RE: [gnso-whois-wg] Means of Verification / Consent - (was Draft outcomes report v 1.6)

[Dan Krimm <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 1:39 PM -0600 8/10/07, Scoville, Adam wrote:

>Dan -
>I agree that verification and consent are, in theory, separate. But a) I
>see both as necessary, if the registrant's own contact info is to be
>removed, and b) in at least some implementations they could probably be
>accomplished simultaneously.
>For better or worse, "broader support" is what it takes for any change at
>ICANN, and there are a lot of people who view safeguards for
>accountability and consumer protection--whether they be the precise
>measures set out in the report, or similarly robust ones--as essential,
>rather than "detritus." So if you're saying change from the status quo
>isn't worth what the OPoC system would take, then so be it. Hopefully we
>can work on other, perhaps more targeted, mechanisms to improve privacy in
>the future.


Adam,

If consent flows contractually through the registrant, what's not to work
there?

Is there some specific reason that this contractual liability absolutely
must flow directly to the registrar, circumventing the registrant, in your
view?

Personally, I can't see any reason to justify a direct contractual
relationship between the OPoC and the registrar.  If the registrant
contract with the registrar confirms that the registrant's primary
designated OPoC will have explicit legal obligations (such as to deliver
legal notices to the registrant, so that serving the OPoC can be considered
legally equivalent to serving the registrant) and that the registrant will
explicitly assume liability for such actions by its OPoC, then this seems
to work just fine.

I don't see what is "essential" about having a formal contract between the
OPoC and the registrar.

It depends on what is at issue here -- peeling off privacy simply to enable
harassment of the weak by the powerful is not "essential" to a balanced
policy.

If this is what is required for "broader support" to achieve a change of
policy at ICANN, then there is obviously something wrong with ICANN's
governance structure at root.  Sometimes "inventing something new" is not
always a good thing!  Many entrepreneurs fail because their creations do
not find demand in the market.  As a "governance entrepreneur" ICANN is
demonstrating some fundamental and systemic flaws in the governance product
it is offering the public policy market.  (Of course, nothing new there,
really...)

I agree with Ross that the original OPoC vision made sense, but the
distorted contraption that seems to be resulting from certain special
interests in this WG is hardly recognizable.  I support the original vision
of OPoC, and not the Frankenstein creation that has been pushed to replace
it.

We found consensus on the "easy stuff" but all the contentious issues have
remained unresolved, mainly because there is no utility to such resolution
on the part of those who do not wish the OPoC to be implemented at all ("so
be it").  I hope the 1.7 version of the report is accurate in reflecting
the true extent of disagreement that remains in this WG, and the
substantial support for components that still mach the original vision.

Dan

PS -- Of course, this does not end here.  Privacy is worth supporting, and
those who have taken on that mantle will continue reaching for it, any more
than those intent on ignoring those interests will continue to push back
against them.

For those who relied upon "consensus" to emerge from an inherently
political dynamic, I think we can safely say that this experiment didn't
work (without even seeing the final report, which I have little faith in,
at this point in the process -- I would be glad to be pleasantly surprised,
but I'm not holding my breath).  We're not the IETF, and because of our
deep disparity of interests we cannot ever hope to be.  Simply trying to
"discard the voting process" cannot neutralize the inherent political
context we find ourselves in.  Those of us who tried in good faith to find
real consensus for a while were overrun by those who, despite their good
faith rhetoric were acting in bad faith in this WG from the start.

When this deliberation gets to the next stage or arc, I hope those who are
responsible for defining policy process at ICANN will take a good hard look
at what can and cannot be altered in political dynamics, when realities of
the external world impose themselves on a policy-making institution.  If
the entrepreneurial dynamic is still strong at ICANN, it is clearly time to
look for another option, in Chuck Yeager mode.

You can't pull consensus out of a raw political power dynamic like some
sort of magic ("Accio Consensus!").  In retrospect, this WG never had a
chance.

Ironically, ICANN represents a completely backwards approach to public
accountability.  In some democracies there is an attempt to limit the
influence of lobbyists over legislators that are elected by the general
public.  In ICANN's case, what has happened is that legislators have been
dispensed with altogether and all that is left is the lobbyists to make
policy directly among themselves.  And what a peculiar idea not to pay
policy-makers a salary (even the Board), but rather to rely on volunteer
participation.  That certainly leads to barriers to entry for stakeholders
without resources to participate reliably (i.e., anyone outside the
plutocracy).  Structurally this is all wrong, if what you want in a
governance system is to be actually accountable to the public.