<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:trebuchet ms,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On 10 January 2015 at 06:21, Bruce Tonkin </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au" target="_blank">Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Then there is term "public" which is used within the term "global public interest". In general, I personally think of the public in this context as Internet users.</blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">Yes, but inside the ICANN bubble even the term "users" is ambiguous. There is even uncertainty whether an ICANN "user" is either </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">a) an owner of a domain name</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">b) someone accessing the Internet through a computing device, who may or may not be using the DNS to do so</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">Consider the NCUC, which by its very name is intended to represent "users" within the GNSO. Ownership of at least one domain name is a pre-requisite of NCUC membership. So what constituency (that is, a full voting GNSO component, as opposed to a non-voting advisory body) represents non-domain-owning Internet "users".</div></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">However you could also consider public in this context to be all the people of the world. Even people that don't directly use the Internet as a communication mechanism are probably affected by it in some way.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">Indeed. But what say have they traditionally had within ICANN?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">Of course, there is the ALAC, which has a Bylaw mandate to speak for end users. But, the gap between speaking and being listened to has been, while slowly closing, still rather wide.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">I don't have to go far into the world to see a perception of ICANN as a compact between domain sellers and domain buyers that considers only their interests, with general indifference to consequences beyond those two groups. There has never, in the time I have been involved as a volunteer here, been any core conversation about the ethics of enabling dictionary words to be commoditized in a manner that goes well outside the bounds of trademark treaty. Other non-debated core values have not only led to the maximization of duplicate and defensive domains, but now seem to depend upon them for some participants' business models; these fundamental choices clearly did not consider -- and certainly did not engage -- the broader world.</div></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Its primary feedback mechanism for determining the global public interest is the "ICANN community" described above.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif;display:inline">That's the theory.</div> </div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms',sans-serif">The ongoing (and recently escalating) friction between the ICANN board and its two "global public interest" Advisory Boards indicates that this mechanism is not as effective as it should be.</div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>
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