On behalf of the interests of the not-for-profit community and civil society constituencies I would like some clarity, preferably from those who created the terms of reference for the newly created ICANN positions of Chief Contract Compliance Officer and Consumer Safeguards Director.

The ICANN announcement indicates that they will oversee Contract Compliance and Safeguards, as well as ICANN’s public Interest Commitments and that they will work with others to help safeguard registrants and the global Internet community in ways may go beyond pure contractual enforcement. The position of Consumer Safeguards Director will focus specifically on implementation of those ICANN contract safeguards directed toward protecting consumers, all of this with a broader compliance vision intended to serve ICANN’s mission of providing public benefit.

There are two areas where NPOC would like clarity.

• The first is with regard to the scope and meaning of the terms “consumers” and “global Internet community”. ICANN has traditionally taken consumers to mean registrants of the Internet’s registry and registrar services and focused on contractual enforcement. Does efforts to help safeguard the global Internet community include the customers of registrants and others within the global Internet community at large, or does it have a more circumscribed meaning?
• Second, can there be some greater initial clarity with regard to the others with whom ICANN will be working, and what are the ways that may go beyond pure contractual enforcement?
  

Sam Lanfranco, Chair,
NPOC Policy Committee