This workspace has been made available for community members to post their Board related questions. The deadline for posting questions/comments to this workspace will be 22 October 2013 23:59 UTC.
AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
This workspace has been made available for community members to post their Board related questions. The deadline for posting questions/comments to this workspace will be 22 October 2013 23:59 UTC.
1 Comment
Evan Leibovitch
This issue is a complex one that demands the attention of all ICANN supporting organizations and advisory committees, as well as senior staff who of course must implement whatever decisions are made.
The GNSO working group model is currently the only process being used to address this, and it has resulted in a structure and bias that prohibits full participation. Bodies such as the GAC simply do not adapt well to such structures. Despite its claim of openness, the GNSO has set the frames of reference to its own interpretation of the issues, which is problematic given its direct and unique interest in the boundaries of policy.
The issue is real and had led to a general breakdown of trust in ICANN's ability to execute bottom-up multistakeholderism. The workshop on Policy and Implementation held in Beijing – one which had equal participation from across the ICANN community and was well attended – points a clear path to the way it must be addressed.
What leadership is the Board prepared to offer to ensure full and balanced participation in the matter by the entire ICANN community?
The ICANN CEO has said publicly that the "customer" of ICANN is the Internet end-user. However, in actual practise ICANN's customer service is deteriorating rather than improving. Changes to Compliance protocols and the development of the PICDRP system have produced numerous obstacles to the process of public complaints to ICANN. The PICDRP protocol is particularly nasty by including numerous procedural obstacles, demand of monetary impact, and explicit language against repeat complainers. This indicates an explicit culture that discourage whistleblowers by design, and are biased in favour of the comfort of registries to the harm of those who are impacted.
Given that this is a significant accountability/transparency issue, many in At-Large believe that the Board needs to address the matter of systemic bias against whistleblowers and third-party public advocacy groups.
Does the Board, on the whole, share the view that the end-user is ICANN's ultimate customer? If so, what concrete steps are taken to demonstrate that ICANN considers end users are its primary customers? Is there any realisation that current directions regarding WHOIS and PIC enforcement, in both existing and upcoming gTLDs, may be seen as an impediment to that goal?