I'm 110% with Robin on this.  ICANN's Board, or staff (who work 
ultimately for the Board) has absolutely no business deciding, and 
should not put itself in the position of having to decide, what is or 
is not "in the public interest."  I don't know what institution I 
would trust for that purpose, but it is surely not one that is 
constituted the way the ICANN Board is constituted (selected by the 
specific constituencies that make up the ICANN community).  It might 
well be a perfectly sensible arrangement for constituting an 
institution making decisions about DNS policy, but not for 
determining "the public interest." Nothing but mischief will result 
from allowing it to violate this principle -

David



At 05:22 PM 5/12/2015, Robin Gross wrote:
>Indeed it does seem that in reality we have two different policy 
>development processes that sit on top of each other for GTLD 
>policy.  There is the GNSO developed policy pursuant to Annex A of 
>ICANN's bylaws, and then there is the board-staff developed policy 
>based on what they unilaterally decide is "in the public 
>interest".  Just slap on the label of Public Interest Commitments on 
>them, and voila, an entirely separate set of policy requirements to 
>sit on top of the GNSOs (and over-ride GNSO policy in some cases).
>
>After all, who can be against The Public Interest?   It would seem 
>this is one place where ICANN's staff-board is able to circumvent 
>bottom-up policy development processes and it is unclear where the 
>authority to do this comes from since GNSO policy is supposed to be 
>developed pursuant to Annex A of ICANN's bylaws.
>
>Thanks,
>Robin
>
>
>On May 12, 2015, at 1:47 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >>
> >> You mean as issues that the GNSO process did not deal with adequately and
> >> are therefore a good reason for sending a recommendation back to the
> >> GNSO for further work?
> >
> > No, I mean as yet another example of altering agreed policy on 
> the fly in response to demands by privileged interest groups (GAC, 
> trademark) who could never get their views accepted in a consensus process.
> >
>

*******************************
David G Post - Senior Fellow, Open Technology Institute/New America Foundation
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etc.  http://www.davidpost.com
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