[CPWG] Ready, Fire, Aim

Wed Aug 30 21:42:00 UTC 2023

Folks,
I’m doing my best NOT to put my “thumb on the scale,” so to speak on this issue as it’s one worthy of thoughtful consideration. Like Evan, I believe we involve ourselves in many issues on which we do not have a unique (end user specific) perspective to bring to the table. In that case, we are redundant and exhausting what volunteer resources we have without much effect.

Evan and I do NOT always agree on what the core issues for end users are. We agree on DNS Abuse and disagreed on the sale of ORG which I truly believed to be immaterial to individual end users and should have been more a focus of NPOC. We agree that prices could be higher to good benefit, even in underserved regions though this requires a more careful analysis than anyone has truthfully done.

As for an At-Large mandate, it’s twofold, the identification and amplification of end user interests as preservation and effacy of the multistakeholder model. Between those two we can talk ourselves into ANY issue and I, like Evan, think we should always be endeavoring to talk ourselves OUT of a particular issue, leaving only those where we have a unique, end user, perspective to bring to the table. Our value is not that we are smart people but that we are dedicated to a singular mission.

In any case, let’s have a fulsome discussion about the future of the At-Large and what we want from it, in Hamburg. I’ve set aside 2 hours for our anniversary which is intended to be 10min of celebration and 1:50 of discussion, breakouts, debate, etc. Evan, I hope you’ll be able to participate.
Jonathan

From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of Evan Leibovitch via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Date: Monday, August 28, 2023 at 10:21 PM
To: mike palage.com <mike at palage.com>
Cc: CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Subject: [CPWG] Ready, Fire, Aim
A high-level tangent inspired by the current discussion:

A casual reader might look at this thread and come to an observation that there are two separate issues being discussed, that may not have much to do with each other. The conversation that Mike, Steinar, Olivier and others are having concern details -- contract language, specifics about volumes and dollar amounts and assignment of responsibilities. Meanwhile, I have barged in -- surely unwelcome by some -- to challenge the very premises upon which ALAC's participation is being conducted.

I have done this because, in my observation, ALAC lacks -- and has always lacked -- an overarching set of objectives upon which to base strategy and ultimately tactics. We engage in the minutiae of contract language (etc) without clarity of what ALAC -- and what the constituency it is mandated to speak for -- wants from the end result of such engagement.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat -- Sun Tzu

While I was involved deeply in At-Large I would note that any internal attempt to create a coherent statement of purpose would be invariably torpedoed by people insisting that we engage in a never-ending attempt to define the "public interest". As a result, all attempts inevitably sank in the bureaucratic mud. Two separate third-party ICANN reviews of At-Large seemed to wholly overlook the lack of overarching purpose and mandate service while themselves dwelling on the minutiae. It's probably best that we don't depend on outside consultants to define our purpose, but why can't we do it ourselves?

WIthout a clear mission, ALAC has weighed in on many issues in which non-registrant end users have no stake at all. Take vertical integration. End-users don't know and don't care about the domain supply chain. Even domain consumers -- technically outside our remit but closest to end-users in the ICANN food chain -- could hardly care less if they bought their domain from a registrar or directly from a registry. And yet there we were at the virtual table, as if our constituency has a crucial stake in that topic's outcome. Think of how many parts of the current ALAC agenda fit the same description. Meanwhile, on high-profile issues that WOULD affect end-users, such as the delegation of .XXX and the attempted private takeover of .ORG, we were silent. Such choices of action and inaction clearly telegraph -- throughout ICANN and the world around us -- a lack of both purpose and focus.

This glaring deficiency continues to retard ALAC's agency within the rest of the ICANN community. Over the years I have received many private emails insisting that ALAC has more respect now than it did in the past and that it is invited to the policy table more often. To me this is tokenism. I'll be more persuaded that At-Large has the respect of ICANN when we get that second Board seat that was recommended and promised so long ago. Until then, or until a policy we want that is opposed by the domain industry is implemented, I will maintain that ALAC is being pandered to. We are tolerated in working groups so long as we make little line-item corrections and don't challenge their very premises or the ability of contracted parties to maximize revenue. We have the authority to talk directly to the Board, yet we chase after Public Comment solicitations just like anyone in the world can. We respond to the actions of others, we never initiate or try to set the agenda. One of the last such initiatives by At-Large, a white paper of which I was a co-author, was received with a smile and summarily binned; not a single response was returned from staff or the community. Maybe the cosmetics have changed in the last 15 years but the underlying politics certainly have not.

While the status quo is obviously sustainable -- so long as ALAC members get funded to pretend they're the UNSC at a cavernous U-shaped table three times a year and learn how to play the insider games -- it doesn't do anything to serve At-Large's bylaw mandate. The inmates will continue to run the asylum, because the only entity really capable of making them accountable to the world-at-large is just fine with being tolerated.

- Evan

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