[ga] RE: [IFWP] A Proposal: Internet Impact Report (IIR)

["William X. Walsh" <william@dso.net>]

This is an excellent suggestion, Ellen.

However, the issue would be who would make up the group that investigates
and prepares the report?  How would the make up of such groups be decided?

Let me spell out one example:  gTLDs.

One of the issues the people who believe all gTLDs should be non-profit
shared registry systems rebid every year claim that lock-in and other
economic impacts result from any other model.  However, none of them are
economists or specialists in trade and commerce issues.

Yet an FTC panel examined this very issue and determined that these claims
were entirely invalid.  Who would be the "Expert" panel that addresses
this concern?  Would this group be required to "sub-contract" out certain
areas of the review process, such as "economic impact" to experts like
this used by the Federal Trade Commission?  

If so, this would be a great idea, because then you get rid of the
rhetoric, and are dealing with people who examine these issues in real
world situations, rather than on ideological grounds.



On 17-Nov-99 erony wrote:
> What does an expansion project for the San Francisco Airport have to do
> with ICANN?
> 
> Such a project, extruding into the S.F. Bay, must wade through
> presentations by many stakeholders (e.g., Save the Bay, Sierra Club, Bay
> Planning Coalition, South Bay homeowners, etc.) and pass muster from a
> number of agencies and commissions ( e.g., Regional Water Quality
> Control
> Board, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
> Department, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a bunch of acronyms I
> won't
> list here).
> 
> Today, I was asked to serve as a commissioner on a mock informational
> hearing of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission on this
> proposed
> expansion. The experience suggested to me a model that might be applied
> to
> the difficult Internet names and numbering issues ahead.
> 
> The airport expansion proposal will require an Environmental Impact
> Report
> (EIR) which examines issues related to hydrology, geology, habitat,
> water
> quality, air quality, etc.
> 
> Why not require an IIR, Internet Impact Report, for ICANN'S most
> contentious policies?
> 
> One of the most worrisome features of ICANN's byzantine structure is
> that
> the "consensus policies" do not represent consensus so much as the
> perspective of a  handful of individuals and organizations who are
> plying
> preferred interests under the guise of shared responsibility.
> 
> Wouldn't the Internet community be better served with a process for
> technical management that fully investigates the issues and formalizes a
> requirement for a credible alternative analysis before adoption.
> 
> Any policy that potentially affects the technical coordination of more
> than
> 20% of the Internet stakeholders should require an Internet Impact
> Report.
> The first step would be a scoping session, which flushes out whatever
> issues surround the proposal   This would assure that policies are not
> driven by well-funded stakeholders but are developed in a manner that
> analyzes the technical, economic, legal, architectural and logistical
> impacts.  The IIR should also provide a baseline for comparison and
> adaptive set of principles, plus assess the cumulative impacts of the
> proposal.
> 
> Maybe that sounds too much like bureaucracy, but I feel the existing
> fast-track, quick-to-adopt, slow-to-adapt approach needs to be
> re-examined.
> Difficult, contentious issues are informally discussed in small working
> groups which submit recommendations that are considered at the SO level
> with no baseline, adoptive or adaptive underlying principles.  
> Certainly a
> deep and broad exploration of the hard issues, which an IIR could
> provide,
> should be built into the process
> 
> The Internet is an evolving system, and decisions made today will
> reverberate worldwide and affect future generations of users.  If we
> don't
> have enough time to do all this right, we certainly don't have enough
> time
> to do it all over.
> 
> In my humble opinion.
> 
> 
> .........................................................................
> ...
> Ellen Rony                         ____             The Domain Name
> Handbook
> Co-author                    ^..^     )6    
http://www.domainhandbook.com
> +1 (415) 435-5010            (oo) -^--                     ISBN
> 0879305150
> Tiburon, CA                        W   W              
> erony@marin.k12.ca.us
>          DOT COM is the Pig Latin of the Information Age
> .........................................................................
> ...

--
William X. Walsh - DSo Internet Services
Email: william@dso.net  Fax:(209) 671-7934