[EC-NCSG] Fwd: NPOC membership issues

[Milton L Mueller]

Alain
I am surprised and a bit disappointed that you have chosen this way to try to advance the Bikoff application, which is obviously illegitimate.
You are invoking the spirit of the San Jose agreement, but my recollection is that our meeting of the minds was made possible by your and Klaus's recognition that there was in fact an attempt by trademark interests to infiltrate the NCSG, and that once we understood that you and Klaus understood that and were not OK with it, we could all relax about things like membership applications and start trusting each other.

That trust is undermined by messages such as yours below.

I do not accept your technicalities about the difference between participation and voting. The argument does not even work. If Bikoff wants to "participate" in NCSG on behalf of The Grange without voting, all The Grange has to do is submit an application with another official, voting representative. That is what Robin has been saying all along. It is very easy to do this. If for some reason I was ineligible to be the official representative of my research center, I would ask Brenden or someone else to do it. Apparently Bikoff is unable to do this. So is it The Grange, or is it Bikoff who is really making the application? I suspect that The Grange has no real interest in NCSG, only Bikoff does, and Bikoff is unable to find a SINGLE PERSON actually in the Grange's staff or management who is willing to put their name forward as its representative in NCSG.

There is no distinction to be made at the point of application between voting and participation. We ask for who the official, voting representative so that we can add that person to the voting lists. That is the way the process works. If the Grange is unable to put anyone besides a voting member of the IPC forward, I think that is yet another reason to reject the application.

Perhaps there is something here I don't understand. Please feel free to continue the dialogue if that is the case.

Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org



From: ec-ncsg-bounces at ipjustice.org [mailto:ec-ncsg-bounces at ipjustice.org] On Behalf Of Alain Berranger
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 1:34 PM
To: ec-ncsg at ipjustice.org
Cc: Klaus.Stoll
Subject: [EC-NCSG] Fwd: NPOC membership issues

Dear ncsg-ec members,

Robin has asked me to share with you for your consideration

Best, Alain

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alain Berranger
Date: Thursday, June 21, 2012
Subject: NPOC membership issues
To: Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org<mailto:robin at ipjustice.org>>
Cc: "Klaus.Stoll" <klaus.stoll at chasquinet.org<mailto:klaus.stoll at chasquinet.org>>, Lori Schulman <lori.schulman at ascd.org<mailto:lori.schulman at ascd.org>>


Dear Robin,

The NCSG-EC needs to distinguish between "voting" and "participating".

Section 6.2.6 of the GNSO Operating Rules and Procedures (ORPs) already limits "voting".  Section 6.2.6(d) specifically prohibits a legal or natural person from being a "voting" member of more than one Group. So NCSG simply has to apply those rules during the voting periods.

However, there is no specific limitation to "participating" in the GNSO rules and the NCSG rules in particular clearly permit an entity to name a "representative" without limitation. Also,  GNSO's ORPs, Section 6.2.6(c), permits voting members of groups to appoint proxies to vote in their place.

NCSG-EC cannot make decisions based on what we think are the intentions of a prospective member or its representative, but on reasonable and objective application of ICANN rules and procedures.

If you check here:  http://gnso.icann.org/council/gnso-operating-procedures-16dec11-en.pdf , you will see that Chapter 6 contains many of the applicable principles related to the current disagreement that Mr. Bikoff has with the way that the membership process is currently being applied by the NCSG-EC. Please refer to your exchanges with Jim for the details.

Meanwhile, you probably have learned that Jim Bikoff has filed a complaint about this.

In the spirit of San Jos? agreement between NPOC and NCUC, I ask you to bring this issue to the NCSG-EC soonest so we can review the situation and come to a revised decision in line with NPOC, NCSG and GNSO Rules and Procedures.

On a more generic level re NPOC/NCSG membership, I think we have made good progress with the new NCSG form. I ask that you please make it an NCSG-EC priority in Prague to resolve the small procedurial points raised by Klaus in order to eliminate quickly the long list of NPOC's pending and new membership applications on hand. Delays have already been detrimental to the organic growth of NPOC and cannot be tolerated anymore.That done, we can resume new NPOC recruiting using the new form. But I do not wish to go back to NPOC Applicants to resubmit their application: Klaus is willing to carry out himself the workload of an additional step with the pending NPOC members to respond to the missing info on the new NCSG form, as if they had filled the new form back whenever.

I think this a reasonable approach.

I am looking forward to discuss and solve the specific and generic issues in Prague.

Best and travel well, Alain

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 1:48 PM, Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org<mailto:robin at ipjustice.org>> wrote:
Hello Alain,

The main problem with Mr. Bikoff and his firm is that they are already members of the Intellectual Property Constituency in the Commercial Stakeholder Group.

Several times during the Costa Rica meeting, when Mr. Bikoff would take the floor to lobby on behalf of his client of the IOC, he would start his intervention by declaring he was a member of the IPC.  Also see his Statement of Interest <https://community.icann.org/display/gnsosoi/james+bikoff+soi> where he declares his a member of the IPC.

So the problem is not only that he is a commercial law firm wanting to represent his client's interests under the "noncommercial" umbra, but mainly that he is trying to participate in BOTH the CSG and the NCSG to advance those client's interests.    Why is Mr. Bikoff so unwilling to accept the same rules as everyone else?   Rules that are intended to ensure fairness of representation.  We do not want to create incentives for gaming the system to obtain a larger share of votes in GNSO policy, as Mr. Bikoff proposes.

Even if we wanted to bend the rules and let Mr. Bikoff participate in NCSG, there are still GNSO rules prohibiting cross-SG participation.   With all the pressure on ICANN to tighten the loopholes for conflicts of interests of its participants, it would be unwise for NCSG to propose to loosen those protections against conflicts of interests further.  The board and the GAC have spent considerable time in recent months working to get rid of loopholes that encourage conflicts of interests, and it would not look well for NCSG to move in the opposite direction with a more permissive attitude about conflicts of interests.

Thanks



--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI, http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca<http://www.schulich.yorku.ca>
Treasurer, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation, www.gkpfoundation.org<http://www.gkpfoundation.org>
NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org<http://www.chasquinet.org>
Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger

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