RE: [alac] GNSO Liaison Report

["Roberto Gaetano" <roberto@xxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with Bret.
In the early days, one of the ideas was exactly to have the balance of three
groups: the "professionals" (Registry, Registrars, ccTLDs, RIRs, etc.), the
"business" (IP, commercial, etc.) and the "users" (NonComm, individuals,
etc.).
It did not fly, because the power of the three legs was not balanced in the
participants of the formation phase.
And then, after all, the participation of the first two was a necessity,
while the third was perceived as an optional, also because the public
interest could be represented also by governments.
Anyway, regardless the details, it did not happen then, and it won't be a
report from an University that changes things now.

As of today, the Board has not started a discussion on the report, it is
perceived mainly as something that should be, at least in the initial phase,
discussed within the GNSO. However, I assume that there will be something
going on in Sao Paulo about the issue.

As for ALAC, I assume that the real point is whether, and to which extent,
we can produce results.

Anyway, I appreciate the fact that Danny is worried about our health.
Sometimes I was thinking that the disappearance of ALAC as such was more
suitable to his plans. I guess that his worry is the same as mine, i.e. that
if ALAC disappears it is not obvious that it will be replaced by something
more "powerful" that better represents individual user interests.

Cheers,
Roberto Gaetano
ALAC
ICANN Board Liaison
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx] On 
> Behalf Of Bret Fausett
> Sent: 05 October 2006 19:47
> To: John L
> Cc: ALAC
> Subject: Re: [alac] GNSO Liaison Report
> 
> > The written LSE report mentions in passing that ICANN has too many 
> > committees and constituencies and suggests merging many of them, in 
> > particular ALAC and NCUC.  It also says that orgs and individuals 
> > should be able to sign up as consituents so they can lobby or be 
> > consulted or something.
> 
> We're not voting members of the GNSO anyway, so there's 
> nothing to merge, nothing to lose. We'll still have a liaison 
> to the Council, as will the ccNSO and the GAC. 
> 
> On the "sign up" idea, this is something that I hadn't fully 
> understood until the briefing. As I understand it, the LSE is 
> recommending that anyone who wants to participate in ICANN, 
> post comments to the website on policy items, etc., register 
> as a user/member of ICANN....or something like that.
> When you register, you'll declare who you are, what 
> constituencies or groups you affiliate with (if any), state 
> your country of residence, city, employer, and a few other 
> relevant details. I believe the idea is to give ICANN a more 
> clear picture of who is commenting and what their interests 
> might be. Right now, ICANN only has a way to measure volume 
> of contributions but no real way to parse that to see whether 
> the contributions are all coming from one constituency (e.g., 
> the IPC likes to stack comment fora with individual member 
> posts) or are running across groups.
> 
> As far as anonymity goes, I think the LSE foresees that ICANN 
> would continue to allow anonymous contributions, or those 
> under screen names or pseudonyms, but the registration would 
> be recommended.
>  
> > Danny Younger called me this morning worried that the board will do 
> > the consolidation and ALAC will disappear.  I read the report, and 
> > that seems a stretch, but it's worth flipping through.
> 
> This won't happen. The LSE report was only on the GNSO. We'll 
> get our own review in time, and maybe one day we'll 
> disappear, but we're not going anywhere because of the LSE report.
> 
>        Bret
>