[IRP] ICANN Mexico: teaming up for 5.5. Work on an "Individual Internet Users" declaration.

Wed Feb 25 04:33:41 EET 2009

Dear all,

I have not yet tracked down the ISOC Italy, but I am currently working on a similar document outlining areas where Internet users have legitimate interests that may on occasion have relevance in ICANN policy development.  Many of these policy interests encompass issues far broader than ICANN, of course, but there are various ICANN policies that implicate them to various degrees.  In any event, I would argue that individual Internet users (through a mechanism of representative and informed experts) should have the opportunity to weigh proposed ICANN policies against these interests and provide input.  The objective may be to simply steer ICANN away from making a policy decision that impact the ability of other organizations and governments to protect these interests.  In that sense, these interests may be used as a standard for keeping ICANN from mission creep by suggesting which proposed DNS policies may have a bearing on such interests and should be deferred to another authority or crafted in a way to not interfere with the efforts of other authorities that may more properly address it.

Let me know if anyone wants a copy of the draft.

Cheryl B. Preston
Edwin M. Thomas
Professor of Law
J. Reuben Clark Law School
Brigham Young University
434 JRCB
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-2312
prestonc at lawgate.byu.edu

>>> Nick Ashton-Hart <Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org> 2/24/2009 10:18 am >>>
Dear All:

I?m sure this is just a result of everyone getting too many emails, but I actually did reply when you asked about this Max (on the 16th of February), and in fact you replied to my reply :)

Here once again is the situation:

One of the amendments proposed during the RAA Amendments process was that a ?Rights and Responsibilities? document would be created for registrants. The ALAC welcomed this when it was proposed, and suggested that in addition to this, a code of practice to which registrars should adhere should be created. These suggestions were made to the registrars constituency as well as publicly.

The registrars took the view that they would work on the former ? and maybe the latter ? but only if the RAA amendments package were to be approved. As you may know, at the present time it is not clear what the status of that package is, as the GNSO Council failed to endorse it by a majority vote ? though the ALAC did vote to suggest that the package should be adopted, even though it is widely viewed as only a part of what is necessary.

At the Mexico City meeting it will be possible to understand better what the next steps are with respect to the RAA Amendments process.

As to the broader question of an Internet end user rights document, I believe that ISOC Italy is leading the effort to create this. A generalist document of that kind would fall well outside the remit of ICANN of course. For what it is worth, if you haven?t already liaised with ISOC Italy I recommend it; they?ve done quite a lot of work on this subject over the last several years if I understand the situation correctly. 

I hope this helps make things clearer. I?ve copied in Cheryl Langdon-Orr so she?s aware of your interest, Max; hopefully you will be willing to participate in the next stages of the work on the above-referenced initiatives related to the RAA as they move forward, presuming that the RAA Amendments themselves move forward. 

With respect to the document you reference, firstly that?s rather out-of-date and the item you mention was put forward as a potential topic for a Thematic Session, but it was felt by the Summit Working Group that the subject was largely outside the remit of ICANN if I remember correctly the discussion on that item.

On 24/02/2009 04:16, "Max Senges" <maxsenges at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear colleagues

Ginger raised the what is happening on the agenda item 5.5. Work on a "Individual Internet Users" declaration for the upcoming ICANN meeting (listed at https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/summit-wg/attachments/documents:20080214104609-1-21013/original/14%2002%202008%20Summit%20proposal%20and%20budget.pdf). 

I have tried to investigate a bit further (I copy a selection of the most informing mails below). There seems to be quite some interest in working on such a declaration. Unfortunately i have not heard back from ICANN staff regarding the history and planned organization of this effort; so i suggest we self-organize a working group and start to tackle this item.

Are you interested to participate in discussing and drafting an "Individual Internet Users" declaration? 

Please feel free to extend this invitation to participate in this effort among your friends and colleagues who might be interested work with us.

Looking forward to moving this forward!
Max  

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

Danny Younger <dannyyounger at yahoo.com>
to    governance at lists.cpsr.org,
date    Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:49 PM

Ginger,

In July 2008 ICANN published a series of proposed amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement -- one of those amendments was a direct response to a concern first raised by the ALAC's Vittorio Bertola, namely that Registrant Rights be clearly detailed in the contract.

The exact text of the amendment follows:

"In the event that ICANN gives reasonable notice to Registrar that ICANN has published a webpage that identifies available registrant rights and responsibilities, and the content of such webpage is developed in consultation with registrars, Registrar shall provide a link to the webpage on any website it may operate for domain name registration
or renewal clearly displayed to its Registered Name Holders at least as clearly as its links to policies or notifications required to be displayed under ICANN Consensus Policies."

Since this amendment was proposed, neither the ALAC nor any of the proponents of this measure have acted to define such rights -- they haven't even started.  If this rights subset hasn't been worked on at all in the last year, I wouldn't hold my breath awaiting this Summit to yield a full exposition of Internet User Rights.

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

from    Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu>
cc    irp <Irp at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org>
date    Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 9:53 AM

Two years ago, when I was representing the ALAC on the ICANN Board, I
insisted that registrants should be provided information on their rights
when buying a domain name, similarly to the "passenger rights" posters
that we see in every European airport.

But I've not been involved in this since I left the board in December
2007, and the point that Danny is making (I hope you know him, otherwise
you wouldn't be able to put his emails in context) is that the ALAC
never bothered to follow up on my proposal.

I heard that some people proposed to write a "declaration of internet
user rights" at the At Large Summit in Mexico, which does seem a bit
ridiculous since no preparatory work was made and AFAIK only a handful
of people are thinking at it. But you should ask the people who are
organizing the At Large Summit, I confess I'm totally out of the loop
about it.

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

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

Dr. Max Senges 

www.maxsenges.com <http://www.maxsenges.com>  
www.knowledgeentrepreneur.com <http://www.knowledgeentrepreneur.com> 

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

-- 
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director for At-Large
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Main Tel: +33 (450) 40 46 88
USA DD: +1 (310) 578-8637
Fax: +41 (22) 594-85-44
Mobile: +41 (79) 595 54-68
email: nick.ashton-hart at icann.org
Win IM: ashtonhart at hotmail.com / AIM/iSight: nashtonhart at mac.com / Skype: nashtonhart
Online Bio:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart 
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