The best way to defang multi-lateralism or intergovernmentalism within ICANN is to have a government stakeholders group, but make it open to any and all government agencies and departments. Move away from the pretense that each national government is a monolith and has one position; make all of them reach consensus as agencies, so that the Data Protection Authorities would be of equal status with the Foreign Ministry, Law Enforcement agencies, etc. > -----Original Message----- > > > Or, are we now considering governments "stakeholders" too? If so, why > > not just make GAC a garden-variety SG in GNSO? The "GSG" -- > > Government Stakeholder Group? > > I have a personal view on this, but to my knowledge, this isn’t actually > codified anywhere that I can tell. Seems to me that although folks from the > GAC and ALAC (for example) should have some sort of say on gTLD policy, > only those directly affected by those policies belong in the GNSO. So we > have gTLD registries and registrars in the GNSO, as well as gTLD commercial > and noncommercial registrants (was never quite sure how the ISPs fit into > this, so my reasoning may be flawed). > > Although GAC and ALAC provide Advice (capital A) to the ICANN board on > multiple issues including gTLD policies, the GNSO is responsible for the > development of policy Recommendations (capital R). Both the Advice and > Recommendations are mandated to the different groups by the ICANN > bylaws. > > Of course, the GNSO process that results in these recommendations is open > to participation regardless of whether or not a person has any affiliation to an > ICANN SO/AC at all. However, the process is still managed by the GNSO’s > stakeholders, represented by the GNSO Council. > > My 2 cents. > > Thanks. > > Amr