[council] RE: [pdp-pcceg-feb06] DoC Approved .com Agreement

[Marilyn Cade]

Dear colleagues

Some days, I wonder whether 'we' have forgotten, or abandoned the concepts
we believed in, in the days of creating ICANN, and whether some parties who
are new to ICANN are fully aware of the concept that those who founded ICANN
believed in -- that ICANN would function in a limited but critical role of
protecting the public trust in the coordination and management of the
critical and  unique indicators of the global Internet. 

This concept stands as valid today as it did when we worked to create ICANN
and to move the coordination functions into the private sector. 

Another concept stands as valid as it did then, even if it is being
reinterpreted today. That concept is the bottom up, consensus based approach
to decision making. 

Participation can be differentiated from bottom up consensus based decision
making, and perhaps we need to explore that distinction further. 

These concepts takes on lots of challenges as the Internet grows and
expands, of course, and it is naturally important to have broader and deeper
participation. But it is also important to retain the support and interest
and respect of the stakeholders who created ICANN, and without whose
support, the stages of evolution and growth simply will not naturally occur.

The story seems simple to grasp: to build an ICANN that is ever evolving,
one must include and embrace present stakeholders, AND find ways to reach
out to and incorporate new stakeholders. But to focus on only the 'new'
without a respect for the present stakeholders seems ill advised. 

And the concept of consensus based decision making in policy may need to be
differentiated from the concept of merely participating. After all, I care
about how many digits there are in the North American numbering plan, and in
the international calling plan, since I want to know how to dial Vint Cerf's
telephone number, or the number of a colleague from the BC, located in
Kenya, but I may not want to spend a lot of time debating how standards are
set. I may want to know that change is coming, but may not be willing to
devote countless hours to studying, informing myself, and understanding the
consequences of different choices. I use telephone numbers merely as a
neutral example, since most of us do still dial phone numbers, and most
policy issues at ICANN may bring put opinions about outcomes. This analogy
is intended to point out that 'awareness and following an issue' may be
different than informed participation in policy making. 

Of  note, however, even as we may grabble with participation in ICANN's
meetings and following ICANN's policy agendas, I see another shift that is
of concern. 

For a variety of reasons, recently, I've reviewed the history of bylaw
changes, and other evolutionary 'enhancements' to ICANN materials and
position statements, PR, etc. 

I see changes in language, and I see a marked and quite distinct change in
language over the last few years, and the past year in particular, where
staff developed documents shift from 'bottom up consensus based' to 'global
multi stakeholder participation model'. I see language from staff that
shifts from "Internet" to 'internet'. The last is alarming, given the recent
rather significant battle fought, and won, by people like me, representing
AT&T, Cisco, Lucent, Verizon, BT, France Telecom, Telefonica, ETNO, KDDI,
Fujitsu, working closely with governments to ensure that the ITU's Plenipot
documents do not use 'internet' in place of "Internet" .Yet, I see documents
coming out of ICANN itself with this. For those who don't grasp the issue ..
'internet' means internetworking and allows other entities to encroach into
the ICANN work space more easily. "The Internet" is and has been the space
where ICANN's role was established and is increasingly acknowledged and
accepted.

Language, and choice of words is important. 

Perhaps what we have is new staff -- in visiting the ICANN site, there are a
lot of new folks - who lack the historical perspective and are not possibly
enabled to interact with and grasp the importance of 'where we came from'.
It is easy to think that that isn't important. 

As my father, recently deceased used to say "if you don't know where you are
going, any road will take you there". He also told me that history and
experience are marvelous teachers, and that is a shame that the young have
to wait to get old to have experienced both. :-) 

Most of us who helped to create ICANN believe that it is to act in the
limited but unique role of managing and coordinating the unique indicators,
acting in the public trust. 

But that role is only accepted as it is supportable by the majority of
stakeholders, beyond registries and registrars who are suppliers in the
model of ICANN, but it must include the business community of users, ISPs,
and NGOs, as well as governments. 

As we come to Sao Paulo, I am asking myself where we are in that challenge
-- and how to improve the commitment that I believed in when I helped to
found ICANN, and that I still embrace. 

Marilyn 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pdp-pcceg-feb06 at icann.org
[mailto:owner-pdp-pcceg-feb06 at icann.org] On Behalf Of Bret Fausett
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 4:33 PM
To: Neuman, Jeff; Avri Doria
Cc: PDPfeb06; John Jeffrey
Subject: Re: [pdp-pcceg-feb06] DoC Approved .com Agreement

On 11/30/06 1:11 PM, "Neuman, Jeff" <Jeff.Neuman at neustar.us> wrote:
> Why continue working on items that are outside the scope?

It's been apparent to me for some time that the interests of the public and
the commercial interests of the registries diverge to such a degree on the
items in this task force, even the scope of the task force, that it makes
little sense to continue working on them together. Since we're never going
to reach unanimity, I'm skeptical about the value of of continuing to debate
procedure, scope, and substance on every point and in every meeting when
it's apparent to everyone that the result of our work, whenever we conclude,
will be two reports, one a majority report and another a minority report. I
don't mean this as a slight to the registries, or anyone else, it's just an
obvious fact that we're never going to reach agreement on a single set of
recommendations. 

In light of this, I wonder whether we should simply split some of our next
meetings so we're not taking each other's time debating points that will not
be resolved. 

      Bret