[CWG-Stewardship] Fate of the .INT domain

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 03:07:23PM -0400, Greg Shatan wrote:

> "For so specialised a TLD, is this really something for wide community
> decision - stakeholders who are not stakeholders (or interested parties) in
> this decision?"
> 
> The idea that stakeholders must be "stakeholders (or interested parties" in
> a particular decision in order to participate in a process really stands
> the multistakeholder model on its head.  If we exclude certain sectors of
> stakeholders from a process, it really cannot be called multistakeholder
> any longer

I believe these claims are mistaken in the specific case, and in the
more general case.

First, for the specific case.  INT is not the root zone.  It is a
peculiar beast, designated to handle certain things that nobody else
handled at the time.  As I understand it, it may not even have been
something everyone thought a good idea when it was created.  So it is
not clear that "the wide community" ought to have an opinion about,
nor even that a multistakeholder approach can correctly handle it.  As
Bill points out elsewhere in this thread, we don't expect a
multistakeholder approach for ccTLDs.

More generally, I think Greg's argument slides too quickly from
"multistakeholder" to "everyone".  It is simply not the case that
multistakeholder entails that every possible class of stakeholder need
be considered.  All "multistakeholder" means is that multiple classes
of stakeholder are considered, and not that every class of stakeholder
must be included.  To provide a perhaps obvious example: there are
neo-luddites and others committed to not using certain modern
technologies, including the Internet.  Should we consider their views
on the administration of IANA?  I would claim "obviously not."  So,
again to the specific case, even if you think that INT's delegation
needs a multistakeholder process, it isn't obvious that it is the same
group of stakeholders as the one relevant to the IANA stewardship for
the root zone.  This is part of why I have been arguing that, as long
as we've come up with something (and "GAC is handling it" seems like
something), we needn't do more.

Finally,

> The idea that being an "interested party" should be a qualification for
> participating in a decision causes even greater concern.  If anything, this
> could be deemed a disqualification

If being an interested party is a disqualification from a
multistakeholder prodcess, then we really have turned things on their
head.  For a significant reason to prefer multistakeholder processes
over alternatives is precisely that you can get the views of
interested parties.  They may be conflicted, it's true, but they also
often have insights by virtue of their relevant experience.

Best regards,

A

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Andrew Sullivan
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