<div dir="ltr">Dear All,<div>My reason for concern about the word "community" is that it is a very loaded word - it carries extra connotations of shared interests, agreement, togetherness. I'm not sure how far non first language English speakers would be aware of this. Therefore when I (as a remote participant) heard a female ICANN employee (I'm sorry I've forgotten her name) refer to "the community" in a presentation that was part of the launching of the new gtlds in London (2012) I asked which community she was referring to. She replied "Oh the ICANN community" as if this were perfectly obvious. Perhaps some of you were "there" in the chat and may remember.</div><div><br></div><div>George: "<span style="font-size:12.8px"> In particular, who defines the global public interest with respect to ICANN's mission?" - my answer is that it should of course be the global public, but I have a strong feeling that that is NOT what is happening.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Seun: "</span><span style="font-size:12.8px">Yes that's right; the ICANN community is part of the "internet community" but as to the March meeting, and the entire transition proposal development process, it was the "internet community" developing the proposal but facilitated by ICANN who was assigned the task by NTIA." What you describe is what the initial proposal appeared to be. The process was supposed to be carried out by "the internet community" and ICANN was instructed to identify an appropriate agency to carry out the transition process. What in fact happened was that ICANN identified itself as the appropriate agency. This seems to run counter to the original intention, but perhaps it doesn't?</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">And yes, Parminder, "community" has been compromised throughout the system. You fought long and eloquently over the highjacking of the word "book" as one of the new gtlds. The time has come for all of us to fight against the takeover of individual words - I can see what is happening in English, but is it also happening in Hindi, Spanish, French, Urdu, Mandarin ...?? Our language is at least in part how we think; it has a large control of our perspective. We need to protect it as far as possible as a common good, a free space.</span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Deirdre</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 25 May 2016 at 09:13, George Sadowsky <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:george.sadowsky@gmail.com" target="_blank">george.sadowsky@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">Independent of the discussion that is going on here, I strongly share Deirdre's comment about the term "community." It is often used, without appropriate qualification, in different ways and on the same discussion, so that it can be and often is interpreted in non-consistent ways.<div><br></div><div>Even the phrase 'the ICANN community' is used in disturbingly vague ways. Is it the formal apparatus of supporting organizations and advisory committees? Is it the people who are active in policy discussions? Is it everyone that comes to ICANN meetings? Is it all registrants? </div><div><br></div><div>It's not clear what to do about this, except to insist upon adequate qualification of the word whenever it is used.</div><div><br></div><div>This problem bleeds over into discussions of what is "the global public interest," and more to the point, who defines it. In particular, who defines the global public interest with respect to ICANN's mission? That's a larger discussion that I'm attempting to launch here, but it's a very important question for at least a part of Internet governance.</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>George</div></font></span><div><div class="h5"><div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>On May 25, 2016, at 9:03 AM, Deirdre Williams <<a href="mailto:williams.deirdre@gmail.com" target="_blank">williams.deirdre@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br><div><div dir="ltr">Dear Pranesh,<div>I also have a concern - serious at least in my view. The third paragraph of the statement begins with this sentence <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">"<span style="color:rgb(87,87,87);font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px">When the Internet community came together in Marrakech in March 2016 to endorse and forward the IANA transition package to NTIA, there was consensus that the product of two years of challenging hard work was robust and credible and met the key NTIA criteria."</span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px"><font color="#444444"> </font></span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px"><font color="#444444">I have noticed, and questioned publicly, the spreading</font><font> "loose" use of the word "community" which is leading, again in my view, to a rather dangerous conflation of concepts. To my mind it is incorrect to suggest that the ICANN community, which met in Marrakech in March, is the same thing as the internet community of which the ICANN community is a subset. This - deliberately? - confusing use of the word "community" has been going on for several years.</font></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px"><font>I wonder does anyone else consider it to be a matter for concern?</font></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px"><font>Best wishes</font></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;line-height:20px"><font>Deirdre</font></span></span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 25 May 2016 at 04:11, Pranesh Prakash <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org" target="_blank">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear all,<br>
I recently came across this:<br>
<a href="http://bestbits.net/iana-transition/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://bestbits.net/iana-transition/</a><br>
<br>
However, I never saw its contents being discussed on this list. Did I somehow fail to receive those messages?<br>
<br>
I am quite concerned about the way the letter takes an uncritical global North approach to the IANA transition, and refuses to contend with the power dynamics at play.<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
The undersigned civil society and public interest groups believe that the IANA transition is a positive development for the Domain Name System and for the Internet at large, and that the process to develop the transition proposal has been a successful expression of multistakeholder approaches to Internet decision-making.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I have pointed out in the past that this IANA transition process fails the requirements of the NetMundial Statement, and was primarily led by corporate interests in the US, and men:<br>
<a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder</a><br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Pranesh<span><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Pranesh Prakash<br>
Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society<br>
<a href="http://cis-india.org/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org</a> | tel:<a href="tel:%2B91%2080%2040926283" value="+918040926283" target="_blank">+91 80 40926283</a><br>
<a href="mailto:sip%3Apranesh@ostel.co" target="_blank">sip:pranesh@ostel.co</a> | <a href="mailto:xmpp%3Apranesh@cis-india.org" target="_blank">xmpp:pranesh@cis-india.org</a><br>
<a href="https://twitter.com/pranesh" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/pranesh</a><br>
<br>
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____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> <a href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net" target="_blank">bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</a>.<br>To unsubscribe or change your settings, visit:<br> <a href="http://lists.bestbits.net/wws/info/bestbits" target="_blank">http://lists.bestbits.net/wws/info/bestbits</a></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979</div>
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