example, 
> look at this statement:
>
>    "Regarding registrants, there was some expression that there might
>    be some negative effects due to the potential price increases, but,
>    the majority across constituencies expressed that the increase in
>    cost was negligible when compared to the value of a domain name
>    registration."
>
> ICANN Staff appears to be saying that a majority of registrants 
> believe that the price increase is negligible. That certainly was 
> not the statement of the ALAC, and I would be surprised if a 
> "majority" would agree with this.
>
> As far as next steps, I'll spend time this week comparing the report 
> to the ALAC statement and some of the other statements I found 
> compelling, and I hope others will do the same. I hope that we will 
> be able to submit a "comment on the comments" sometime soon.
>
>            Bret

--
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@xxxxxxxxxxx
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html
Chilling Effects: http://www.chillingeffects.org