Re: [gnso-ppsc-pdp]

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for getting back to me with such a detailed note.

I have at this point listened to the recording of the phone call, and have a 
few points to make.

First I totally agree with those who believe this is a GNSO council issue, 
though of course only after the PPSC has passed it on..  Even if the work was 
mandated by the Board, it was mandated that the GNSO do the work.  I would also 
point out that the PPSC was chartered by the GNSO Council and as such its 
Working Teams are also governed by that charter.  The GNSO council, in its new 
form is mandated to management of the policy development process.  This means 
the whole process, including ICANN Policy Staff activities taken in support of 
that Policy Process.  For the ICANN Policy Staff to continue negating and 
overriding the  responsibilities of the council is unacceptable - and a serious 
problem, one that is much greater then that of a PDP face to face meeting.

Second in terms of deciding who should participate.  We must remember that this 
is being done in light of the Affirmation of Commitment 9.1 
"(e) assessing the policy development process to facilitate enhanced cross 
community deliberations, and effective and timely policy development."
That means this cannot be 'just about bringing this work to closure" .  There 
needs to be a review to insure that the work done to date meets this new 
criteria.  We need to insure that nay new PDPD process meets the requirements 
of the Aoc. The requirements of "Ensuring accountability, transparency and the 
interests of global Internet users" requires that:

- there be global diversity in the participants - and if certain regions have 
not been included in the past, they need to be added now.  the fact that 
certain participants have been excluded in the past must not be used to 
restrict them in the present and the future.  The fact that this is a self 
selected group of North Americans is _not_ a good thing and does not seems 
encouraging in light of the AoC.  One can see this is being done for cost 
efficiency, but holding it in DC because that is where the North Americans are, 
is not really valid reasoning for an ICANN that wishes to show its 
international pedigree.  This is especially the case in the light of difficulty 
with visas into the US,  e.g. the NCSG has one possible Latin American 
participant, one who had attended several PDP-WT meetings, who withdrew from 
consideration because just getting a visa to the US can be an obnoxious several 
day job.

- there needs to be full and equal participation of all relevant interests.  At 
a minimum this means that all SGs[*] needs to be offered the chance to be 
adequately represented, even if it means that some new participants have to 
come up to speed.  SGs MUST be treated equally.  It is fine if those in the 
Contracted Parties House do not wish to send a full compliment at ICANN 
expense.  But their willingness not to do so should not be used as a reason to 
deny participation to the non-commercial participants who have no resources of 
their own to enable participation.  The fact that the Commercial SG group 
composed of  those who often have access to financial resources are given 3 
paid seats, while the Non-Commercial SG who have no resources are only given 1 
seat is completely unacceptable.  To characterize this as mere bickering is 
cruel and unfair - it needs to be recognized as a matter of equality and parity 
that are essential ingredients in insuring the interests of global Internet 
users.  In pragmatic sense, it is important to remember that the changes being 
proposed by this group will need to reach a certain threshhold of votes in the 
council before being passed onto the Board.  Is it reasonable to consider that 
those who have been excluded from the process will be able to approve of the 
process as having been fair when they were not adequately represented?

- there be new people looking at the work done to date, since it is well known 
that people who have been immersed in the details for a long time, are often 
incapable to considering an issue in the light of new requirements.

Yes any new participants need to review all of the material and I beleive it is 
a totally legitimate expectation that everyone would need to review all of the 
previous work and I beleive that everyone can, and should be, be trusted to do 
so.  Yes, it should not be a ground zero discussion, but we have a new council, 
with a new mandate, and if we expect it to be able to sign off on the process 
having been run will full accountability, transparency and the interests of 
global Internet users we better be sure that all voices who want to participate 
can fully do so.

Mention was made that remote participation facilities would be provided.  As 
anyone who has attempted to participate in a face to face meeting remotely 
knows, this is not a equal opportunity participation.  Yes you can almost 
listen and might be able to make a occasional comment, but  contrary to what 
Marika says, participation in the face to face meeting does equal participation 
and one can never make up for having missed a face to face meting.  looked at 
another way, if face to face participation is not critical, then why have the 
face to face meeting at all.

To limit the meeting to so called 'active' members is to limit it to the old 
and not to take into account that there has been a large change in the GNSO and 
council in the last few months.  We have 3 new Board appointed members of the 
council in the NCSG, I find it unreasonable that no account has been taken of 
having at least one of them attend, or to having them suggest a proxy for their 
concerns.

In terms of budget, the fact that the GNSO council has not been allowed to look 
at budgets in the past is no reason not to give the new GNSO Council 
responsible for management the ability to review the budget.

As things currently stand, in terms of this face to face meeting, I will make 
my personal recommendation that the NCSG PPSC representative object to this 
plan, and that if the plan is passed on to the GNSO Council, the NCSG council 
members insist on a vote on this plan and that they then vote against this plan 
as it stands for the following reasons:

- inequality of  representation
- insufficient details on how much of it will cost for the ICANN Policy Staff 
to participate (how many, travel costs and whether contract or not)
- no detailed budget

I understand that not having the f2f may make it hard to hit a timeline, but we 
must be careful to do the right thing and not just keep the trains running on 
time.

a.

[*] this must be done by SG not by constituencies.  For someone to ague that 
there is only one constituency in the NCSG when there have been 3 appointed 
board council members to the NCSG and the NCSG keeps expanding in size is just 
plan wrong and prejudicial. 


Note: On the issue of the Policy Staff sending confidential reports to the 
Board - as I have long advocated - this practice MUST be stopped, especially in 
respect to the PDP process.


On 5 Dec 2009, at 16:57, Neuman, Jeff wrote:

> Thanks Avri for your note and I do encourage you to listen to the
> recording.  I would like to send to you the same answer I sent to Robin
> earlier in the week.  As chair, it is my responsibility to make sure
> that all viewpoints are heard and reflected in the ultimate report.  I
> need to do that regardless of the actual number of people that attend
> meetings or calls.  In other words, if the registrars have 2 people on a
> call, but the NCSG only has one, I cannot give more weight to the
> registrars than to the NCSG simply because they have more people.
> Similarly, the fact that there is only one person from the NCSG that
> attends a meeting does not mean that its voice is heard less.  We need
> to stop focusing on the issue of quantity, but rather quality.  It is
> the same reason why the RySG and RrSG accepted less members on the STI
> than the NCSG and CSG have on that committee. The RrSG and RySG have 2
> members, while the other 2 SGs have 3 members each.   The registries and
> registrars agreed early on that as long as our voice was being heard
> (which we believe it is), then we would not focus on the number of reps.
> 
> With respect to ICANN policy staff, I will let ICANN staff address.
> 
> Finally, with respect to new blood, I believe that is an issue for all
> working groups as they are COMMENCING their work.  As we are trying to
> wrap up our work, I am not sure the face to face meeting (intended to
> finalize a report) is the place to make the call for diversity.  The
> group discussed this issue at length and felt that the persons being
> funded should be ones that either (i) active in the group or (ii) are
> dedicated to the remain active in the group for the reminder of its life
> span.  I am paraphrasing, but you should listen to the recording.  We do
> not believe someone should be funded to attend the face to face if they
> have rarely if ever been on a WT call or meeting or have never filled
> out any of the surveys.  Anyone and everyone is free to participate
> remotely.
> 
> I hope that helps to understand some of our thinking.
> 
> Please let me know if you have any questions.  
> 
> 
> 
> Jeffrey J. Neuman 
> Neustar, Inc. / Vice President, Law & Policy
> 
> 
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> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gnso-ppsc-pdp@xxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-gnso-ppsc-pdp@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
> Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 4:36 AM
> To: Gnso-ppsc-pdp@xxxxxxxxx
> Cc: PPSC; Chuck Gomes
> Subject: Re: [gnso-ppsc-pdp] 
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On reading it, and I have not listened to the recording of the meeting
> yet, I object to the disparity in treatment between the two non
> contracted SG groups.  
> 
> There should be the same number of representatives from each of the
> Stakeholder groups.    As written this prevents the council members
> appointed from the Board, or other member the NCSG executive committee
> wishes to send, from participating.  This continues a disparity in the
> treatment between non-commercial and commercial that was to have been
> eliminated by the restructuring.
> 
> It should either be 1 from each SG or 3 from each.  The number of
> constituencies should be irrelevant at this point.
> 
> I will be checking with the NCSG Executive Committee, so at this point
> this is a personal point of view, but as Chair of the NCSF Executive
> Committee I wish to lodge a provisional protest.
> 
> I also object that this request to the Council does not include specific
> information on the staff that the ICANN Policy groups plans to send.  I
> understand their very active participation in this work team, and think
> that council members should know how many staff members will be sent
> since that is part of the expense that needs to be accounted for.
> 
> I have heard other details about discussions during the meeting that
> concern me, especially that affect to the need to include new blood and
> diversity in this group, but will comment on those specifically once I
> have listened to the recording.
> 
> a.
> 
> 
> 
> On 5 Dec 2009, at 07:43, Neuman, Jeff wrote:
> 
>> Dear PPSC members,
>> 
>> Please find enclosed a draft request for a PDP Work Team face to face
> meeting in January 2010 setting for the rationale for needing such a
> working session.  This draft was discussed by the PDP Work Team this
> past Thursday.  It is our intent to send this to the GNSO Council by no
> later than December 9th so that it can be discussed at the GNSO Council
> meeting.
>> 
>> As this is a first, we wanted to make sure that the entire PPSC was
> made aware of the request prior to sending it to the Council.  Unless
> there is a strong objection by the PPSC as a whole, this will be sent to
> the Council next Wednesday.  I have also included Chuck Gomes on this
> note so that he is aware that this will be coming.
>> 
>> I know there are a few on the Council that have expressed reservations
> about the face to face and that is the reason this document has been put
> together - namely, to explain our rationale.
>> 
>> Please let me know if you have any questions.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Jeffrey J. Neuman 
>> Neustar, Inc. / Vice President, Law & Policy
>> 46000 Center Oak Plaza Sterling, VA 20166
>> Office: +1.571.434.5772  Mobile: +1.202.549.5079  Fax: +1.703.738.7965
> / jeff.neuman@xxxxxxxxxxx  / www.neustar.biz     
>> The information contained in this e-mail message is intended only for
> the use of the recipient(s) named above and may contain confidential
> and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient you
> have received this e-mail message in error and any review,
> dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly
> prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please
> notify us immediately and delete the original message.
>> 
>> <Request for a PDP WT Face to Face meeting - updated 3 December
> 2009.doc>
> 
>