ALAC's failure to generate public participation and outreach

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Article XI Section 2 Sub-Section 4 of ICANN's By-Laws states:
http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#XI

g. "Each RALO shall serve as the MAIN FORUM and co-ordination point for PUBLIC 
INPUT to ICANN in its Geographic Region."

QUESTION: Where is the Forum for Europe? Does it indeed provide the MAIN FORUM 
for PUBLIC INPUT? Where is that PUBLIC INPUT and how much has there been in the 
past year?

QUESTION: Where are the forums for the other regions? Does ICANN post the URLS 
for these forums on its website? Do the RALOs really provide the MAIN PUBLIC 
INPUT to ICANN?

j3. "The ALAC is responsible for promoting outreach activities in the community 
of individual Internet users."

QUESTION: Specifically what outreach activity has been carried out in the 
United Kingdom, my own country, in the past year?

j5. "The ALAC is responsible for establishing an outreach strategy about ICANN 
issues in each RALO's Region."

QUESTION: Could the European RALO please publish its "outreach strategy" for 
Europe (in accordance with ICANN By-Laws), and state when it was written? Can 
we also see the "outreach strategies" for all the other regions if they exist?

Because, you see, I believe that ALAC with its RALOs is simply a structure 
which ICANN has promoted to legitimise its expulsion of the democratic 
representatives of Internet Users from the ICANN Board. The central ALAC forum 
is moribund and inactive. RALO forums hardly seem to exist. User participation 
in ALAC papers and policy development seems almost non-existent. Too often, 
creation of ALAC positions is left to Vittorio or Thomas to write, and a 
handful of others to discuss briefly. There is no At Large community. There are 
no vibrant At Large forums or mailing lists. That is because individuals have 
been excluded from the process.

There cannot be real public participation and outreach until the At Large 
becomes a Membership of Individuals who can vote and take part and truly 
believe that they are helping to determine the future of their Internet. Until 
the hundreds of millions of ordinary Internet users feel they have some 
'ownership' of the At Large, and some ability to determine who and what it is, 
and how they are represented, ALAC will remain a dead structure, just an ICANN 
device for locking out the true voice of the Internet.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson