Leveraging Local Communities

Wednesday June 25, 2014

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The effectiveness of the Internet as a mechanism to orchestrate public discourse is unprecedented in the history of communication. As we have witnessed the power relayed by social media communities to special interests influence the direction of national conversations, so will communities cultivated by profit driven corporations continue to empower their facilitators.

It is widely recognized that any organization is potentiated by self-interest to increase its own autonomy and reduce its accountability to others. It is in this spirit that the United States questions how it will be ensured that ICANN does not inappropriately control or influence the process for its own self-interest.

The greatest threat to the preservation of the...

Meaningful Multistakeholder Consensus

Thursday June 19, 2014

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The concern advertised against active national participation within the mechanisms that provide accountability to Internet governance is unsubstantiated by NTIA statements on the transition. In similitude to the Second Red Scare in the US, demagoguery is a tactic that will only be favored by aspiring technocrats due to a necessity to levitate an agenda over meaningful discourse.

The NTIA has stated that it will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution. In so much as the NTIA currently has no operational role and does not initiate changes to the authoritative root zone file, assignment of protocol numbers, or allocation of Internet numbering resources, global government...

On Enhancing ICANN Accountability

Thursday May 29, 2014

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In its overview on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, ICANN's Senior Advisor to the President on Strategy graciously offers a window of "opportunity for public dialogue and community feedback" to be heard during an "accountability discussion that will take place entirely within the ICANN community". The overview sets forth a number of questions to the public that were designed by ICANN to provide input to the ICANN Accountability Working Group, in order for ICANN to craft the framework for its Accountability to the Public. Primarily, ICANN would like to consider the issues that the public identifies as being core to strengthening such accountability.

In essence, Accountability is the answerability, liability, and expectation of account-giving, in...

On Developing a Transition Proposal

Thursday May 8, 2014

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While the principles and mechanisms to guide transition proposal development, as suggested by the convener of the process, seem sensible enough, both the scope of the transition and the operation of the mechanisms remain susceptibly vague. Contrary to one who directs a process, the very definition of a convener is one who brings together for a meeting or activity. In this spirit, the call for public input prudently identifies wide community concern for the examination of broader globalization and accountability mechanisms.

In keeping with the principles to maintain an inclusive, transparent, and consensus driven development process, both proposal scope and execution management must ensue directly from an open consultation process, without...

Foundations of Internet Governance

Saturday April 19, 2014

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The complexity of global interdependencies arising from the proliferation of the Internet over the past thirty years has drastically reduced its utility as a strategic information asset to a single nation. To the contrary, the uneven distribution of power that it lends to a handful of corporations may even result in direct conflicts with its own national interests. It should be of no surprise that a responsible democracy, carrying the torch of liberty on the world stage, would finally elect to divest its interest in governance of the Internet to the greater global community in good faith. The burden now shouldered by international leadership is to effectuate the public translation of this responsibility into a transparent process-driven system of...

Federation of I-Governance

Monday April 7, 2014

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While somewhat rough around the edges, ICANN's PDP is an effective way to distill community feedback into policy. It enables representatives to leverage a pure Consultation based model in order to obtain granular visibility into complex issues for decision-making, such that insight from those closest to the issues may be captured for analysis and action. However, effective decision-making is only half of the equation for good governance. The other half is Accountability.

Accountability is not a property intrinsic to any given organizational structure. It is a system property that is manufactured by the creation of interaction rules around interdependencies between multiple organizations. For accountability to be effective, distinct organizations...