By the way, our organization in Brazil does not have "consumer" in the 
title, but a significant part of our lobby and advocacy work is 
defending  final users against arbitrary violations of consumer rights 
by big telcos and cable companies, in partnership with organizations 
such as IDEC (one of the most important NGOs in Brazil which does have 
"consumer" in the title). We provide, together with NIC.br, technical 
grounds and comparative policy information for IDEC to argue in favor of 
consumers etc.

So, count us in as "consumer rights organization".

But this is not the point. I am sure some in the Icann staff will do 
whatever they can to minimize NCUC's representation importance, but this 
is probably not a path to success. One can extend this argument to 
request we have balanced representation of NGOs and academic 
organizations in all fields in which NGOs and academics act, which is 
not a requirement (or practice) for any other constituency recognized by 
Icann.

[]s fraternos

--c.a.

Rits - Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor
Instituto Nupef


William Drake wrote:
> Hi Adam,
> 
> I'm fine with restating openness to dialogue etc as you suggest.  Not 
> that we haven't before.
> 
> Would like to pick up on one specific bit:
> 
> On Aug 6, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Adam Peake wrote:
> 
>> The NCUC does not have membership (or significant membership) from 
>> international consumer organizations (noted in many recent comments 
>> from the board and others as a missing constituent in all of ICANN), 
>> nor for the largest academic communities, libraries, R&D, etc.
> 
> This may well be "noted" by the board and others but it is patently 
> untrue http://ncuc.syr.edu/members.htm.   Just more disinformation.  
> (BTW I also noted some on the transcript of the ALAC call, e.g. Nick 
> saying that the NCUC proposal does not allow board approval of 
> constituencies...facts don't matter if one can't be bothered to learn 
> them).
> 
> Which is not to say that it wouldn't be great to have more groups with 
> "consumer" in their title etc.
> 
> Perhaps this needs to be a larger, more focused discussion sometime, but 
> while I think of it it's worth mentioning that there is also a claim in 
> said circles that our members are not all sufficiently active and hence 
> our diversity is just on paper, which in turn is supposed to allow for 
> "capture" by a small cabal.  This of course is held against us as well, 
> and will be relevant in the NCSG.  As you know, the staff's "Suggested 
> Additional Stakeholder Group Charter Elements to Ensure Transparency, 
> Openness, Fairness and Representativeness Principles" hold, inter alia, 
> that "It is important that the Board and the community have the ability 
> to determine what parties comprise a particular GNSO structure and who 
> participates in an active way....[hence] Each GNSO structure should 
> collect, maintain, and publish active and inactive member names 
> identified by membership category (if applicable)"
> 
> I raised concerns about the reasoning and operational implications of 
> this on the last GNSO call, but they were pretty much brushed aside.  So 
> I guess in some unknown manner members will have to show sufficient 
> signs of life on a frequent enough basis for staff to deem them active 
> and consider their views to "count" when constituencies state 
> positions.  Oh, and meeting attendance lists must be published and will 
> be considered too.  At least, all this undoubtedly will apply to nomcomm 
> constituencies, business ones may get the usual pass from the standards 
> to which we're held.
> 
> And now I have to reply to the council list about this claim in the SOI 
> that we are "not yet sufficiently diverse or robust to select all 
> six"...sigh.  Pushing back on relentless disinfo does get tiring...
> 
> Bill
> 
>