Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1616
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST          Friday, February 28 2003          Volume 01 : Number 1616

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 14:16:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Karl Auerbach <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> 2/3 of the ALAC are going to be elected as soon as the RALOs will be
> formed.

Which really doesn't mean anything.

Let's compare the paths to power between the trademark folks, who happen 
to have a strong uniformity of interest and thus are readily represented 
by bodies they form, under their own rules, and without having to sign an 
ICANN MOU, against the path to power of a user of the Internet.

Trademark owner's path

    + Join IP constituency:
        - Run largely by self-established rules
        - Members can know one another and can make deals
              outside of public view.
        - Strong unified point of view among members
        - No geographic/residency/citizenship limitations
    + Put persons on council,
    + Those persons get direct vote for two board seats
    + Those persons also get ability to put people on nomcom
      (which dilutes internet users' path, below)

    In other words, trademark people get a nice short path to power.
    In addition, trademark people frequently get another bite at the
    apple because they are also usually business people and thus members
    of yet another "stakeholder" constitutency.

Internet user's path:

    + Join "at large structure"
        - Must exist under ICANN dictated rules
        - Little unified point of view among members
        - Members largely isolated by policies masked as "privacy"
          but really to prevent formation of coalitions and to
          enhance the power of fifth columnists to disrupt.
        - Subject to geographic/residency/citizenship limitations
    + At large structure appoints persons to RALO
        - RALO exists under ICANN dictated rules
        - Little unified point of view among members
        - Subject to geographic/residency/citizenship limitations
    + RALO appoints persons to ALAC
        - ALAC exists under ICANN dictated rules
        - RALO appointees diluted by NOMCOM (insider) appointees
        - Little unified point of view among members
    + ALAC apponts persons to NOMCOM
        - ALAC appointees diluted by appointees from elsewhere
          including bodies for trademark owners, i.e. some
          bodies get a double-dip vote.
    + Nomcom gets to name a portion of the board.

    This is a long, arduous, and tortured path.  The amazing 
    contraptions of Rube Goldberg in the 1930's seem an apt analogy.

As you can see, ICANN has created a favorable path for its "stakeholders"
(and don't forget, those "stakeholder" often are able to take advantage of 
multiple such pathways - trademark owners are almost always also able to 
join business "constituencies" and there is a board seat sitting for 
"academic institutions", which are very often very much aligned with 
businesses and are major owners, and sellers, of intellectual property and 
thus have much in tune with trademark owners.)

But the lowly Internet user gets scrod - the pathway is so long and 
arduous, so controlled by ICANN, and so diluted along the way by interests 
antithetical to the internet user, that the pathway is essentially 
meaningless - there is no real incentive for the internet user to become 
involved.

In addition, the power latent in the at-large, that of forming broad
coalitions and reaching broad compromise on big issues, such as privacy,
is poisoned by the ALAC system of dividing internet users into isolated
bite size chunks - bite size as seen by the relatively unified
"stakeholders"  who, as a general matter, who's business purpose is to
extract money from Internet users and who are thus most frequently take
positions in opposition to those natural to internet users.

As I've mentioned before, the ALAC system bears an uncanny resemblance to
the system of village soviets that formed the basis of the so-called
"democratic"  governments of the old USSR and its satellites.

Yesterday a vote came up on the board to provide funds for the interim
ALAC in Rio.  I voted "yes", to provide those funds.  However, I had
misgivings, having observed the growth of vibrant at-large groups during
the election 2+ years ago despite the apathy-approaching-hostility of
ICANN to such groups, not to mention the non-funding by ICANN to such
groups, and knowing full well that funding leads to dependency.

        --karl--

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 17:07:14 -0800
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications

Interesting Karl,

Life is tough.  Get that way.
e

Karl Auerbach wrote:

> Yesterday a vote came up on the board to provide funds for the interim
> ALAC in Rio.  I voted "yes", to provide those funds.  However, I had
> misgivings, having observed the growth of vibrant at-large groups during
> the election 2+ years ago despite the apathy-approaching-hostility of
> ICANN to such groups, not to mention the non-funding by ICANN to such
> groups, and knowing full well that funding leads to dependency.
>
>         --karl--
>
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 10:13:08 +0100
From: Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 14:16:21 -0800 (PST), you wrote:

>> 2/3 of the ALAC are going to be elected as soon as the RALOs will be
>> formed.
>
>Which really doesn't mean anything.

I agree with your analysis, but Joanna's complaint was that the RALOs
were not going to elect their representatives, and this is false. We
were not discussing whether the ALAC has enough power in ICANN.

If you want to discuss that, my answer is simple: it has not.
Especially, while it might succeed in gaining credibility towards
other ICANN stakeholders and thus convince them to support its
proposals, there is not any real mechanism in ICANN's structure that
offers any warranties for this.

But I still think (as I have been thinking for the last three years)
that ICANN needs a strong global membership to get political
legitimacy, and that the present configuration of ICANN won't last
long. We lost the first battle (the 2000-2002 one) because we weren't
ready and organized yet, so we have to prepare ourselves and be ready
when the next battle will be fought. 

I think that the RALO mechanism is a workable one and thus it can give
us strength - certainly more than depending on ICANN to set up global
discussion, identity verification and voting mechanisms.

>Yesterday a vote came up on the board to provide funds for the interim
>ALAC in Rio.  I voted "yes", to provide those funds.  However, I had
>misgivings, having observed the growth of vibrant at-large groups during
>the election 2+ years ago despite the apathy-approaching-hostility of
>ICANN to such groups, not to mention the non-funding by ICANN to such
>groups, and knowing full well that funding leads to dependency.

This is a real and significant problem - perhaps the major problem
RALOs will have to face. I do not have an answer for this yet -
usually user organizations are financed through membership fees, and
yet I would not like to have high fees. I think that the decentralized
model we have in mind also allows to decentralize costs, so that much
can be done at the local level by volunteers, and "hard money" costs
are kept to a minimum. But the problem remains.
- -- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
- -------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 19:14:09 +0100
From: Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] Public archive of the ALAC list

The public archive of the ALAC's internal mailing list (since Feb 10)
is now reachable at http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/.
- -- 
vb.                  [Vittorio Bertola - vb [at] bertola.eu.org]<---
- -------------------> http://bertola.eu.org/ <-----------------------
- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 23:52:30 -0500
From: Joanna Lane <[email-masked]>
Subject: RE: [ga] ALAC comments on proposed Bylaws modifications

Vittorio wrote:
> 2/3 of the ALAC are going to be elected as soon as the RALOs will be
formed.

Karl replied:
>Which really doesn't mean anything.

Vittorio replied:
> I agree with your analysis, but Joanna's complaint was that the RALOs
> were not going to elect their representatives, and this is false.

Vittorio,
It doesn't matter whether the RALOs elect representatives or not, since
ICANN has already made sure it can hand pick the electorate and by the new
Bylaws, it can cut out individual users altogether. These Bylaws, far from
protecting the rights of individual users to participate in the At large,
are carefully crafted to put in place a structure that can be used to
exclude individual users altogether from the At Large. Look the facts,
starting with the newly published ALAC archive.
http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/:-

On Feb20th, Denise posted the draft Bylaws, a section of which states:-
(i) The ALAC is responsible for certifying organizations as
>        meeting the criteria and standards for At-Large Structures.
>        The criteria and standards for certification of At-Large
>        Structures within a each Geographic Region shall be
>        established by the Board and based on recommendations of the
>        ALAC, so that each RALO is afforded the type of structure
>        that best fits its Geographic Region's customs and
>        characteristics. Those criteria and standards shall be
>        stated in the Memorandum of Understanding between ICANN and
>        the RALO for that Geographic Region. They shall ensure that
>        At-Large Structures appropriately represent and involve
>        individual Internet users who are citizens or residents of
>        the RALO's geographical region. Decisions to certify or
>        de-certify an At-Large Structure as meeting the applicable
>        criteria and standards shall require a 2/3 vote of all the
>        members of the ALAC and shall be subject to review according
>        to procedures the Board may establish. The ALAC may also
>        give advice as to whether a prospective At-Large Structure
>        meets the applicable criteria and standards.

On Feb 22, Esther said she thought the Denise's Bylaws changes looked fine.
http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00057.html

But three days later, on Feb 25th, the Bylaws that were officially adopted
used completely different language that had magically appeared, and had not
been approved by any due process that I can see, in the ALAC or anywhere
else. http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00072.html
http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-appa-25feb03.htm

Language that appeared in the original draft is now missing from the adopted
version, including "They shall ensure that At-Large Structures appropriately
represent and involve individual Internet users who are citizens or
residents of the RALO's geographical region. "

Instead, we have this:- "If so provided by its Memorandum of Understanding
with ICANN, a RALO may also include individual Internet users who are
citizens or residents of countries within the RALO's Geographic Region."

By my reading, the phrase "If so provided" removes the obligation to include
individuals, meaning it is now left to the Board's discretion whether or not
individual users are included, and if not explicitly provided for,
individuals may well be left out. Furthermore, the phrase "shall insure" has
been switched to " may also include", which can also be read as "may not
include". There goes the user's rights to participate in the At Large with a
dissenting voice.

There is not even any comfort in the subsequent clause, "Each RALO's
Memorandum of Understanding shall also include provisions designed to allow,
to the greatest extent possible, every individual Internet user who is a
citizen of a country within the RALO's Geographic Region to participate in
at least one of the RALO's At-Large Structures." Does the phrase, "to the
greatest extent possible" sound familiar?  It should. This carries as much
weight as ICANN's now infamous commitment to operating in an open and
transparent manner, "to the maximum extent feasible", which as we all know,
has been shrouded in secrecy and back room dealing for years.

What can the ALAC do about this? Nothing, because it's authority has been
further diminished in the new version, whereby the original "The criteria
and standards for certification of At-Large Structures within a each
Geographic Region shall be established by the Board and based on
recommendations of the ALAC.....", have been amended to "Once the criteria
and standards have been established, (by the Board) the ALAC shall be
responsible for certifying organizations as meeting the criteria and
standards for At-Large Structures."

So, all in all, the RALO election process, which you have cited as if it is
meaningful in some way, actually looks something like this:-

+ ICANN Staff writes RALO MoU and passes to Board for approval
+ Board approves MoU and passes to the ALAC to implement
+ ALAC authorization is limited to approving Organizations willing to agree
ICANN MoU
+ RALOs may (or may not) include individual memberships
+ Approved Organizations elect representatives with (or without) individual
user participation

So essentially, ICANN Staff have ensured that any users that do not agree to
their requirements for the At large, can participate by...well... getting
lost, right?

Regards,
Joanna

- --
This message was passed to you via the [email-masked] list.
Send mail to [email-masked] to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

------------------------------

End of GA-DIGEST V1 #1616
*************************