[chapter-delegates] Latest ISOC WGIG statement

[Franck Martin]

Well,

I think first Internet Governance is not ICANN. ICANN is just a small 
part of it, and I don't know why we are so focused on it. ah, yes, 
government thinks there are only 10 root servers and people have been 
dam lucky if it is still functionning now. Let's pass it to a more 
serious organisation who is well known for setting up meeting about free 
speech (The Internet) in non-free speech countries (see previous posts 
from reporters without borders)...

Hey! it is a joke!

What I have been telling all governments in this part of the world, 
ICANN has its problem (who does not?), but trying to solve them in the 
wrong forum, won't help. If there is something wrong with ICANN, get a 
UN delegation to an ICANN meeting, get Kofi Annan to attend an ICANN 
meeting, get the WGIG to attend an ICANN meeting and spell out what is 
wrong with ICANN. My guess, is that these problems will get addressed 
and ICANN will be even better. BTW, there is a very good article in the 
Economist about WGIG and ICANN, and I like the conclusion to better 
stick to a bad ICANN than transfer to a cacophonic international 
organisation.

Also, yes, it would be nice if ISOC would get comments from the chapters 
and even the members before releasing any statements... But it is like 
asking to put little flags on the ISOC web site to direct people to at 
least a page in their native language. I think ISOC-NG has trouble to 
speak and understand english, and that's true of a big part of Africa. 
"Internet is for everyone", you remember this sentence somewhere, don't 
you? J'ai subitement une idee, pourquoi je ne posterai pas sur cette 
liste toujours en francais, les anglais appelle ca manger sa propre 
viande pour chiens. Ceci, jusqu'a ce que je vois des petits drapeaux 
Francais, Espagnol, Portugais, Chinois, Hindou flotter sure le site de 
la SOCI.

Finally about the part on "competition in the telecommunication market"

I will tell a little story as I recollect it:
A delegation from Wahshington DC wanted to renegotiate telecom rates and 
suggested to open the market. The meeting was somwhere in the US (I think).

The regulator asked the team leader if she knew a small town near Washington
She gave a name
The regulator asked how big is it?
About 200,000 people
He said, well can you give the name of a town of say about 20,000 people
She cannot give a name but agreed that such town must exists
Then the regulator asked, do you think telecommunication competition can 
exists in such a town
She answered no it is too small
Well, the regulator said, this is the whole population of cook islands, 
spread over an area as big as the US mainland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Islands (for info on Cook Islands)

But I won't say that some form of competition is not viable there, but 
beware of generalities...

Ok, now I go to read this submission from ISOC.

BTW, you can read an interesting report of the last WSIS prepcom 2 meeting:
http://www.sopac.org/tiki/tiki-sopac_reportsindex.php?ss=type&vv=MR
Report MR0594

Cheers


Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> David McAuley ha scritto:
>
>> Dear Chapter Delegates:
>>
>> As you know, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and its
>> Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) are engaged in a process 
>> that is
>> gathering steam. The importance of this discussion should not be
>> underestimated.
>>
>> In that regard, I would like to draw your attention to ISOC's latest
>> statement to the WGIG. You can see it at:
>> http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/wsis/documents/ISOC_WGIG_Commentary_200 
>>
>> 50418.pdf
>>
>>
>
> David,
>
> being an officer of an ISOC Chapter and a civil society WGIG member, 
> please let me express my personal concerns with your communication.
>
> I will not enter too much in the substance of the document; I agree 
> with many (not all) of the statements that are made, but it seems to 
> me that you are preempting what the WGIG thinks and putting words in 
> its mouth so to then criticize and delegitimize it. I would rather 
> expect ISOC to make constructive suggestions to possible solutions to 
> the problems and concerns that were posed by some stakeholders, rather 
> than just saying "everything works fine, go away".
>
> However, my main problem here is that, basically, you are trying to 
> exploit the Chapters to promote your own positions, without even 
> asking them whether they agree with them. As far as I know, there was 
> never any consultation on this list about what ISOC should say in 
> regards to the WGIG process; it seems that, according to HQ, the only 
> role that Chapters have is that of amplifying and promoting a document 
> that was drafted autonomously at the HQ, as if they didn't have the 
> right to have a say in the official ISOC positions on the matter.
>
> To make an example, are you so sure that, say, the Internet 
> communities in the world agree that "The continued expansion of the 
> Internet to developing countries will be greatly aided in the future 
> by a more competitive telecommunications environment"? How can you 
> say, if you're not from a developing country and you didn't ask your 
> developing country chapters? That looks to me more like the position 
> of the big American telcos - the same ones which ask developing 
> country ISPs to pay impossible amounts of money to get Internet 
> bandwidth towards the rest of the global net - than like the position 
> of the global Internet community.
>
> Moreover, while I do support the idea that the current ICANN model is 
> definitely better than the traditional IGO one, I think that it has 
> significant problems of accountability and inclusiveness. ICANN is the 
> organization that has just re-awarded the management of .net to 
> Verisign, notwithstanding the damages that it brought to the stability 
> of the Internet with its SiteFinder service 18 months ago; and that 
> steadily refuses to implement any level of privacy for individual 
> registrants of domain names, even when mandated by law (e.g. in 
> Europe), carefully servicing the interests of the intellectual 
> property industry of the United States. How can you say that this kind 
> of governance is "bottom-up" and "close to end users"?
>
> So, I would much like to extend to the list the discussion that we 
> have on these and other matters in the WGIG, so that ISOC could 
> perhaps make an informed and collective decision on what positions it 
> should be supporting. I am sure I could gather a lot of interesting 
> comments and ideas to be then brought back into the WGIG. 
> Unfortunately, it seems to me that HQ is not interested in this, but 
> only in defending the status quo and pushing a business-oriented agenda.
>
> Regards,


-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Franck Martin
franck at sopac.org
"Toute connaissance est une réponse à une question"
G. Bachelard

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