[governance] Good faith at ISOC & comment on IGF

[Dave Burstein]

Folks

I know many of the board members at ISOC. I've been one of the most
skeptical of the deal, which clearly causes some important harm. That said,
I have written they are honorable and not corrupt.

When the $1.135B figure was (finally) released, I write the below,
including "If I were on the board, I might have voted for the deal."
Reasonable people *might* decide that $1B+ for an organization committed to
the Internet for everybody is enough to balance the harms we've discussed.

I'm sending this here because I'm sure most of the people on this list are
likewise honorable, even if I think their positions wrong. There are crooks
in this world, including many US Congressmen, but very few of them bother
with this list or the ISOC board.

It's now important we work to bring ISOC back to its mission and open
internal processes. ISOC is very far away from living up to our principles.
If you're not an ISOC member, do join and choose a chapter. If there's no
chapter where you are, the New York Chapter welcomes you. A third of our
members are not local.

My strength is tech, not policy. If you need to know whether Massive MIMO
is the cost-effective way to a robust Internet, please ask. (It is, per
Stanford Professor Paulraj.) Or what's really going on in 5G.

I've also included an opinion piece on IGF. I listened to a session on IoT
which was completely out of touch. To be widely adopted, IoT devices need
to cost $2-$5. The suggestions on that panel would cost more than that.

https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1166-1-300-000-000-to-internet-society-if-org-deal-goes-down

Breaking: $1,135,000,000 to Internet Society if .org Deal Goes Down
<https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1166-1-300-000-000-to-internet-society-if-org-deal-goes-down>

Tim Berners-Lee, over 10,000 at https://savedotorg.org/#add-org, slews of
reporters, 3 ISOC Chapters and almost all well-informed independents are
strongly opposed to the deal. The Internet Society just revealed it would
get 1.13 Billion from very rich US investors for .org. That is enough money
that honorable people have decided the damage to the Internet from the deal
should be overridden. The deal will die if Pennsylvania or ICANN blocks or
even delays.

If I were on the board, I might have voted for the deal. I've been among
the most skeptical, partly because the amount and many other key details
were totally secret. I would have demanded much more information and public
discussion.

I'm strongly advocating ISOC now take extraordinary steps to heal the rift
with the chapters and restore the public perception of ISOC.

https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1162-igf-talkfest-crisis-chaos-or-just-evolving
IGF Talkfest: Crisis, Chaos, or Just Evolving
<https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1162-igf-talkfest-crisis-chaos-or-just-evolving>

"The Internet Governance Forum does need to evolve," ICANN & ISOC-NY board
member Avri Doria emails. "Speaking personally, I do not believe the IGF
would disappear. If something were to happen, or if in the future it was
not renewed by the UN General Assembly, then it could be recreated in a
bottom-up manner as an international place to bring the various groups
together. I also said that I considered the National and Regional
Initiative one of the greatest outcomes of the IGF because they brought
"Internet Governance" to the national and regional level."

The most common criticism of the IGF is that all it does is talk, talk,
talk. That's valuable, but many hope for IGF to have direct results. Monika
Ermert, the best-informed commentator on "Internet Governance,"
<https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Die-Rettung-des-Internet-Governance-Forum-4594822.htm>
writes,
"In Berlin, the hosts want to work hard to lead the IGF out of the crisis,
which has been around for a few years because it only debates and does not
act. ... Die Machtlosigkeit ist dabei ein Geburtsfehler." Ermert describes
a highly chaotic program.

>From the beginning, governments did not want to give away power. I've
reported that the non-government participants have come overwhelmingly from
the US and allies, as well as some others in general agreement. The
non-government attendees rarely spoke from the point of view of the global
south, which now represents the strong majority of Internet users.
Two-thirds of the world want a more internationally representative group in
charge, presumably the ITU.
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