Re: [ga] Consumer/Registrant Protection Consitituency

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2001-07-31 23:21:24 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
>On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 08:43:45PM -0700, William S. Lovell wrote:

Whow, time travel. ;-)

>It is a sad irony that those who most vociferously complain about 
>ICANN exceeding its mandate as a technical coordinating body are 
>precisely the ones who exert the most pressure for it to become a 
>global internet governance organization, with large scale global 
>elections and an elaborate representational structure that some 
>have compared to the UN. It is a great pity that those 
>individuals, some of whom are otherwise quite intelligent, are 
>simply oblivious to the intrinsic contradiction in their position, 
>and to the inevitable consequences of that contradiction...

I'd agree with you if ICANN would indeed just be a technical 
coordination body.  There'd really be few justification for 
sophisticated user representation structures if we'd be talking 
about keeping lists of media types, port numbers, and possibly top 
level domains.

But, sad enough, ICANN is in the business of domain name policy, 
which directly affects users' rights.  Consider the UDRP: As a 
domain name holder, I'm subject to that policy's procedures. Working 
out such a policy in a process which is restricted to non-customer 
stake holders doesn't look justifiable to me.  Consider the 
provisions for initial domain registrations in the new TLDs.  Once 
again, these regulations directly influence customers' interests.

That is, whereever ICANN acts as a regulatory monopoly (that is, 
customers can't opt out except by not using the Internet, or by not 
registering domains), customer (or individual) representation seems 
necessary.

Now, of course, there's the question how this can be accomplished in 
an appropriate way which doesn't justify mission-creep by 
over-legitimization.

One thing which would greatly simplify this would be some kind of 
internet-centric global customer coalition which could take the role 
of consumer watchdogs and advocates in more traditional regulatory 
environments and consultations.  (Civil Liberties Constituency, 
anyone?) In a working consensus-building process, such a coalition 
or constituency could prove quite valuable, and may be close to 
sufficient for customer/user interest representation in the 
policy-making process.

Bad enough, it doesn't seem that this process is working as designed 
nowadays.  In particular, it seems that most of the more important 
decisions are NOT made in documented consensus-building procedures 
within the DNSO (or even the DNSO GA), but on the board.  Also, I 
don't see a Civil Liberties Constituency, yet.

Thus, the second question which comes up is who should be 
represented on the board, and how they should be represented. 

And that's precisely where the hard part of the problem begins. Just 
look at the ccTLDs...

-- 
Thomas Roessler                        http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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