[governance] Response to Izumi's comments

[Milton Mueller]

Izumi: 
here are my responses to your points. Please forward to the ALAC list.

>>> Izumi AIZU <aizu at anr.org> 08/18/05 8:17 PM >>>
>I disagree, GAC and ALAC are advisory only and they do not 
>constitute voting members of ICANN Board. 

You indicate the same status of ALAC and GAC. It supports the point
made in the statement. 

>Besides, while GAC has more authority in 
>that they could formally request ICANN Board 
>to explain in case the Board 
>does not follow GAC advice, ALAC has no such authority.

Relative to UN/IGO models, where civil society has NO parity with
governments, this is a small, unimportant difference. 
The statement says that the status is "roughly equal" so it accounts
for these details. 

In this area, there is no substantive difference between us. But I am
sad to see that you seem to not care whether civil society/at large has
equal status as governments. In fact, in the original design of ICANN
they did. I consider it deeply unfortunate that today's custodians of
ALAC seem to have so little concern for the principle of democratic
representation in Internet governance.

>I do not support treating the GAC chair and DOC interventions as one 
>combination. To me, they are of separate nature.

That is a position that cannot be squared with the facts. They were
obviously coordinated. This is a substantive disagreement, but it is not
very important. The language could treat them separately. The important
thing is the next statement....

>>, however, seems to be based on the theory that governments have a 
>>superior authority to review or reverse decisions emerging from
ICANN's 
>>processes. This view of the role of governments, if accepted or 
>>encouraged by the Board, would lead to a radical change in ICANN's 
>>mode of operation, one which we strongly oppose.

>Again, I do not agree. They expressed their legitimate concerns 
>and asked to take more time (delay the decision), but not to reverse 
>it, at least explicitly. I do not believe that this will directly lead
to a 
>radical change of government position at ICANN per se.

A major difference between us. I think the statement shows a much
clearer grasp of the significance of this intervention than you do. 
Izumi, what if the TLD decision is reversed? What will you say then?
Who will be seen as the cause of that decision, ICANN's Board or the US
Commerce Department? ICANN's Board or US + other protesting governments?
Won't all future TLD applicants then begin to lobby governments, first?
On this issue, I would not change the statement. If you don't think this
is a major development that will change the power dynamics in ICANN,
then you should not sign it.

>Changing the ICANN's internal structure may better be dealt first at

>ICANN, not outside. 

Why? Here you are just unpersuasive. It sounds too much like a personal
argument, you are comfortable in ICANN, it is what you know.
Furthermore, it is very clear that the .xxx delay is coming from forces
outside ICANN. The Family Research Council has zero participation in
ICANN, but it has had more infliuence in this area than ALAC and NCUC
combined. 

>>We believe that Board's willingness to entertain this last-minute 
>>intervention, while no doubt intended to be an act of accommodation
and 
>>flexibility, could damage the fairness, credibility and stability of

>>ICANN's processes if it is taken to be a precedent for the future.
>
>Judging from the facts so far, I do not support this assumption. And I

>like flexibility.

I hope your employers and clients don't tell you that next time they
don't give you the money they promised. 
Just being flexible, you see ;-) 

>I agree that most GAC members neglected until the last minute 
>about this .xxx issue. Yet, as GAC operates in their "consensus" 
>mode, I also notice their difficulty in acting in unison on issues of
diverse 
>positions and opinions, thus individual governments are, like any
other 
>individual constituency, free to express their own interventions at
any 
>given opportunity. 

I find it hard to understand why you are so apologetic for gross
negligence. It is not just that GAC failed to agree about .xxx, it
failed two times to even LISTEN to .xxx presentations to find out what
it was about. That is inexcusable!

And tell me, why does ICANN listen now and ignore all the other
constituencies? Did you read Ed Hasbrouck's message?

>The Board can, if they so choose, 
>just ignore them if they think it is the right way, or they can listen
to 
>this last-minute request if that makes more sense. I don't see much

>procedural problem.

Fundamental disagreement again. How much independence does the Board
really have now? 

>I do not think that this issues is matter of "censorship" per se.
>This is too wide interpretation. I do not support this.  Creating
.xxxx 
>may also not be "content-neutral", depending on which value you
stand 
>with. So, bringing in .xxx in global TLD may create more problem, and

>perhaps better leave it to national TLDs. 

I would ask you to think more carefully about what content neutrality
means. It doesn't mean that the domain or content is neutral, it means
that when adding TLDs you don't discriminate among them based on their
semantics. Thus, ICANN shouldn't care whether someone alpplies for
.travel or .tel or .xxx. It should care about whether the registry works
right. Just as a telephone system shouldn't care about what you say, it
should just transmit your voice.

>For many Asians, at least, "xxx" 
>is very much an American expression and I do not like this culturally

>biased TLD to be in the global domain.

This is an astounding statement, Izumi. If no TLD that is culturally
specific can be in the global system, then NO domains can be added and
we will have to delete all the existing ones, too. (.com ,net and .org
started as very much american expressions) IDNs would be impossible,
because they are all "culturally biased" because many people can't read
them. Is this really what you want to say?

>To conclude, we urge the ICANN Board to abide by its prior decision to

>delegate the .xxx domain to ICM Registry. We hope they will use the
delay 
>to explain to those who have raised the objections how and why the 
>delegation decision was made and why ICANN's governance model, which 
>centers on technical coordination and involves private sector, civil 
>society and technical stakeholders as well as governments, is the most

>appropriate for management of the domain name system.

>My understanding of the Board resolution on this is that they 
>instructed the staff to enter negotiation with the registry for terms

>and conditions, but that does not mean that they approved the result 
>of the negotiation. Depending on the outcome of the negotiation, the 
>Board is free to judge yes or no.

That was true before the US Commerce Department intervention. Is it not
true now, because negotiations have been halted. 


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