[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Legal basis vs. lawful

[Sam Lanfranco]

With the risk of being branded a heretic, or traitor, and burned at the 
stake, I would like to suggest a radical idea here. It starts from the 
observation that ICANN will be unable to come up with a sustainable 
workable solution here. This PDP-WG is going slow not because of 
conflicting stakeholder interests within its constituencies. It is going 
slow because at this level there is no tractable solution.

My heretical idea is to take a page from how the International Labour 
Organization (ILO) approaches such global problems (e.g. labour at sea). 
The idea starts with the fact that the solution to this problem lies 
with the Registrar’s dealing collectively with their own national 
governments and working out a multilateral agreement on the boundaries 
between lawful and unlawful, and between legal and illegal, that allow 
them to operate globally under a compatible, if not common, set of data 
privacy and protection regulations.

Within the context of the ILO’s more restrictive multi-stakeholder 
process, where stakeholders include industry, government, and organized 
labor, the ILO policy development process works up proposed solutions 
that are then feed into multilateral deliberations. The ILO operates 
more like a “Think Tank” in the search for multi-lateral solutions to 
global labor problems, solutions to be adopted by its member states in 
multilateral negotiations with each other and endorsed by and accepted 
by its industry and organized labor stakeholders.

This approach would toss the work on a solution to where that work 
belongs, outside ICANN and in negotiations between nation states who set 
the data privacy and security regulations and the Registrars who must 
observe them. Neither of those impacts on ICANN’s core remit. ICANN 
could function more like a “Think Tank” expressing a broader 
multistakeholder view of the issues and proposed solutions. ICANN’s 
contracts would be easier to write, since they would focus on the 
stability and security of the domain name system, in a global and 
multilingual setting.

This would also terminate the “shadow dance” and non-productive struggle 
between the constituency and stakeholder groups within ICANN with, and 
against, the roles of GAC and Registrars within the ICANN policy 
development process. CAG members could go home and tell their respective 
countries to organize to discuss data privacy and security policy with 
the Registrar’s. ICANN could better deploy its (probably) shrinking 
revenue stream and act as a “friend of the discussions”, or offer a 
venue for those discussions, while protecting its own remit.

Lastly, this might free up some ICANN resources, and Registrar 
attention, to the distributed ledger technologies (DLTs: e.g. 
blockchain) that are likely to radically change domain name registration 
and transfer soon. That will likely have significant negative impact on 
both Registrar and ICANN revenues. Registrar's can go for revenues from 
more registration services. Not sure what ICANN can do, other than cut 
costs.

Lastly, if I am to burn at the stake, please use only wood, it is a 
renewable resource and forests recycle the carbon. I worry about climate 
change. Also, you could not do it in Puerto Rico, I won't be there. 
Also, either pick a cold climate for collateral warmth, or bring hot dogs.

Sam L.

-- 
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"It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured
in an unjust state" -Confucius
  邦有道，贫且贱焉，耻也。邦无道，富且贵焉，耻也
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Visiting Prof, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar)
Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3
email: sam at lanfranco.net   Skype: slanfranco
blog:  https://samlanfranco.blogspot.com
Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852