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[bc-gnso] CSG Charter - concerns re Board adopted version and proposed bylaws changes

  • To: "'BC gnso'" <bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: [bc-gnso] CSG Charter - concerns re Board adopted version and proposed bylaws changes
  • From: "Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@xxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:30:59 +0200

All is not well in the land of GNSO reform.

I attach a copy of the now Board adopted CSG transitional charter.
As you  may know this was changed at the last minute by staff and the following
text was deleted:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art 4.2 DELETION of a clause to prevent inappropriate allocation of a new
constituency by the Board: 
"provided that such constituency, as determined by the unanimous consent of the
signatories to this charter, is representative of commercial user interests
which for the purposes of definition are distinct from and exclude registry and
prospective registry, registrar, re-seller or other domain name supplier
interests". 
Note art 1.1 remains: "CSG represents the views of users and connectivity
providers".
------------------------------------------------
Art 4.2 was inserted because of our concern about new constituencies with
supplier interests being placed in the CSG. This concern is now made more real
by the proposed staff change to the by-laws. A proposed new bylaws section 5.4
states : "Any group of individuals or entities may petition the Board for
recognition as a new or separate Constituency in the Non-Contracted Parties
House". That is ALL new constituencies must be in our House.
---------------------------------------------------
This destroys the balance in the House concept of dividing user from supplier
interests.
5.4 means there is a strong likelihood that interests associated with R&Rs will
be able to dilute the effectiveness of the Users House.
This is not theoretical.
There are pending constituency applications from:
City TLDs (registries and would be registries)
IDNs (strong registry interests)
And talk of a registry operator and a reseller constituency.
------------------------------------------------------
To date I have made comments to Public Comments on this issue and asked Bruce
Tonkin, one of the GNSO-elected Board members, to ensure the Board at least
discusses the issue this week. The by-laws are due to be voted on this Thursday
Aug 27. We are also in discussion with our CSG colleagues but have not yet seen
an outcome. 

We may yet be able to rely on art 1.1 in the CSG charter but it is somewhat thin
comfort.

Philip

 

 

 

 

 leaves us with the issue of our veto given the uncertainty over new
constituencies with no home to go to (eg City TLDS, registry operators) etc.

Our options are:

1. Live with the veto deletion (and rely on article 1.1 to fight any
constituency allocation we dislike) and nothing more.

2. Live with the veto deletion (and rely on article 1.1 to fight any
constituency allocation we dislike) and register a written protest on process.

3. Fight the veto deletion on the grounds of bottom-up and process.

 

My instinct is option 2 (but happy with option 1 as I made a statement on
process on Council last week) 

Comments?

 

Philip

Attachment: CSG Charter approved Board 7-2009.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document



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