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<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">As anyone who
participates in a PDP knows, you have to have a valid
Statement of Interest. Now, I am highly critical of the lack
of depth of those SOIs, as they don't seem to me to prevent
conflicts of interest. However, they are a lot better than
nothing. Right now we have very little in terms of SOIs from
our members. I hear Milton when he says that NCUC started out
as a group representing organizations. At the moment, we have
a lot of single members, we have organizations that most of us
have never heard of listed, and I do wonder, as someone who
has never reviewed membership applications, whether we have
good mechanisms for checking who our members are. We do not
ask people to commit them selves to our core values in a
meaningful way, and there is no cost to join.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">I think it is good to
have a discussion about how we can mitigate the potential
risks that we expose ourselves to by having such a wide open
membership, at a time when many countries are doubling down to
restrict the Internet and free speech, restrict ownership of
domain names, and demand intrusive identification and
authentication to register a domain name (e.g. retinal
scans). I am not trying to introduce surveillance or
intrusive prying into people's private lives, let me assure
you. However, if hypothetically we were to discover that we
have a fleet of members who are associated in some manner, and
who do not support human rights values as we know them
historically in NCSG, how could we effectively deal with
this? I think it is a valid question, and I ask it because I
do not claim to have an answer.<br>
</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">As a participant in
the RDS working group, Tapani, you know how many security
professionals have gone on the offensive over the WHOIS
blackout, predicting doom gloom and the end of the Internet.
Nobody has ever bothered with NCSG because we have
historically had little power, although we have prevented a
lot of worse things happening over the years. However, were
we ever to exert a dominant influence over a policy issue, do
you think this would persist?</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">I think it is good to
ask these questions. Many thanks to Farzi for trying to get
this policy finished before she leaves office, but I am happy
to finish later if people care to discuss it further.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">Stephanie</font></font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2018-09-12 00:26, Tapani Tarvainen
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:20180912042646.GB16939@jay.tarvainen.info">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Hi Stephanie,
Yes, I agree we can ask that, but that doesn't solve the problem
completely: their situation could change later.
Can we oblige members to notify us when they join a member
organization later?
When an organization joins, can we ask it to check how many of
its members are already individual members?
If some such event results in more than X members of a member
organization as individual members without anybody noticing until
after the fact, can we remove some of them, and which one(s)?
Even if it is legal, can we do any of those without changing the
charter? I doubt it very much.
Tapani
On Sep 11 13:20, Stephanie Perrin (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:stephanie.perrin@MAIL.UTORONTO.CA">stephanie.perrin@MAIL.UTORONTO.CA</a>) wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I certainly agree with you there Raoul, we should not store personal data
about participation in groups. Nothing prevents us from asking members to
indicate how many groups they participate in who are also members of
NCUC/NCSG.
cheers Stephanie
On 2018-09-11 11:22 AM, Raoul Plommer wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
We should try to make this uncomplicated, whilst protecting
against undue influence of a particular organization. As to
whether privacy law prevents us from asking members who they
represent, I am consulting my legal contacts because I am sure
there is a legally compliant way to do this. I do not share
Raoul's view that this is "paranoid".
Stephanie, we can't really monitor who are members of which
organisation, outside the ICANN organisations and we can't store that
information because of the GDPR. Being scared of an organisational
takeover isn't a valid concern to store this kind of sensitive data,
that's all I meant about being paranoid. I'll be gladly admitting my
assumption false if your legal contacts tell you otherwise - I'm no
lawyer after all.
-Raoul
On Tue, 11 Sep 2018 at 17:43, Mueller, Milton L <<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:milton@gatech.edu">milton@gatech.edu</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:milton@gatech.edu"><mailto:milton@gatech.edu></a>> wrote:
I disagree, Stephanie.
Indeed, I think it’s completely absurd to have organizations that
have 45,000 members with the same voting power as an individual.
Many major noncommercial organizations will simply refuse to join
a constituency with that kind of a voting structure. We make a
pretty simple and flat voting structure, with large orgs, small
orgs and individuals. There are more individuals than
organizations, so it works out fairly balanced.
I agree with Sam that voting is relatively unimportant except when
it comes to election of officers.
It takes a lot of trouble and time to organize a vote, so the idea
that every administrative decision has to be voted on by the
membership is impractical.
For those unaware of the history, NCUC started as an
organization-only constituency, and so did NPOC. Because of the
problems many people have getting authorization to “represent”
entire organizations, and in order to allow for broader
participation, we allowed individual membership. We adjusted
voting shares accordingly.
Dr. Milton L Mueller
Professor, School of Public Policy <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://spp.gatech.edu/"><http://spp.gatech.edu/></a>
Georgia Institute of Technology
Internet Governance Project
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://internetgovernance.org/">http://internetgovernance.org/</a>
*From:*NCSG-Discuss [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU">mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU"><mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU></a>] *On Behalf Of *Stephanie
Perrin
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 11, 2018 8:24 AM
*To:* <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU">NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU"><mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU></a>
*Subject:* Re: Procedures/Individual/organizations membership at NCSG
I agree. I think it is entirely problematic to provide more votes
for larger organizations. I also share a concern about
differentiating between the participation of a member as a rep of
an organization, or as an individual. People should declare their
status and that is an end of it. If a member who represents an
organization has a strong personal view in a matter that is not
supported by their organization, surely they can explain their
viewpoint with a caveat.
We should try to make this uncomplicated, whilst protecting
against undue influence of a particular organization. As to
whether privacy law prevents us from asking members who they
represent, I am consulting my legal contacts because I am sure
there is a legally compliant way to do this. I do not share
Raoul's view that this is "paranoid". I think it is essential to
have sound principles in place in our policies, to protect the
diversity of our membership, and the essential human rights values
of NCSG.
Stephanie Perrin
On 2018-09-10 16:14, farzaneh badii wrote:
Farzaneh
On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 3:41 PM Sam Lanfranco <<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lanfran@yorku.ca">lanfran@yorku.ca</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lanfran@yorku.ca"><mailto:lanfran@yorku.ca></a>> wrote:
Dear NCSG Colleagues,
For private reasons I have been less involved in NCSG/NPOC
for 2018. I have kept abreast of issues and have long been
concerned with those surrounding organizational and
individual membership. I would like to comment here from
several slightly different perspectives.
First, while we come from the non-commercial
constituencies, we address the concerns of the
non-commercial constituencies. We do not represent the
non-commercial constituency stakeholder group nor are we
in any formal way accountable to it. We simply do our best.
Organizational members may represent the interests and
concerns of their organization, then again maybe not. Let
me be personal here. When asked to join NPOC and NCSG I
had recently served as Chair of the Board for Canadian
global health ngo CSIH. This was early in the ongoing
discussions around the Red Cross domain name issue and
concerns about health relate gTLDs.
After a couple of years my NGO effectively untethered me,
leaving me to maintain a watching brief and reporting back
on issues that may concern them. The rest of the time I
could simple engage in addressing the concerns of the
non-commercial constituency. My ngo views its membership
as part of its “good works”. I simply do my best and only
report back when a relevant issue emerges. I do not speak
on behalf of my organizational member.
It would be interesting to know how many organizational
members have a formal obligation to report back to their
organization, and how many pre-clear their positions on,
and participation in, ICANN policy matters. When that is
not the case, being also an individual member with the
associated extra votes raises troubling questions. That is
why, although I could, I have not applied for individual
membership.
To cut this short, most of the serious ICANN work is done
among us on a consensus basis. What is important is the
dialogue, the knowledge sharing, and how hard working
members produce useful outputs. Voting is mainly for
selecting among ourselves those willing to put in even
more work in essentially administrative leadership
positions. Those we elect do not have extraordinary
powers, they have extra duties. Voting is not about
resolving policy or implementation issues.
This leaves me to wonder why we do not simply have one
membership, and one vote, per member. Even the large
organization small organization distinction makes little
sense.
Totally agree Sam. Why we are giving organizations more
voting weight than individual members while what they do more
or less is the same at NCSG is a mystry to me. Sometimes
organizations have one member or employee! Orgs are not giving
bigger dues (we don't charge dues) they are not contributing
more than individuals do in any other way.
We, individually or representing the express positions of
our organizations, bring evidence, logic, and context to
bear when deliberating policy and implementation issues.
Hard fought battles still end in consensus. They do not
end because the vote was 51:49 and “ever vote counts”.
What is important is the integrity of the process and the
quality of the consensual outputs. The scale and scope of
membership and voting rights should reflect this. As they
stand they address things that are really a non-issue here.
While I don't expect this to happen in the short run, I
would support simplifying participation to one membership
and one vote, and returning our energies to producing
ICANN deliverables.
Sam L., NPOC
--
------------------------------------------------
"It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured
in an unjust state" -Confucius
邦有道，贫且贱焉，耻也。邦无道，富且贵焉，耻也
------------------------------------------------
Visiting Prof, Xi'an Jaiotong-Liverpool Univ, Suzhou, China
Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus), Econ, York U., CANADA
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:email:Lanfran@Yorku.ca">email:Lanfran@Yorku.ca</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:Lanfran@Yorku.ca"><mailto:Lanfran@Yorku.ca></a> Skype: slanfranco
blog:<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://samlanfranco.blogspot.com">https://samlanfranco.blogspot.com</a>
Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
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