RE: [gnso-whois-wg] clarification of GAC relevance to GNSO WGs

[Dan Krimm <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, but in that document there is no reference to the term "public
interest" as such, with regard to the GAC principles on Whois.  If there is
some other GAC document that does refer explicitly to an enumeration and
categorization of "public interests" as such, then I am not familiar with
it.

As for GNSO relationship with GAC in general, again, I would assume that
our relationship proceeds on an essentially co-equal basis, and that GAC
ought to take into account policy recommendations from GNSO just as much as
GNSO might take into account GAC recommendations.

If GAC and GNSO have a difference of opinion, it is not my understanding
that GAC takes precedence in any way, but perhaps the Board might like us
to try to find consensus where possible.

Nevertheless, there are many public policies where global consensus cannot
be found, and in such circumstances it is unreasonable to expect that
participants in ICANN's policy processes will be able to manufacture such
consensus out of thin air.  Sometimes we have to simply agree to disagree.

Within the GAC, it appears that this happens by making sure that policy is
vaguely enough worded that many countries' representatives can accept the
language on behalf of their governments.  (I heard a passing comment to
that effect during the GAC/GNSO meeting in San Juan.)  However in practice
this may often tend to gloss over disagreements in the details, and if
implementation of policy by ICANN requires defining these details, it may
be impossible to define a practical implementation that satisfies the
apparent "consensus" at the government level.

This can be a conundrum for ICANN, since its policies are necessarily
global in scope of application, and unless there is some provision for
varying "national treatment" in policy defined by ICANN, the more it
expands its reach to matters of "general" public policy, the more it can be
expected to paint itself into a corner of problematic implementation.

Bottom line: the narrower we can define policy to be addressed by this WG,
the more likely we can reach consensus on such policy, both within GNSO and
between GNSO and GAC.  I can see utterly no benefit for including the words
"public interest" in our WG report, but lots of spurious costs (having to
do with trying to define and interpret the term, and what counts as being
public or private interests, etc. -- this becomes rhetorically important,
and potentially quite divisive as we saw early in our deliberations when
various participants were debating the framing of our tasks, but does not
add to the substance of our work in any way that I can see).  I think we
are not well able to bear the costs of such additional deliberation given
the looming deadline on our work.  This is a Pandora's Box that we would do
well not to open, in my opinion.

We should focus on common ground and building consensus from whatever
commonalities we can discover.  Bringing up "public interest" diverges from
that strategy and elicits much more divisive issues that I believe will
further reduce our consensus.  Been there, done that, let's move on.  Time
is getting precious.

Dan



At 5:33 PM +0200 7/25/07, Maria Farrell wrote:
>Well, the GAC principles were part of the background document that was
>required reading for this Working Group..!
>
>While there is no formal relationship directly between the GNSO and the GAC,
>the GNSO has discussed Whois and appraised the GAC of Whois developments
>over the last two years. The logic is that it is useful to consider as input
>the considered position of the entire GAC on an issue that has a direct
>bearing on public policy issue.
>
>Here is a link to the GAC principles to help WG members consider them again;
>http://gac.icann.org/web/home/WHOIS_principles.pdf
>
>All the best, Maria
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx]
>On Behalf Of Dan Krimm
>Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 5:02 PM
>To: gnso-whois-wg@xxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [gnso-whois-wg] clarification of GAC relevance to GNSO WGs
>
>In today's call we had a comment from the GAC referring to a listing or
>enumeration of public interests, or something to that effect, when
>discussing Section 1 of our report (Objective).  I am not familiar with that
>GAC output at this time.
>
>While GAC opinions may theoretically be of interest here, I would assume that
>since GNSO does not report formally to GAC, in this WG we are certainly not
>bound formally by any such suggestions or GAC precedents.
>
>So to reiterate my comments on the call, it seems to me that we open a
>spurious can of worms and potentially substantial disagreement by making any
>attempt to *categorize* the "interests" involved, and that such
>categorization is simply unnecessary in order to achieve the goals of the
>WG.
>
>This is why I made a suggestion that avoided that terminology altogether by
>being specific about exactly what we are talking about, namely protecting
>privacy and combatting harmful uses of domains.
>
>Dan