[Chapter-delegates] Internet Society @ ICANN Singapore Meeting

[CW Mail]

Good evening:

With a view to the meeting on Tuesday 25 March, I would request that ISOC comes back to the question: 

Why does ISOC limit itself to proposing 'technical' participants to fora such as the MAG and NETmundial.

This was extensively discussed on ISOC lists in November 2013, but I did not detect any clear change in ISOC policy. 

Thankyou and Regards to all of you in Singapore and on-line.

Christopher Wilkinson

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
>> From: CW Mail <mail at christopherwilkinson.eu>
>> Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] Some thoughts on multi-stakeholderism
>> Date: 25 Nov 2013 22:59:32 GMT+01:00
>> To: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com>, ISOC INTERNETPOLICY <internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org>
>> 
>> Dear George Sadowsky:
>> 
>> Allow me to expand on some of the concerns that arise from your extended post on this matter. I apologise to readers for posting a rather long reply.
>> In short, the technical community has to accept that they do not make public policy (the code is not  the law), and civil society has to organise to present and defend the public interest ab initio in the bottom up process, since governments have shown that they are not able to do so.
>> 
>> The Internet Society should cease to give priority to the technical community in our international position and respect instead all elements of the multistakeholder community.
>> 
>> More specifically, in response to the main points in your recent posting:
>> 
>> 1.	The 'technical community'
>> 
>> When I first encountered the Internet in the 1990's it became clear that there was an important technical community, active in the IETF and the RIRs, who had created the Internet as we knew it, and were accordingly respected as such. But during the past 20 years, the economic and industrial character of the technical community has been completely transformed by the concentration of the industry and the dominance of a few US corporations in all aspects of Internet technology. In short, the objectivity and independence of the technical community has to be qualified and recovered. It can no longer be taken as a given.
>> 
>> Furthermore, whereas the IETF and W3C communities are presumably still in control of the underlying Internet technologies (TCP/IP, DNS, DNSSEC, IPv6, HTTP, etc.) there are indications that they have lost technical and moral control over certain Internet applications. For instance, we have become aware of corporate hostility to basic privacy rules. I would also ask, where is the IETF standard that imposes a 'skip' button on all the unsolicited spam advertising that invades our everyday web-spaces? 
>> 
>> This de facto transformation of the industrial and commercial role of the 'technical community' has far-reaching political implications not least in ICANN, MAG and the IGF. Internet technology has to be at the service of the public interest, not the other way around. In this context, ISOC has no interest in associating our members exclusively with the technical community in the international context.
>> 
>> It is the other components of the Internet multistakeholder community which gives ISOC credibility and recognition in these international fora.
>> 
>> 2.	Specific role of technical community in the MAG
>> 
>> The technical community should not claim a 'specific role' or a 'primary role' in the MAG. By now, the basic architecture and operation of the Internet is widely understood. It is either accepted, or it is not. It is not helpful to wrap this up in 'complexity' and 'detail'. That would be superfluous among those who understand and support the Internet, or would contribute to even more suspicion and resistance among those who don't.  Extending the technical function to '…suggestions of what needs to be discussed … ' might be expected to give rise to negative reactions. The agenda of Internet Governance is primarily political, not technical. 
>> 
>> 3.	Formalised separation of stakeholders
>> 
>> I have some sympathy for your critique of the multistakeholderism as it affects civil society. However, these problems have to be resolved urgently if the multistakeholder model is to survive. Otherwise, governments will no longer be able to live with the biases and incoherences that multistakeholder, and bottom-up decision making processes are currently throwing up. Specifically:
>> 
>> -	 several aspects of the current ICANN expansion of the gTLD space can only be explained by the pre-supposition  that certain participants in the GNSO have been able to override the public interest (and common sense) in favour of their business interests.
>> 
>> -	after 15 years of trying, governmental participants in the GAC have still not yet been able to organise themselves to ensure that the multistakeholder bottom up decision making process, includes governments and public policy considerations, ab initio. Instead, we have got - not for the first time - tardy, albeit justified, intervention by the GAC on matters that should never have reached the ICANN Board in the first place, if the relevant information had been authoritatively presented at the initial stage.
>> 
>> -	Civil Society has claimed an ambition to countervail these imbalances. You are wrong in thinking that Civil Society is ' … pushing back against  … government … ' 
>> No. Civil society's principal role has to be to act as a surrogate in the bottom up process for the tardiness and ineptitude of governmental intervention. For instance, nearly all the GAC's current (and much vilified) interventions in the new gTLD process could have been, and should have been, foreseen by Civil Society (in the ICANN context by ALAC) at a much earlier stage. And the bottom up process (in this case the GNSO) should have acted on them. They didn't.
>> 
>> -	The unfair imbalance in funding and participation also has to be resolved: corporate participants expense the cost of participation against corporate income and tax. So they are funded indirectly by the taxpayer. Governmental participants are funded directly by the taxpayer. Participation by NGOs and individuals is funded from their own resources; they are the only ones who actually have to pay for themselves. The consequences in any ICANN meeting are clear to see.
>> 
>> 
>> 									*				*				*				*
>> 
>> 
>> I trust that the Internet Society will be able to reassess and reposition its stance with respect to the MAG. However, these concerns go well beyond the MAG, to the viability of the multistakeholder and bottom-up processes themselves.
>> 
>> Regards to you all
>> 
>> Christopher Wilkinson
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 24 Nov 2013, at 19:49, George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
> 

On 10 Mar 2014, at 09:25, Naveed Haq <haq at isoc.org> wrote:

> Dear Chapter Leaders,
>  I hope all is well with you.
> As you are aware, ICANN 49 meeting is going to be held in Singapore from March 23- 27, 2014. More details available at http://singapore49.icann.org
>  
> Please note that Internet Society @ICANN Singapore meeting will be held on Tuesday 25 March, 18.00 – 20.00 hours (local time), Hullet room at the venue. 
>  
> Following a participant-led discussion, we would like to invite your help in defining the topics to be deliberated at this meeting. Please contribute via the link below to either rank the listed topics or suggest any additional subject of interest before 17 March 2014.
>  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YM9B2XV
> We would also like to request a doodle poll reply seeking your attendance at the subject meeting:
> http://doodle.com/fcbz5sq6cnhdc2gq
> Remote participation and Live streaming details will be shared in due course.
> Please let me know for any further information required.
> Thank you.
>  
> Best regards,
>  
> Naveed Haq
> Chapter Development Manager, Asia-Pacific
> Internet Society
> www.isoc.org
>  
> Skype: naveed.haq79
>  
>  
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