[governance] [WSIS CS-Plenary] slight postponementoftoday'scaucus meeting

[Izumi AIZU]

At 10:54 05/09/23 +0300, veni markovski wrote:

>There's something about the policy making here, or am I reading you wrong?
>
>If we have to talk frankly, then we must say things the way they are.

<snip>

>But if you go to the end users and ask them what model they prefer,
>the vast majority wouldn't care even to respond. That's the truth -
>the users are not interested if it's ICANN, or the UN running the
>root management and the DNS and IP address allocation. They care that
>Google works, that they have connectivity, and that there are no
>viruses to ruin their (net)work.

Being involved with ICANN AtLarge from its inception in 1998,
I would like to counter to what Veni wrote above.  Even if majority
of the average end users today are not interested in such details as who is
managing the DNS, IP Address and root servers, that does not mean
that the work of ICANN as a whole is not of the interest of the end users.

First, ICANN has its own history of trying to involve the end-users,
when it was established, the US Government explicitly ordered ICANN to
institute Membership Body that was the condition for ICANN to be
approved by USG.

Thus AtLarge version one was established and global election was implemented
in 2000. In 2001, however, ICANN decided that that AtLarge membership with
users was a bad model and abondoned the global election and also almost
decided to scrap the AtLarge as a whole during the so-called "Reform".
This process made several civil society groups dis-interested in participating
ICANN related activities and started to deny ICANN's significance.
That was quite unfortunate, but from my viewpoint, that was the fact.
Or that is the history we should not forget or ignore. Veni, you are
one of them testfied all the way.

To put it in other words:
First, you are invited into the party, you shook hands, chatted,
drank wines, and asked to be the core members of the party. Then,
the next round you are told to go out of the house. Period. Well,
not quite. The host kindly invited you to come into the garden,
enjoy the flowers, but not inside the room where the best dishes
are there. That is the status of ALAC in summary.

Will you still be interested in the topics they talk about, or
decide about? Most of you may not.

>As for ICANN, I also believe there's what to improve, and I believe
>it is happening.... may be slower than some would have expected, but
>better late than never.

As a member of ALAC of ICANN, I have been trying to re-activate
the interests of the users together with other colleagues in somewhat
organized manner.  It's not an easy game, almost lsot, but someone
must play, I believe, and that  was the collective idea of ICANN
now as it is challenged by many governments at WSIS, right?

So, does ICANN need direct users involvement in its policy development
process or not? That is the core question, and if not, then I guess
many governments will start to intervene more on behalf of the public
they reprsent. I prefer direct participation than government dectation.

Thanks,

izumi

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