On Dec 19, 2010, at 1:30 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

On 12/18/2010 9:52 PM, Joseph Prasad wrote:

...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242051,un-mulls-internet-regulation-options.as...

Given the season, their efforts appear to be a form of mulled whine.

Well, if you have followed the news, it comes down to the fact that some of our old friends from WSIS/WGIG/IGF+ICANN/GAC "we're the government and we like the idea of being in charge" friends are at it again. In one corner, Brazil, China, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia; in the other, US, Austria, and so on. The current state of play is that the folk in the first corner would like an exclusive club, and a combination of parties including the folks in the second corner and a variety of civil society, industry, ad etc parties and rocked the boat back in the direction of multi-stakeholder discussions. My prediction: the boat will keep rocking, and the "givmint" folks will try again. And again.

fred, and others with (misspent) wsis++ / ig++ travel nickles, it would _really_ help me if you provided more context, off-line if necessary, as i spent the week before last more involved with the gac than at any prior point in my decade of icann involvement. i don't mind the 'tude, as we all have 'tude, and it is operational shorthand for broad views on the contending actors and their issues. what would help me most is names of persons and specific positions and any additional decoding you care to offer. i have to rely upon second hand, and usually wsis++ / ig++ favorably inclined second hand data, as my nickle hasn't covered that traveling circus. so clue please. off-line is fine. eric

On 12/19/10 8:28 PM, John Curran wrote:

... I also intervened twice requested clarification of exactly how a government-only decision body for Internet policy would fulfill the "consultation with all stakeholders" paragraph specified in the Tunis agenda. The answer from several countries was not encouraging, suggesting the consultation could be done in the UN manner through their Member State delegations. This government-only view is being asserted by several countries, but India, Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia are carrying it most strongly ...

john (et al), not that my year as a regional officer within the at-large advisory committee of icann is a pedestal much grander than an acronym to laborious declaim, but the fundamental claim for the at large is to provide an institutional means for public interests not necessarily addressed by national governments, nor necessarily addressed by other supporting organizations or advisory committees, in the curious public-private multi-stakeholder model ira magaziner stuck us with. india abandoned public control of the .in name space, providing the operational franchise to afilias, a for-profit registry services provider who's facilities are located in north america. south africa is currently in the process of re-organizing the .za name space, having issued a tender for consulting, won by ausreg, a for-profit registry services provider who's facilities are located in australia. while this is not a complete retreat from public control of a public resource, as in the case of india, the rfp proposed a subsequent rfp which would similarly transfer operational control to a for-profit registry services provider. brazil's public name space operator is, to the best of my knowledge, is reasonably well-informed of the outstanding issues in the icann experience in a public-private multi-stakeholder model, and reasonably content with the icann instance of this model. fix yes, break no. saudi arabia presents a more nuanced case, at icann. the state is aware that the ratio of arabic langauge content "on the net" is not proportional to the ratio of arabic language speakers. this is the focus of a government initiated program. the state, through the league of arab states, has published an rfi for contractors to operate a pair of name spaces, "arabi" in arabic script, and "arab" in latin script. the adoption of the country code name spaces by the aggregate members of the league of arab states, all of which have significant administrative costs to would-be registrants, is less than the adoption of the .ir name space, which has a healthy and competitive (though consolidation is taking place for market economic reasons) registrar regime, and vastly less effective "statist" administrative cost to would-be registrants. in sum, the state is aware that "statist" approaches to arabic language uptake and operational investment in infrastructure compare poorly to alternatives. in other areas, from wireline to wireless voice, to petroleum, that state uses non-state resources to promote public policy goals. as the gac is working more closely with the alac than at any prior point in the past, and the gac has vigorously and overtly represented private interests (primarily trademark holders), the "governments only" model advanced elsewhere seems ... largely uninformed by the operational practice of a working policy body with significant government participation as governments.

I hope this helps provide some context as you requested.

it provides some specific questions to pursue. note that there will be an intersessional meeting arising from the gac's formal notice to the board that it considered its advice on two subject areas to have been rejected by the board, triggering the icann bylaws. are the respective wsis++ folks are not in sync with the respective icann++ folks? granted, almost all of this is on the names side of the {addr,asn,dns} triple that icann is self-or-other-tasked to administer, so the v6 and rir bits are mostly not addressed. thanks for the pointers, i'll catch up on the wsis bits i've ignored for most of a decade, but it will be in my spare time, and there are so many people in wsis i find less pleasant company than a room full of trademark lawyers. eric p.s. the acronym to laborious declaim comes with no other benefits, so someone with travel nickles will have to cover the june wsis in geneva. as i don't work for core any longer i can't wrangle a trip to check on the fondue supplies or the secretariat operations or ...

It is amusing to see how with the passing of time we went through the cycles of government research, open collaboration, widespread cooperation, global ubiquity, international coordination, trademark protection, commitments affirmation, content regulation, and we seem to be now in the government masturbation phase, it will pass. and IP packets keep flowing ... and will keep flowing. -J

you may want to look at how television and radio were captured and turned into 500 channels of crap.

but now is digital and HD crap, wired and wireless :-) perhaps we have to develop the Content Removal Admin Protocol, aka CRAP -J