[ga] ICANN Reform -- Process Issues

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

If we review the posts made to the Transfers TF since the first of this year, 
we can come to the following conclusions:

There have been no postings made by the ISP constituency, none by the IPC, 
none by the Non-Commercial constituency representatives that replaced Milton 
Mueller, no substantive comments by the BC representative that is not the 
Chair, and no postings by the representative of the GA.  What does this tell 
us?  We now have a thoroughly non-representative group in which only six 
people are currently participating through written comments, and not one of 
them represents the interests of registrants who are most affected by the 
issue of transfers.  

The TF process only serves to lock in those who choose not to participate, 
and manages to exclude everyone else that has good cause to participate... 
and even those that can participate do so only in a limited fashion (there 
have been more postings made by the Chair's personal executive assistant than 
by the ccTLDs and gTLDs combined).  

We have been arguing since Day One that registrants need to be included in 
the policy-making process, most especially when such policy-making directly 
affects their interests.  Recently we have seen a number of postings by 
Richard Henderson whose organization represents the interests of registrants. 
 There are other organizations as well that concern themselves with 
registrant issues.  But none of these organizations has ever been invited to 
participate in the process, and every attempt to include such groups has been 
rebuffed.  Its bad enough that there is no representation for registrants 
within either the DNSO or ICANN, but the fact that "interested parties", 
whose rights are ostensibly protected under our Bylaws, are routinely refused 
"participation" demonstrates how perverse the TF process has become.

This process (denying representation and participation to others that have a 
right to be involved) is the hallmark of the BC and several of their allied 
constituencies that control the NC.  They are at the root of everything that 
is wrong, sick, and putrid within the DNSO.  Let's not forget how often these 
groups acted in concert to deny the possibility of an individual's 
constituency.  It is this group that has summarily refused to establish open 
working groups, and which has steadfastly refused to even "discuss" the 
restructuring of the DNSO as proposed by the membership of the GA.  These are 
the folks that seek to muzzle the fair and open discussion of ideas so that 
only their views may prevail.

If we are to reform the ICANN, we need to take steps to curb the abuse of 
power not only at the Board level, but even moreso within the Supporting 
Organizations.  Members of the GA have no votes within the Council of the 
DNSO, and yet our active membership (that is not affliliated with any given 
constituency) far exceeds the membership of most other constituent groups.  
We have been denied representation in the decision-making process, and have 
witnessed the steady erosion of our remaining rights.  Instead of 
constituencies participating in the large open working groups of the GA, we 
now have only solitary GA participants in groups of the NC.  

It is not time to "improve" the TF process.  It is time to thoroughly 
repudiate it as an artifice designed solely to limit input and to manipulate 
results.  When Stuart Lynn talks about the problems within ICANN, we all know 
that the blame for many of those problems lays right at the doorstep of the 
Names Council.  Most of their Task Forces have been doing a pathetic job and 
the guidance being offered to the Board is practically useless.  The 
Structure TF is a joke, the Review TF was a disaster, and the Transfers TF 
has accomplished next-to-nothing in the last five months.

We are now at the point where we all need to actively discuss the reform or 
replacement of ICANN.  The Non-Commercial constituency called for a working 
group to involve everyone in the process, but again the Council vetoed that 
idea and returned to a Council Task Force approach.  Having listened to the 
last TF teleconference, I am now fully convinced that this TF will also fail 
miserably, and will offer guidance only at such a high level of generality 
that its recommendations will be practically useless.

This Council is not prepared to learn from its mistakes (the DNSO Review was 
sufficent proof of that).  We must advise the Board that eliminating this 
Council in particular is in the best interest of ICANN and long overdue.


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