[council] Email from Steve Crocker referenced in update by Sally Costerton

Thu Feb 27 11:59:47 UTC 2014

Dear All,

Please find below the email from Steve Crocker that Sally referred to during
her presentation.

Best regards,

Marika

http://1net-mail.1net.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-February/002194.html
Steve Crocker  steve at shinkuro.com
<mailto:discuss%401net.org?Subject=Re:%20Re%3A%20%5Bdiscuss%5D%20governments
%20and%20rule%20of%20law%20%28was%3A%20Possible%09approaches%0A%09to%20solvi
ng...%29&In-Reply-To=%3C22C00783-6F76-4649-9EBA-F61001A25504%40shinkuro.com%
3E> 
 Tue Feb 25 22:48:42 UTC 2014

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Marilyn,

Even when you speak darkly you brighten my day :)

Let me speak simply and directly on some topics that seem to recur.  One
topic is 1net and the Brazil meeting.  Another is about direction and
governance of ICANN.  Many of us, including me, know these are quite
separate topics, but both seem to be coming up repeatedly.

With respect to 1net and the Brazil meeting, the motivation for these is to
develop additional mechanisms and forums for dealing with the broad range of
topics that fall generally under the rubric of Internet governance.  The
primary focus is not -- or, at least, should not be -- about ICANN, though I
can well imagine there will be at least some focus on ICANN.  Brazil is
hosting the meeting in Sao Paulo, along with several other governments, and
ICANN is merely a participant.  Fadi and his team have been very helpful in
the process, and they have done with the full support of the ICANN Board,
but this is a form of public service that comes along with our main mission;
it is not our main mission and we are not seeking to expand our purview.

Meanwhile, with respect to the roles of the Supporting Organizations,
Advisory Committees, Board and the staff in the decision process within
ICANN, we remain committed to the multi-stakeholder model with emphasis on a
bottom up process and open participation from all.  The staff's role is to
implement and execute.  This is a large task.  It requires a lot of
resources, and, necessarily some judgment along the way, but the staff does
not try to control the direction.  The Board also sees itself as having a
limited role.  We have a legal obligation to oversee the finances and
properly operation of the corporation and to make sure the rules are being
followed.  We are keenly aware that the bylaws appear to put us in the
position of making the primary decisions regarding policy, but we know the
real directions are set by the community.  The Board watches to see
processes are followed and that problems get solved, but we try to avoid
doing the work ourselves.

Some -- perhaps most -- of what makes various people uncomfortable is coming
from the scaling up of ICANN's activities.  When we all decided to move
forward with new gTLDs, with IDNs, with DNSSEC, with outreach to each of the
regions, and with many other initiatives, it was inevitable that the
organization would grow and change.  We also chose, in response to the
changing political environment,  to engage in the larger dialog about
Internet governance as a whole.

The ICANN you contributed to -- and we all owe you many thanks for your
tireless efforts and many good things that have come from your efforts --
has grown, matured and become far more capable of dealing with the wide
range of business, technical, policy and political issues in front of it
than it used to be.

ICANN is not yet done evolving.  I don't know precisely what it will look
like in the future, but I am pretty sure there will be changes.  Some of
these changes will be small, subtle changes; others may be more visible and
seem dramatic.  However, all of these changes will be motivated by the same
enduring principles that ICANN's mission is to coordinate the unique
identifiers for the Internet and ensure their security and stability, that
ICANN must also foster competition and innovation, that ICANN must be
transparent and accountable, and that ICANN has to be effective, efficient
and empathic with the community it serves.

Steve

On Feb 25, 2014, at 4:50 PM, Marilyn Cade <marilynscade at hotmail.com
<http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss> > wrote:

> I will say [darkly] that that is not the ICANN I helped to contribute to, and
it is not the ICANN that I support, but it seems to be the ICANN that the Board
is enabling. 
> 
> Too many staff -- new-- don't even actually know what ICANN does, how it does
it, or why.
> 
> I think a 'hit pause' button is needed.
> 
> M
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Feb 25, 2014, at 7:20 AM, "Avri Doria" <avri at acm.org
<http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss> > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 24-Feb-14 23:41, Mike Roberts wrote:
>>>> From a legal perspective, which may or may not be valued by those
>>>> on this list, only an approved Board resolution represents the
>>>> position of the organization
>> 
>> From a legal perspective yes.  And if ICANN is just another money making
corporation, that is indeed the way it should be and it should only be the CEO
and properly trained corporate mouthpeices speaking for it.
>> 
>> But from the multistakeholder PoV we keep selling ourselves, that is not the
way it should be, and not the fantasy most of us keep laboring under.
>> 
>> Unfortunately ICANN is more the standard corporation with a CEO who has his
own vision, with a Board that approves, instead of the multistakeholder
organization where that vision directs their actions. That is, it may not be the
organzation most of those volunteering in it think it is.
>> 
>> So yeah, if it is not a multistakeholder organization led from the bottom-up,
legally is all that counts.
>> 
>> avri
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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> 
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