[CCWG-Accountability] the term "community"

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 10 January 2015 at 06:21, Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin at melbourneit.com.au>
wrote:


> 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.


​Yes, but inside the ICANN bubble even the term "users" is ambiguous. There
is even uncertainty whether an ICANN "user" is either

a) an owner of a domain name
b) someone accessing the Internet through a computing device, who may or
may not be using the DNS to do so

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".


> 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.
>

​Indeed. But what say have they traditionally had within ICANN?

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.

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.


> Its primary feedback mechanism for determining the global public interest
> is the "ICANN community" described above.
>

​That's the theory.​


​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.
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