I strongly object to Debbie and Amber's request that NCSG open up its membership to commercial trade associations.
NCSG is the *only* place at ICANN that is supposed to be free from commercial influence so other important goals can be pursued. All of the other 5 constituencies in the GNSO are commercial in nature. And many in At-Large are commercially oriented, as "noncommercial" is not part of its mission. But NCSG is the only place that is reserved specifically for non-commercial interests and it is important to keep this space free from commercial concerns, which permeate in every other nook and cranny of ICANN. ICANN's model was designed to allow a specific space for only noncommercial interests to be promoted as a way of advancing the health and development of the Internet. Human rights can never depend upon commercial interests alone to succeed, as one example of "other" goals besides commercial ones ICANN might want to consider. Without a barrier of some kind between the two worlds, noncommercial interests will be over-run by the well-financed commercial interests at ICANN. Of course commercial interests have a place in policy development, but ICANN must leave a single solitary space that cannot be over-run by commercial interests if it wants to claim it represents "the global public interest".
If we opened up NCSG to commercial trade organizations, groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) or the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) would join. I bet Big Pharma trade associations would be among the first to sign-up to NCSG (since their interests are so woefully under-represented at ICANN between the IPC and the BC).
No, I think we have to draw a line at some point -- and it is with commercial trade associations. They don't belong in NCSG. They have a legitimate place in policy development, but it isn't going to be in the non-commercials' name.
Best,
Robin
On Feb 11, 2011, at 3:02 PM, Avri Doria wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the edit pass.
>
> On 'civility' I expect we can come to any agreement. As you said, it has such a broad meaning.
>
> I took a quick look at the other comments, and some of your recommended changes seem like they would be substantive changes to the charter that was approved by a vote in the NCSG. I have been very careful to not make substantive changes during this process. I will read it more carefully this weekend. I would think that I would need to have consensus in the EC for making any substantive changes on behalf of the NCSG. I would like to see where the discussion goes on your proposals.
>
> But of course I will forward them to the SIC and Staff, with any comments that are generated on these lists. And I would expect you to offer them as a comments during the comment period.
>
> Best Regards,
> a.
>
>
> On 11 Feb 2011, at 14:31, Amber Sterling wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Debbie and I reviewed the proposed NCSG charter together and our
>> edits/comments are attached. Please let me know if you have any
>> questions.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Amber
>>
>> Amber Sterling
>> Senior Intellectual Property Specialist
>> Association of American Medical Colleges
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Avri Doria [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 3:44 PM
>> To: NCSG EC; NCSG Policy Committee
>> Subject: [ncsg-ec] my review of the staff's edit to our SG charter.
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Here is a summary of my comments. I intend to send this to Sam Monday
>> morning.
>>
>> In some cases these comments may not make sense without Sam's comment in
>> the text. I guess sometimes they might not makes sense in any case.
>>
>> These comments can also be found in the document itself.
>>
>>
>> Comments:
>>
>> Re 1.2.2 (c) Inclusion of civility
>>
>> If necessary I am sure we will include the word 'civility'. Many of the
>> NCSG members, especially those in NCUC, see this particular requirement
>> for civility as being problematic in that it requires a value judgment
>> close to political correctness in order to make a judgment of what is
>> civil and what is not. Especially in a multi-cultural organization
>> often one cultures directness is another cultures incivility. We also
>> believe that this criteria has been used improperly by the Ombudsman and
>> others in ICANN's past to limit freedom of expression.
>>
>>
>> Re 2.2.3 - definition of large and small organization
>>
>> Personally I prefer the original NCSG definition and recommend that the
>> Constituency process includes this instead. the problem with the
>> criterion here is that certain organization will be excluded from
>> membership based on not being large enough to be small.
>>
>>
>> a. Organizations that have more than 50 employees, or are membership
>> organizations with more than 500 individual members, shall be classified
>> as "large organizations".
>>
>> b. Organizations that are composed of 10 or more organizational members
>> that qualify as "large" under criterion (a.) above shall be classified
>> as "large organizations".
>>
>> c. Organizations that do not qualify as large organizations shall be
>> classified as "small organizations".
>>
>>
>> 2.2.8 Inactive Membership
>>
>> While it is reasonable to include a sentence to indicate that members
>> can resign, i don't think we need to have names on the inactive list
>> times out.
>>
>> Also, at this point we do not have dues. We are considering the
>> introduction of voluntary contributions i the future, but at this point
>> membership in the NCSG is like membership in ISOC, no payment necessary.
>>
>>
>> 2.2.10 Sam had a question on outreach and coordination between
>> constituency Outreach and SG outreach. recommended adding:
>>
>> Membership outreach will be coordinated with Constituency outreach
>> efforts and any outreach efforts established by the GNSO or ICANN.
>>
>> 2.4.2.1 Requirements for appeal and the question of whether there should
>> be weighted notion of bringing the case for consideration.
>>
>> We thought about this and decided that while the voting threshold
>> includes the proportionality, the raising of the issue did not need to.
>>
>> 2.4.3 Chair election - changed the line to read:
>>
>> A Chair can serve, at maximum, 2 full one year terms[SE1] consecutively.
>> There must be at least one intervening term before a member can be
>> elected again as chair;[AD2]
>>
>> [SE1]For consideration: Has there been discussion about when the terms
>> would begin/end? That could be specified in here, but not required.
>>
>> [AD2]not really. Basically that gets defined on an election by
>> election basis. I was criticized once for making the charter too long
>> by getting too much into detail. This sort of thing does not seem to
>> really need codification, especially since creating a generic rule can
>> get confusing. On the other hand, I think there was an ambiguity about
>> whether a chair could serve again in the future, so I added
>> clarification.
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Anyone have something else to add?
>>
>> Assuming the constituency process is approved, I think the changes Sam
>> made were mostly ok. None of my comments is really big, except for
>> perhaps the one about big and small organizations that create an empty
>> spot for many of our small organization that are not big enough to be
>> small under the staff' definition.
>>
>> thanks
>>
>> a.
>>
>> <NCSG Charter-2011-02-11_Amber-Debbie.doc>
>> ----
>> Everything about this list: http://info.n4c.eu/sympa/info/ncsg-ec
>
>
> ----
> Everything about this list: http://info.n4c.eu/sympa/info/ncsg-policy
IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
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