Colleagues,

I would like to follow up on the Stephanie/Klaus opening on an agenda 
for the Intersession with a suggestion that there be a reflection and 
discussion on the potentially poisonous implications of the issues 
around the .xxx registry contract renewal.

The core issue is not whether the proposed changes are good or bad. The 
core issue is: Does this supersede ICANN’s bottom up multistakeholder 
policy making processes? Superseding ICANN’s processes poses a triple 
threat: to policy making; to stakeholder collaboration within ICANN; and 
to ICANN’s stature as a multistakeholder policy making organization. It 
opens the door to ad hoc (board/staff) policy, to strategic lobbying 
rather than collaboration, compromise and consensus among 
constituencies, and to threats to ICANN’s legitimacy. There should be 
enough in there to constitute an agenda item for the intersessional.

I will even go so far as to get myself in trouble by suggesting that 
topics in this area are more critical for an intersessional venue than 
are the wider ICANN issues of human rights and anti-harassment policies. 
Hope I don’t get harassed for exercising my freedom of speech suggesting 
that. :-\


Sam L.    npoc/csih