Open mike at ICANN
There are no US journalists here, as far as I can tell. One reporter told me, before I came here, that he'd asked his editors about covering ICANN and they just flapped their hands at him — nothing happens there — and gave him another assignment. The distance from the US for most of these meetings is just too much for any rational reporter to sell to an editor. Kuala Lumpur? You've got to be kidding.
So I feel an obligation to blog, not only for the US but for whoever else wants to listen. The most interesting thing that happened publicly, by far, was the engineers v. innovators squabble of yesterday — I did try to cover that. It seemed to many of the people I talked to afterwards that the engineers are creating more controversy (”it's very dangerous to create new TLDs“) than is necessary. Surely there is some process that would allow a few to be created a year. With thin contracts along the “everything is permitted except things that are prohibited by consensus policies” line.
Here comes the open mike:
Wolfgan Kleinwachter: When will the first At Large Regional Organization be created? What's the connection between between ICANN and .gov and .int?
Vittorio Bertola: No simple answer to the At Large question. It's not clear that these regional groups will emerge — very cumbersome process, in my view. -ed. We're continuing outreach. Individual membership is an old question. We do have to involve users in ICANN directly, for specific policy issues. People want to participate directly. Take a look at WSIS. We're thinking about setting up mailing lists etc. for other ways to participate in ICANN.
Roberto Gaetano: Personal opinion is that if we at this point in time (in the middle of the effort of getting RALOs and more organizations up) open to individual membership and start creating confusion, we'll make work of outreach harder. When the RALOs are in place with the critical mass of at large organizations as members, then we should talk about it.
Bruce Tonkin: About .gov and .int and .edu – simple answer is No, we don't have involvement. They're not generic or global — they're US-based. (Vint — not necc. true of .edu).
Markus Faure (registrar): CORE has been set up to bid competition to markets, so interested in strong ICANN. But we have a problem with a $40 million budget — Paul can't clarify assumptions right now, I understand that. We have sent a representative to the budget advisory group and we'll work with ICANN.
Second point — I love this place, but internet connection not so great. (poor guy). ICANN should consider getting a refund from the local ISP — help the budget.
Izumi Aizu: The issue of individual users remains a very valid question. I've had a lot of experience with this. ALAC is making fair progress, but not doing as much as we wanted or expected from others. Still have some doubt whether we'll be successful in setting up RALOs in five regions quickly, given the political climate around the world. We're evaluating ourselves and the framework we're working with. Question is whether there are really interested users out there who want to participate without a subsidy. This isn't the core business of users! It's so hard to justify getting involved. I'm not sure this is sustainable. If it is difficult to self-organize, what should we do? Does ICANN need the involvement of individuals? ICANN should decide whether it wants ALAC in the context of the WSIS process — in which ICANN's legitimate right to represent the public interest is being questioned.
Milton Mueller: Listened with interest to your review of registry service changes. Any discussion of distinction between dominant/non-dominant registries? or would this apply to every registry? is that even feasible? Are you just focused on VeriSign and SiteFinder?
Bruce Tonkin: What do you mean by dominant?
Milton: That's for the regulator to decide — the GNSO. These distinctions are to some extent arbitrary, but have to be made.
Bruce: Distinction so far is about sponsored v. unsponsored so far. Sponsoreds have the view that they have their own internal process (not just the view, the contractual framework!) for registry services. Real question is what is the result of the new gTLD process. If we have thousands of them, we'll have lots of overhead, you're right. As we get more experience, the controls may well be loosened over time. Right now it seems as if we need more control. (”recent events” = SiteFinder). If the contracts change, that will be different. The plan is to have the new .net contract provide a template for every tld — watch that contract. .75 per registration event to ICANN, plus .25 from the registrars — ICANN gets a dollar a name.
James Seng: Re individual participation. ALAC has made great progress. What's the measurement of success? Will individuals actually have their voice heard? The discussion level is very very low. Perhaps there's a tool that large committees should have.
Twomey: Staff considers the voice of the consumer to be absolutely essential part of the ICANN construct and the ICANN philosophy. We absolutely need the voice of the consumer. But it's hard. We're trying to do that.
Vint: We do have public comment, but it's true people may not know about ICANN. We do have an outreach/visibility problem. Key is getting feedback from registrants who are affected by policies that are made by ICANN.
Marie Zitkova: Makes clear that sponsors are in the registry constituency and represent a community.
James Seng: Let's use some online tools. (yes!) Don't spend more money on participation.
Izumi: Let's have both travel and more online tools. Not mutually exclusive. We have a challenge with ALAC outreach — how do we explain this. ICANN is so many different things. ICANN needs to explain itself better, and explain At Large as well. Not just At Large people should be explaining At Large. I've been asked whether I'm a puppet of the ICANN board. We need credibility, but it's difficult. Who needs At Large? If ICANN needs it, should support it.
Also, being “advisory” is a tough sell. How can we convince people that they can directly influence policy? How can we effectively involve users' voices in ICANN policy?
Vittorio Bertola: We still don't have privacy in whois — people ask us about that, and we can't respond. Organizations with limited resources choose not to participate in ICANN. Also, online tools may not reach the At Large people — not internet-savvy.
Also, ICANN has to think about its organization/structure for these meetings. It's hard when everything gets rescheduled on the fly, and without things to read in advance. This will help people who aren't insiders.
Keith Davidson (.nz): Thanks for the meetings committee organization — we'll be in Wellington, New Zealand in 2006.
Mohamet Diop: I've heard from the African At Large people that ICANN staff is trying hard to forward the discussion at the regional level, but it's not enough. There's a lack of awareness of what ICANN is and what it's doing at a national level. People don't have information or a forum. (ICANN does have a steep learning curve — it should be blogging and teaching and explaining. And it needs docket sheets.) We need to leverage the presence of the ICANN staff to help people get the right information about ICANN.
Greg Ruth (ISPCP constituency): Strategic plan: it's a welcome step forward, but proposal still lacks measurable objectives and detailed time lines. No contracts with root server operators — we'd like to see that. We support IANA upgrade suggestions in the plan. But reference made to ASO community “building global consensus policy governing IP addresses” is not supported by the demise of an independent ASO. We're glad to see an ombudsman and an emphasis on compliance. PDP process needs to be flexible and tailored. What's up with this regional meetings suggestion? We need more information. Finally, ISPCP notes with dismay that SOs not consulted before the strategic plan was sent out. This plan has real consequences for policy.
Vint: Plan is open for suggestions at all times.
Elliot Noss: Repeat some comments made in a different way on other occasions here: Expired names market. Two points to frame this discussion. Back to my Rome comments in March about WLS, where I said that dealing with WLS would be irrelevant because the market would move past WLS. I was right. First, I want to identify two stages in the life of a name. Registrant retains rights with existing registrars; second, when registry deals with expired names. In dealing with this market, first stage is about $50, second stage is about $6-$50.
Second comment: I want to explicitly tell you that you have an interesting market to deal with. The demand side of this market is very efficient. Prices are at fair market value. All of the problems are on the supply (registrar/registry) side. Most important question to deal with for the Board will be who's entitled to the money generated by the demand. We've been dealing with this since September 2001. The party that is most entitled to the revenue here is the previous registrant.
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Susan, not that your summary is wrong (perhaps I wasnt able to articulate myself well), i think my point is beyond participation & tools.
http://james.seng.cc/archives/2004/12/04/icann_at-large.html