<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div><div>On Jul 1, 2012, at 8:19 AM, parminder wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">John,<br><br>You provide a good view of how some public policy issues that get encountered in various tech coordination activities get addressed. There indeed are some existing ways in which the concerned public policy considerations are soaked in from the environment, if in an ad hoc manner, which, I understand is also how you see it.</font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I believe they get incorporated in an ad-hoc manner only because there is </div><div>a lack of consensus on how and where "social and public policy norms" </div><div>are documented by society. Having no clear expression of public policy </div><div>requirements and having dozens of expressions of public policy requirements</div><div>are both equally bad, as what is needed for guidance in technical protocol</div><div>development and identifier coordination is the input of single statements</div><div>of which "social and public policy norms" are applicable.</div><div><br></div><div>For example, a clear requirement exists with respect to privacy of residential </div><div>data within Canada (due to strong data privacy statutes) but it is not quite as</div><div>clear in the US nor in the 25 Caribbean economies in the ARIN region. As we </div><div>have to make regional policy which works for everyone, the resulting policy on</div><div>level of information in the public (IP) Whois directory basically must consider</div><div>the clear policy requirements from Canada and allow for the redaction of that </div><div>information if and when service providers assign large IP address blocks for </div><div>individual subscribers. We have no conflicting guidance, so it was easy to </div><div>accomodate as required.</div><div><br></div><div>Having clear guidance on the social and public policy norms lets those working</div><div>on Internet protocols and protocol identifier management actively avoid having</div><div>conflicts with such guidance. It's still a difficult job, but it is doable, in that the</div><div>various implications of protocol or identifier management can be held up against</div><div>the received guidance to make sure that the final implemented processes for </div><div>identifier management will indeed be compatible.</div><div><br></div><div>When no such guidance or (almost as bad) multiple conflicting guidance is received, </div><div>then you are left with a predominantly technical community attempting to work on </div><div>social and public matters to fill the gap in social and public policy norms. The job </div><div>will get done, but It's not pretty, and may not make anyone happy with the result.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">You do rightly stress '</font><font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span style="font-size: 11pt; ">ICANN's limited mandate of technical coordination</span></font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">. Increasingly, it appears to me that the concerned public policy issues are becoming more important and at the same time more complex, and the manner in which they get incorporated in the technical coordination function may increasingly be inadequate. <br></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Parminder - It is inadequate, but that's because it is the wrong tool for the job.</div><div><br></div><div>If you're seeking consensus on important and complex public policy matters, it </div><div>would be best to drive that to resolution down to basic principles of agreement</div><div>elsewhere before attempting to apply those principles to technical matters such</div><div>as protocol development and identifier management.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The oversight issue is about developing an appropriate and adequate method for incorporating the relevant public policy concerns in technical coordination functions.</font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>There are two uses of the term "oversight" with respect to ICANN:</div><div><br></div><div>1) Oversight of ICANN in the overall performance of its mission </div><div><br></div><div> This is how the term "oversight" is used by many in the Internet </div><div> community, and has been historically been a role held by the USG </div><div> via the JPA, and has transitioned to the reviews performed under </div><div> the Affirmation of Commitments. </div><div><br></div><div> This is about reviews of structure, process, mechanisms, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>2) "Oversight" of ICANN during the policy development process</div><div><br></div><div> This is a colloquial use of the term "oversight", in that it would </div><div> probably be better phrased "Monitoring and guiding ICANN when</div><div> it is performing policy development to produce politically useful</div><div> outcomes"</div><div><br></div><div> The problem with such "oversight" is that it actually presumes</div><div> that ICANN is an appropriate and useful forum for working out </div><div> all of the world's previously unresolved public policy matters. </div><div> For example, if governments and civil society had a single</div><div> clear norm for what constitutes "decent speech", then its</div><div> application in a technical setting would be straightforward.</div><div> Absent a clear social & public policy norm for such content</div><div> determination, attempting to re-address the same question</div><div> within ICANN is not likely to produce any better outcome.</div><div> </div><div>Let's recall one key statement from ICANN's core values:</div><div><br></div><div>"11. While remaining rooted in the private sector, recognizing that governments and public authorities are responsible for public policy and duly taking into account governments' or public authorities' recommendations."</div><div><br></div><div>Taking such recommendations into account _requires_ that there </div><div>is either a single consensus input received or indeed a high degree </div><div>of commonality among all of the recommendations received. I do</div><div>believe that ICANN must respect the guidance in these cases, but</div><div>from what I can determine it is not in ICANN's mission to bring about</div><div>consensus in social and public policy matters where none exists today.</div><div>(and If ICANN had such amazing abilities, then we should have it work</div><div>on world hunger and conflict before worrying about Internet matters...)</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">But doing it in a manner that is not ad hoc, based on proper law and policy frameworks arrived at through a transparent and participatory process, and employing duly laid out procedures and methods.<br></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Full agreement on the above statement - insuring this is a major part</div><div>of the current review processes.<br><br><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">At present there is a kind of schizophrenia whereby ICANN is caught between its own and other actor's assessment of it being basically a technical coordination body with limited capacity of dealing with public policy considerations (which is inter alia also NCUC's stand) and the increasingly important and complex public policy considerations that are implicated in many technical coordination functions. How to solve this conundrum is the main issue that we are facing here. <br></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>If the public policy considerations that you reference are areas where we</div><div>have commonly accepted and documented societal norms, then those </div><div>documents should be formally submitted into the policy development </div><div>processes and ICANN should be held accountable, per its core values,</div><div>for taking them into consideration in setting policies for technical identifier</div><div>coordination and management for the Internet.</div><div><br></div><div>If the public policy considerations that you reference are areas where we</div>lack commonly accepted and documented societal norms, I would think<div>that bringing governments, civil society, and businesses together on these </div><div>matters first would be a high priority, and a task much larger in scope that</div><div>ICANN's mission.</div><div><br></div><div>FYI,</div><div>/John</div><div><br></div><div>p.s. Disclaimer: My views alone. The thoughts expressed may not be suitable</div><div> for any specific purpose, including world domination. This forum may not </div><div> grant time to responsible parties with opposing viewpoints. May cause</div><div> mental staining; please try out on an unexposed section of mind first.</div><div> </div><div><div><div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>