[governance] US CS & the JPA

[William Drake]

Hi,

Wolf Ludwig just passed along the below statement from Delhi by the
Consumers Union of the U.S, which is a fairly substantial entity as CS goes.
They oppose setting ICANN free on the grounds that there¹s insufficient CS
outreach and engagement, and that ³ICANN does sees itself as a
multi-stakeholder organization, with industry, government, and industry
groups as the stakeholders.²

The Center for Democracy and Technology has also opposed ending the JPA on
the grounds that it has not been done enough about ³implementing
transparent, open, and representative decision-making, based on the
bottom-up principle,² and an IMHO rather less clear stance that a freed
ICANN will be subject to takeover by dark governmental and intergovernmental
forces. 
www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/jpacomments2007/jpacomment_006.pdf

Other comments by people here, e.g. Karl, George, opposing termination.  I¹m
curious about US vs global CS perspectives on this...?

Bill


COMMENTS OF CONSUMER REPORTS WEBWATCH, Consumers Union of the U.S., On ICANN
Joint Project Agreement with U.S. Commerce Department February 14, 2008
Consumer Reports WebWatch of the Consumers Union, representing 9 million
consumers in the United States and Canada, supports ICANN¹s efforts to
evolve and move forward toward an existence apart from the JPA agreement
with the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, at this mid-term review
phase, we do not believe the organization is ready to function without a
similar accountability mechanism to the JPA in place. Major changes need to
occur within the organization to assure more efficient and meaningful user
community representation, with long-term guarantees that such representation
would endure unforeseen scenarios in the future. Our justifications for this
position are simple: First, we do not believe the structure of ICANN as it
exists today sufficiently takes into account the needs and opinions of
end-users. Based on a review of operational documents and bylaws, we do not
see any sort of language guaranteeing meaningful user participation into the
future. To address this issue, Consumers Union believes the at-large
community needs multiple seats on the ICANN board; the initial bylaws, in
fact, called for fully half the board to be elected by the at-large. We base
this opinion on Consumer Reports WebWatch¹s own 11-month experience as an
³at-large structure² recruited by ICANN, and our eight months¹ experience as
an elected representative to the at-large advisory committee.__Second,
though the outreach work of ICANN at-large staff Nick Ashton-Hart and Kieran
McCarthy is commendable, ICANN¹s staff and public communications budget is
insufficient to address a much larger problem of outreach. To elaborate:
Currently, the NA-RALO is made up of a scant handful of organizations. While
these are valuable partners, in no way could the NA-RALO be characterized as
a viable representation of a broad-based user community in the United States
and Canada. Further, many consumer organizations in the United States with a
mission that includes the intersection of technology and consumer issues,
remain skeptical of ICANN's intentions and its viability as an organization
that takes consumer views into account. Until something is done to bridge
this gap and ICANN demonstrates its good intentions and long-term structural
viability to organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and others, we do not believe ICANN can be
considered to be acting in accordance with the concerns of the user
community in North America.__In addition, there are no guarantees beyond
mention in the bylaws that the "at-large community," itself currently under
review, would remain a part of the ICANN structure 20 or even 10 years from
now. The at-large advisory committee is without a vote in any meaningful
policy forum. Without direct user community representation on the ICANN
board, we do not believe ICANN is truly acting as a ³multi-stakeholder"
organization. We are concerned, in fact, that ICANN does sees itself as a
multi-stakeholder organization, with industry, government, and industry
groups as the stakeholders. It does not help matters much that many within
the ICANN community view domain name registrants as the Internet¹s
³end-users,² and therefore the farthest realm the ICANN needs to reach.
Until these issues are addressed we do not believe the organization is ready
to progress beyond the JPA, which refers to "the global participation of all
stakeholders" and "mechanisms for involvement of those affected by the ICANN
policies."  As the Internet-using public is a key set of stakeholders
affected by ICANN's policies, it is critical, including for Internet
security and stability, that the organization be accountable to the public
and account effectively for its input. We believe the following three things
need to happen in order for ICANN to move forward beyond the JPA: 1.
Address lack of meaningful user representation, and assure its long-term
viability within the organization, by creating multiple ³user community²
seats on the ICANN board. 2.      Allocate significant budget to get the
message that it has done so, out to civil society stakeholder groups in
North America and the global user community. 3.      Take administrative
steps to ensure the long-term structural existence of user community
presence and participation in decision-making. We appreciate the opportunity
to comment. Beau Brendler, Director, Consumer Reports WebWatch, and member,
ICANN at-large advisory committee


***********************************************************
William J. Drake  
Director, Project on the Information
  Revolution and Global Governance/PSIO
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
***********************************************************


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20080214/1a1f678c/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance