A translation (was Re: An update from the ICANN ISPCP meeting...)

Mon Oct 27 20:57:14 UTC 2014

> On Oct 24, 2014, at 11:07 AM, Eric Brunner-Williams <brunner at nic-naa.net> wrote:
> 
> On 10/23/14 7:27 PM, David Conrad wrote:
>>> >in other words, the bc and ispc were, and for the most part, imho, remain captive properties of the intellectual property constituency.
>> Here, Eric is suggesting the intellectual property folks are driving policy issues on behalf of the folks interested in security/stability of e-commerce and as well as ISPs and connectivity providers. I have no reason to doubt Eric's opinion as I've not been involved enough in that part of ICANN and he has.
>> 
> 
> somethings get lost in translation. even the best of translations.
> 
> i suggest that the agenda of the intellectual property constituency is the agenda of business and internet service provider constituencies, as measured (in 2008) by staff summary of policy initiatives and votes on policy by the constituencies of the gnso, due to the very high correlations of the constituency votes of record, but it could all be mere, though persistent, coincidence.

Perhaps this is more indicative of the fact that the fractions of the business and ISP constituencies that actually care enough to devote resources to ICANN meetings and such are, in fact, those businesses most closely tied with the Intellectual Property interests as the rest of the world basically doesn’t give a damn unless something goes horribly wrong and DNS stops doing what they expect.

> a nuance is whether the accuracy of whois data (a problem dave crocker and i and others tried to fix at the los angeles icann meeting in november 2001, and which, as hordes of the undead, lives on and on and on) is what is generally meant by "security and stability", or if the value of accuracy of whois data has significant value to parties other than the intellectual property constituency.

I don’t think it is all that is meant by that term, but certainly it is a component.

> were the oarc meeting not held, by mere coincidence of course, in a particular hotel in los angeles last week, fewer people with operational roles might have been present.

True. I think that as a general rule, operators are conspicuously absent from most ICANN proceedings.

> the protocol supporting organization tired of having a voting responsibility on the icann board and got the bylaws changed in 2003 to eliminate itself as a supporting organization holding voting seats on the icann board and created a technical advisory body tasked to periodically provide non-voting persons to offer technical advice to the icann board.

Which I think says more about the tedium and general lack of relevance of most of what ICANN does to the operational and technical constituencies than it says about the protocol supporting organization.

> i suppose a choice that addresses the problem warren noted is to ask if there is a continued need for operators-or-whatever-as-a-voting-body within the gnso. as much as i participated in the gnso reform program (which may have simply improved some of the ornamental decoration and changed some names from "constituencies" to "stakeholder groups" without changing the balance of forces david noted -- trademark protection vs volume sales -- and would prefer to see the ispcp develop a broader agenda than mere marks protection), taking a step back i'm no longer convinced that operational issues, and therefore operators, have any place, usefully, in the generic domain name supporting organization.

Now there’s a lovely thought… We don’t like what few operators who haven’t walked away in disgust are telling us, so, it’s perhaps better to call their voices irrelevant and simply dismiss them as a non-relevant constituency.

Owen