RE: [ALSC-Forum] Discussion Paper #1

[Bruce Young]

Marco wrote:

> 1) ICANN SHOULD BUILD THE MEMBERSHIP AT LARGE WITH
>SOME CRITERIA OF COMMON PROFESSIONALISM: WE SHOULD
>ENVISAGE A GROUP MONITORING AND PROPOSING IDEAS ON
>DEFENCE OR GOVERNMENT SITES, OTHER ON PUBLIC SERVICE
>ONES ETC.

Agreed.  As has been said here many times by myself and others, interest
groups or "parties" are expected to flourish within the At-Large community,
and their voices will add to the conversation.

> 2) ICANN SHOULD ENVISAGE A GEOPOLITICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL
>BODY AREAS: EUROPE IS BUILDING ITS STRUCTURE AND
>DOMAINS, AFRICA SHOULD BECOME A TARGET FOR SPECIAL
>PROJECTS ON THE WEB, ETC.

This is fine.  However, structures of this nature are usually built, managed
or funded by government agencies.  And not evey user's best interests are
served solely though his or her geopolitical circumstances.
Democracy-minded netizens in China, for instance, are not likely to want
their insterests represented solely by agencies of the Chinese government!
So while it's appropriate that government entities have an input, we need to
make sure that the *primary* focus of the At-Large is empowering the voice
of the individual world citizen, and let each citizen decide which interest
groups, if any, to align their voice with!

 3) ARE WE SURE THAT ICANN IS FULLY APT TO VERIFY,
MONITOR, AND PROJECT OPERATIONS ON THE WEB WHILE USED
BY THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS, NGO'S ETC?

"Operations" implies use.  ICANN should be interested only in providing the
infrastructure to be used, and leave issues of *how* its actually used to
the individuals using it.  However, ICANN *does* need to ensure that the
network technologies used ensure it is easily available to everyone.
Assuming the current distributed architecture is retained, this won't be a
problem.

>  THESE ARE ONE OF THE MANY PROBLEMS ARISING BY THE
>PRACTICAL ANALYSIS OF WHAT THE WEB IS NOW

There are other problems as well, of course.  But ICANN should limit its
involvement to providing
the infrastructure, therefore so should our conversations here!  :)

Bruce Young
Team Lead, Advanced Desktop Services,  Nike Program
Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications
Phone: 503.532.9834
Fax: 503.532.2617
E-mail:  bruce.young@nike.com