The organization that represents Non-Commercial Internet Users in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) issued an open letter to the Board this week, expressing concern about the possible failure of ICANN's attempt to balance the representation of commercial and noncommercial interests.
GNSO Chair Avri Doria joined ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) to support civil society at ICANN in its struggle for a stakeholder group charter that is drafted in a bottom-up fashion and considers the needs of noncommercial users of the Internet. Although not a card-carrying member of NCUC before now, Doria had been a long time supporter of civil society at ICANN with strong ties to noncommercial users and individual Internet users. Doria had been appointed to serve three terms on the GNSO Council from ICANN's Nominating Committee (first was a partial term) and she was elected to Chair the GNSO Council thrice..."
ICANN Staff and the commercial constituencies at ICANN have been busy spreading mis-information about civil society participation at ICANN - largely to keep civil society and noncommercial interests marginalized. For example, ICANN is not allowing the noncommercial users to elect their representatives on the GNSO Policy Council and will instead "appoint" representatives, unlike all the other constituencies at ICANN. Here are a few of the top myths spread about civil society at ICANN and the truth about these myths.
This letter comes from nearly 150 individual and organizational members of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). It is also endorsed by public interest groups outside of NCUC. We are all deeply concerned about the July 30, 2009 ICANN Board decisions regarding the restructuring of the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). We believe that the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) chartering process has been seriously flawed on both procedural and substantive grounds. We appeal to you to address these problems before permanent damage is done to ICANN’s reputation, to the GNSO reform process, and to the interests of noncommercial users of the Internet....
Public comments on stakeholder group charters are in - again. Comments submitted to ICANN were overwhelmingly in favor of reinstating the consensus charter submitted by noncommercial users. The Internet Governance Project asks "Is ICANN Listening?" to civil society yet.
Longtime ICANN participant Harold Feld's amusing tale of Scooby Doo and the Mystery Crew go to ICANN. "...recycling the same tired plot line of ICANN staff and Business & IP constituencies trying to limit the ability of the Non-commercial User Constituency (NCUC) to “cause trouble†— especially those meddling civil society do-gooders Milton Mueller and Robin Gross. Season after season, we get to see the same accusations that NCUC is “divisive,†or “not representative†or other code words for “Goddam it! Get those $#@! civil society groups out of our club house!!!!â€...."
The public is invited to send an email to ICANN on the subject of the injustices of the draft charters proposed for the noncommercial and commercial stakeholder groups in the new GNSO. ICANN will accept public comment on the subject until 23 July. Send a comment to ICANN by sending an email to gnso-stakeholder-charters@icann.org.
The message is clear. ICANN has forgotten who it works for - us - Internet users - including noncommercial users. Now is the time to remind ICANN that it must be accountable to the global public interest or it has no business in Internet governance. Tell ICANN to listen to noncommercial users and not to impose the stranglehold charter on noncommercial users against our will. Thomas Jefferson noted that the exercise of political power without the consent of the governed is illegitimate. ICANN's attempt to impose a governance structure on noncommercial users against our will calls into question ICANN's legitimacy to govern; it undermines confidence in ICANN's commitment to democratic values; and it appears ICANN is unable to protect the broader public interest against commercial pressures. We must remind ICANN to protect the public interest and the rights of noncommercial users - all of us. Send a quick email to ICANN today.
IP Justice submitted comments today in opposition to the proposals contained in the "IRT Report" a proposal from ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency to create new trademark rights to domain names that do not exist in law. ICANN's Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) also filed comments with ICANN discussing thesubstantive problems with the proposal and also the procedural concerns, which led to the creation of a one-sided report....
Over 60 Non-Commercial Organizations from all corners of the globe signed in support of the petition from the Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) for a stakeholder group at ICANN including Article 19, Privacy International, EPIC, FreePress, Asociatia pentru Tehnologie si Internet, EDRi, Public Knowledge, CPSR, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ICT Consumer Association of Kenya, AGEA DENSI, Association for Progressive Communications, Knowledge Ecology International, University of West Indies At Large Structure, RITS, Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, Alfa-Redi, Internet Society Mauritius, International Institute for Sustainable Development, FGV-CTS, Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, and many more NGOs