[governance] Emergency resolution on.xxx recall

[Milton Mueller]

Raul:
Your views are reasonable and reassuring enough, but we see things
differently. Let's agree to move beyond our different interpretation of
the role of the USG. 

Let's agree to focus instead on two other issues 1) the role of
governments in gTLD approval and in ICANN generally; 2) whether ICANN
works on the basis of known procedures and rules, or whether "anything
goes" based on how much political noise you can make and how politically
powerful you are.

Those are the more fundamental issues. 

1) Role of governments
GAC or governments must not have an arbitrary veto power over gTLD
selections. In a true multistakeholder governance process like ICANN,
they do not have special status - they must participate in the TLD
evaluation on the same level as everyone else. If they are too lazy or
incompetent to follow the process until it is over, why should they be
able to veto it later? If they did not like this process they can
propose to change it in future decisions.

Raul, if ANY other segment of ICANN had raised objections to a TLD
after the Board had made a decision -- ALAC, GNSO, ccSO, etc. -- would
we have this result? There is only one honest answer to this question:
No. Thus, the .xxx delay constitutes an important assertion of national
government claim to superior authority and power. I reject that
assertion. I hope ICANN does, too. 

Furthermore, no gTLD proposal should have to be acceptable to every
government in the world, because no gTLD proposal ever will be so
acceptable. In this case, governments have proven that they are
concerned exclusively with scoring political points, not with sound
administration of DNS. 

2) Process
I am very surprised by the alacrity with which people accept the fact
that ICANN basically has no rules, that anything goes as long as a few
powerful people (USG, Twomey, a few GAC members) can quietly agree among
themselves. Defined rules and transparent procedures are the only friend
the less powerful participants in international institutions have. If we
don't have that, we have nothing, because we certainly have no guns,
vastly fewer resources. The only way there can be fair and open
participation in an institution is for it to be run according to known,
easily accessible and predictable procedures. 

The .xxx decision tells us that nothing ICANN does follows a known
procedure, that anything is up for grabs, and that a few powerful people
can make a few phone calls and overturn any decision it makes. That's
bad. That's the second reason I feel so strongly about this. 


_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance at lists.cpsr.org
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance