The Next Net

The ICANN President’s Strategic Committee asked for input in the view of enhancing its report. As usual, the timeframe is tight . The notice was posted on 11th July , while comments should be sent by 18th July. This is a vacation period in most of the northern part of the world. No wonder there are only a handful of comments. Some will cry that it is again a conspiracy on the ICANN side. Anyway, here are some of the comments I sent.

Q5. Specifically, how should ICANN further enhance cooperation of all ICANN stakeholders on those Internet governance issues that fall into ICANN’s scope of activities?

It should be noted that not all stakeholders are on an equal footing in the ICANN processes. The 1 billion Internet users and the millions of domain name registrants are essentially un-represented. The ALAC should be transformed into an Internet users constituency which could appoint one or several full board members,ie with a right to vote.

Obviously, this constituency should be benefit from sufficient resources in terms of staffing, meeting and travel sponsorship, etc. A professionally organized users constituency could contribute a lot to the ICANN decision-making process.

Q7. What can be done to assist in the evolution of a more widely informed participation from all regions from all interested stakeholders, including governmental representatives?

Next to the 3 global ICANN meetings each year, short, sub-regional meetings could be scheduled. As an example: a region like Asia-Pacific is just too large geographically and too varied economically to be considered coherent. Some of the Pacific Islands may want to send representatives to a two day meeting in the Pacific, but cannot afford to send someone for a full week on the other side of the world. Such meetings should be attended by a selected number of people from the board, GAC, CCNSO, gNSO and ASO, with the goal of listening to the sub-region community’s concerns.

Q8. Are there activities or steps that would build on existing processes to continue to enhance global accessibility to the transparency of ICANN’s processes and input into the decision-making processes?

Easy measures that could be taken would be to webcast the telephone meetings of the board, with full transcripts made available on the ICANN web site. This would greatly enhance the transparency of ICANN’s decision processes.