[governance] Re: Regarding "the idea that a fully internationalised, representative ICANN Board can fulfil this oversight function"

[Ian Peter]

John -

My reading of the original ICANN, both from the acronym and the history, is
that it was established to perform some basic and necessary administrative
functions pertaining to the competent operation of the DNS.

What was not envisaged at that time was the money spinning wheeling dealing
high fee tld domain industrial function pertaining to new domain names that
has evolved and from my (admittedly distant) view become the basic business
of the organisation.

In other words, its now an industry, not an administrative function.

The most common western model of industry regulation is industry self
regulation with government oversight. That's I think what governments would
like, and is broadly what we have with NTIA only it is unilateral. The
industry, like most industries, would be happy to have nothing to do with
governments (and does GAC to avoid trouble basically).

In such a model, the industry body might be required to report annually or
periodically on its performance.

If a multistakeholder function to perform this oversight at some distance
from the industry is established, we might actually gain something
acceptable to all stakeholders. If we don't move in that direction
pro-actively, a mish mash of separate national or regional interventions
might lead to a far less acceptable model.

Which is where I think we need to actively create sensible internet
governance, involving all stakeholders, rather than just taking a reactive
stance to the various government attempts to introduce strange and not well
considered controls. That I think is the challenge, but I suspect we will
just continue to resist government taking any role and as a result have less
satisfactory outcomes.

Ian


> From: John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org>
> Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:52:18 -0600
> To: Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
> Cc: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> Subject: Regarding "the idea that a fully internationalised, representative
> ICANN Board can fulfill this oversight function"
> 
> (regarding "the idea that a fully internationalised, representative
> ICANN Board can fulfill this oversight function")
> 
> On Mar 11, 2012, at 1:58 PM, Ian Peter wrote:
> 
>> Well, I don't reject it but I am not sure it is the best resolution.
>> 
>> ICANN is morphing into a domainer industry body, with token representation
>> of other stakeholders to indicate that it is being consultative. I would not
>> like such an organisation to be making policy decisions for the Internet.
> 
> An actual separate domainer industry body that only developed policy
> for the DNS system (via open and transparent processes) was actually
> the original plan for the "DNSO" per the ICANN blueprint.  While that
> model requires diligence to insure for equitable consideration of all
> issues on their merits regardless of the parties participating, it has
> the benefit of an smaller ICANN organization whose sole role is oversight
> of the openness and transparency of processes and ratification of policies
> developed in accordance with those processes (and instills a relatively
> high immunity at the Board level regarding lobbying for policy changes.)
> 
>> Far better that there is external oversight if this is the direction
>> - in that case replacing NTIA oversight with something more like a
>> multistakeholder IGF would be better than trying to make ICANN
>> something it is not and doesn't want to be.
> 
> Again, that was supposed to be the primary role of the ICANN Board, now
> buttressed by both the GAC and the Affirmation of Commitments. I agree
> that is very difficult to perform oversight of openness & transparency
> of processes and the adherence to those processes for developed policy
> if the ICANN Board is routinely an integral part of policy development.
> 
> FYI,
> /John
> 
> (disclaimers apply: my views alone; no photons moved faster than light
> in the writing of this email; warning - reading raw or underdeveloped
> thoughts may increase your risk of developing various mental psychosis)
> 
> 
> 



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