[governance] Call for Action: Your comments can Support

Tue Mar 24 18:00:59 EDT 2009

Milton is right to mention how burdensome the work of a GNSO  
Councilor is at ICANN and I also appreciate those individuals such as  
Mary, Bill, Carlos I-II, Norbert, and others who have been willing to  
donate their time to the thankless job of representing non-commercial  
users in Internet policy negotiations at ICANN.

Given the march on ICANN in recent months of the crusaders of content  
regulation, there has never been a better time for both individuals  
and organizations who care about a free and open Internet to get  
involved in civil society policy discussions at ICANN.

Frankly, we very much need your help.  Most people who are devoted to  
Internet policy from the civil society perspective rarely show up at  
ICANN meetings or participate in ICANN discussion forums.  This  
vacuum has left the door wide open for a small vocal and organized  
extremist viewpoint to take hold at ICANN in recent months.

There are many opportunities for participation at ICANN, including  
participating on issue-specific working groups, drafting teams, and  
other committees looking into or recommending policy choices to the  
ICANN Board.  If civil society really started to join in the ICANN  
policy negotiations, I'm sure we'd have a much different, much better  
ICANN, and thus a better Internet.

Below is a membership application for non-commercial organizations  
and individuals should anyone would care to fill one out and send it  
to me to join the noncommercial users constituency at ICANN.  I hope  
you will consider joining and contributing whatever amount of energy  
you can spare.  You would be most welcome.

Thank you!
Robin

_____________________________________________________________

For organizations:

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION for NONCOMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
ICANN GNSO Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC)

To: 	NCUC Secretariat
	c/o IP Justice, San Francisco, CA USA
	rgross at ipjustice.org

Please provide the following information and send it to the address  
above, preferably in electronic form by email. For details and  
questions, please refer to the NCUC charter at http://www.ncdnhc.org/ 
current_charter.htm  first.

A) Organisation Details
Name of the Organization:

Name of the Director:

Domain Name of the Organization:

Mailing Address of the Organization:

Email address of the organization:

B) Representatives

We designate the following person as our official representative in  
NCUC:
Name:

Telephone Number:

E-mail address:

We designate the following person as our alternate representative in  
NCUC:
Name:

Telephone Number:

E-mail address:

C) Type of membership

  ___	Small Organization (under 1000 members or under 200 employees /  
dues: US$ 50 for two years)

  ___	Large Organization (1000 or more members or 200 or more  
employees / dues: US$100 for two years)

  ___	Request for membership fee waiver. As requested, we attach our  
budget details and explanation
	Membership dues must arrive to enable membership rights unless the  
Executive Committee issues a waiver.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Individuals:

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FOR PROVISIONAL INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP IN THE NCUC

Thank you for your interest in joining the Noncommercial Users  
Constituency!
Until July 2008, NCUC was limited to noncommercial organizations. At  
the Paris
meeting we decided to experiment with opening up to individual users  
who are
interested in the public interest aspects of ICANN policy.

Until we formally modify our charter, individuals who join through  
this route
do not have voting rights. They will be added to our discussion list  
and will
also be able to participate in all other aspects of our activities.  
We hope to
approve the modification of our charter this Fall (October or  
November) and
allow individual members to vote after that.

Please fill out the form below.

==========================================

Name:

Postal address:

email address for adding to the NCUC-discuss list:

retype email address:

Please tell us which of the following three eligibility categories  
applies to you:

a) I am an individual who has registered domain names for personal,  
family or noncommercial use;

b) I am an individual Internet user who is primarily concerned with  
the public interest
aspects of domain name policy, and I am not represented in ICANN  
through membership in
another Supporting Organization or GNSO Stakeholder Group;

c) I am employed by or a member of a large noncommercial  
organizations (universities,
colleges, large NGOs) and it is too complicated or I lack the  
standing to get my
organization to join on an organizational basis.

Check the one that applies best to you:

a) ___

b) ___

c) ___

I agree to advocate a non-commercial, public-interest position within  
the constituency.

AGREE____      DISAGREE____

Return this text as an email to NCUC Chair, Robin Gross,  
rgross at ipjustice.org

We will evaluate your application and get back to you soon.

--------------------------------------------------------

On Mar 24, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>> Except for:
>>>
>>> " 3.4.4. As a transitional provision, the first election for the
>>> June 2009 ICANN
>>> meeting will elect three (3) NCSG Council Representatives, and the
>>> terms of the 3
>>> NCUC Council Representatives elected in October 2008 will
>> run until
>>> June 2010."
>>
>> Yes, Mary, Carlos and I would remain as 3 of the 6, just in the
>> transition period.  It would be useful to have some continuity in
>> engagement in the counsel's arcane work program, particularly at a
>> time when things are being restructured. This hardly represents
>> capture by an incumbent cabal, especially since the NCSG will
>> just be beginning reformulation and might have trouble coming up with
>> six plug and play candidates on the fly.
>
> The other thing Bill doesn't mention is that Bill, Mary and Carlos  
> were elected only in November, and their first ICANN meeting was in  
> March. The idea of roping them into this process, which they are  
> just learning to cope with, and then making the NCSG throw out  
> their hard won learning curve and start over again after 6-8 months  
> is crazy. The standard term for Councilors is 2-3 years.
>
> I cannot overemphasize the complexity and time commitments involved  
> in being on the GNSO Council and performing well on it, nor my  
> gratitude to those who volunteered to do it.
>
> --MM
>
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IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org

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