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