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[npoc-voice] Re: Feb 10: Singapore Pathfinder Webinar: What every Civil Society Organization should Know about its use of the Internet and Never Dared to Ask! - Part 2

  • To: npoc membership <npoc-voice@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: [npoc-voice] Re: Feb 10: Singapore Pathfinder Webinar: What every Civil Society Organization should Know about its use of the Internet and Never Dared to Ask! - Part 2
  • From: Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2015 07:06:07 -0500

NPOC Colleagues,

I assume that you are all also on the NCSC discussion list, but if that is not the case, I am forwarding here my response to a posting by an NCUC/NCSG member (Bill Drake) where he expresses concerns about NPOC initiatives. If you are new to NCSG (and NPOC) you may be a bit confused by some of the concerns raised there. Here is my response and I am forwarding it here to make clear to NPOC that this has been an expansion of how NPOC views "Not-for-Profit and Civil Society Organization operational concerns. We are taking a more constituency base view of what those operational concerns are, both for now and coming down the road with new regulations and market force implications. This is in addition to an ICANN-centric perspective on Civil Society organization operational concerns. This expanded focus is an open subject for comment and discussion within NPOC. If you cannot participate in this Singapore webinar, keep alert for additional webinars in other regional locations. These are educational webinars, they are not marketing webinars, although NPOC welcomes as much Civil Society engagement in NPOC and ICANN as it can. The more we work together the betting the Internet Ecosystem will be for Civil Society organizations as purse their respective missions and visions as the work on and with the Internet.

Sam Lanfranco, Chair, NPOC Policy Committee


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: Feb 10: Singapore Pathfinder Webinar: What every Civil Society Organization should Know about its use of the Internet and Never Dared to Ask! - Part 2
Date:   Wed, 04 Feb 2015 06:53:03 -0500
From:   Sam Lanfranco <lanfran@xxxxxxxx>
To:     William Drake <wjdrake@xxxxxxxxx>, NCSG-DISCUSS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Bill and NCSG Colleagues,

I have earlier address part of Bill's concerns but let me unpack his concerns into the single core point, which is clear in what has been written about the Singapore Pathfinder webinar. The core focus of NPOC efforts is the operational concerns of Not-for-Proft and Civil Society organizations, and since Not-For-Profits are Civil Society organizations, in the interest of brevity NPOC is using the term Civil Society organizations, and occasionally pointing out that the concerns and issues being address are individual concerns as well, just to remind all that NPOC is not forgetting about that area, but that is why NCUC exists as a sister group under NCSG.

Civil Society organizations face a number of operational concerns, both around DNS and in general in the Internet ecosystem. For the most part their own "brand protection" issues go beyond and are a bit different from those for commercial organizations. They have to do with integrity, with abuse and with fraud. They are not mainly about the issues that would trigger "in house" ICANN processes, or even make it to court. The current proposed trademark protection regulations being considered by the EU/EC, where NPOC took a position, is a case in point. This was not something to be brought to ICANN, although ICANN and its constituencies could take positions on the regulations. If there is a confusion here it is that NPOC is looking at operational concerns from the perspective of its constituency, Civil Society organizations, and not just from an ICANN-centric perspective. I am prepared to defend that wider perspective should someone wish to debate it.

As for who works with whom on what here, and the involvement of IP lawyers and ICANN staff in this Webinar, first, that has to be understood in the above context, the operational concerns of Civil Society organizations, and not the history of these issues with ICANN. Second, we expect the Webinar to be a learning experience not only for the participants, but also for the presenters, including NPOC, the IP community, and ICANN itself. This is about the operational concerns faced by Civil Society organizations today, and those challenges coming on the road ahead, of which there are a number. It is not about marketing this or that, or dealing with the baggage of old intra-ICANN issues. Let the initiative be judged by its fruits, not within a context of old outdated intra-ICANN differences.

Sam L., Chair, NPOC Policy Committee (/In planes for the next 20+ hours so I will be slow to respond to further comments/)
On 2015-02-04 5:42 AM, William Drake wrote:
Hi Lori

Actually, I think this is very healthy and useful discussion. I don’t actually sense that there's antipathy at work here, but rather just a desire for clarity and transparency about what we’re all doing why and who we’re doing it with. That is in everyone’s interest.

I think it’d be great if NPOC really focused in on operational concerns such as trademark protection for CSOs. That it would do so was the understanding we reached with Debbie and Amber at the Cartagena meeting in December 2010 when they agreed to change the name from the proposed Not-for-Profit Constituency (which was problematic since NCUC’s members are also nonprofit) to the Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency, but subsequently things often got more blurry. ... [Text deleted ]





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