<<< Date Index >>>     <<< Thread Index >>>

[governance] RALO



Thanks Vittorio for sending me the draft principles for the EU-RALO.
 
Below you see my comments. I wanted to post my comments on the RALO list, 
hosted by ISOC Belgium, but always when i wanted to register, it was rejected. 
The text on the website says that after reading the basic statement I have to 
click "agree". I did agree but nothing happend. No registration from poped up. 
http://www.isoc.be/euralo/policy.asp
I informed yesterday Rudi Vansnick from IOC Belgium, but also today, it does 
not work.
 
Best regards
 
wolfgang
 
Here is the Statement
 
 

Comments from Wolfgang Kleinwächter

to the "Principles Paper towards a European Regional At Large Organisation",

released by former and current European ALAC Members on January, 17th, 2006

 

 

1.      I do not understand why some (former and current) European members of 
ALAC have started the initiative for an EU-RALO now. The call for an EU-RALO is 
on the table since three years. The arguments in 2003, 2004 and 2005 not to 
start with the EU-RALO have been that the number of ALS was seen as too small 
and not representative enough. "Give us more time for outreach" was the answer 
when I raised this issue in AL meetings in Capetown (December 2004) and Mar del 
Plata (March 2005).  In September 2004 there were seven accredited ALS in 
Europe. Now, after another 17 months, we have eight members plus one pending 
application from a rather unknown Italian group "tldworld.info". I can not see 
that this is a new quality, more representative than it was two years ago. In 
contrary, it is a big shame that within the last 17 months the European ALAC 
members have been unable to attract more European Internet user groups and 
organisations. 

 

2.      With regard to the accredited eight ALS, I have no problems that these 
groups are mainly ISOC chapters. The problem is that the big European ISOC 
chapters - like UK, France or Germany - are not accredited members. Also other 
big European consumer and user organisations, representing national 
organisations with much more members than some of the accredited ISOC Chapters, 
have ignored so far the ALAC invitation. As I said in an earlier mail, to 
establish an EU-RALO under this circumstances is like organising the Champions 
League without the Champions. The risk here is that governments will take this 
as a joke when EU-RALO will speak "on behalf of the Internet users in Europe". 
You feed arguments by governmental representatives that the governments 
represent the interests of the European Internet users and not the user groups 
themselves. To be frank, I like FITUG, but Michael Leibrand, the German GAC 
member, will not be impressed by statements coming from this group. Why FITUG 
was unable to attract ISOC Germany, CCC and all the other Internet User groups 
with thousands of members, coming together to dozens of meetings every year? 
Why FITUG as the only German User groups so far, does not come to the Domain 
Pulse meetings, organized by the German speaking ccTLD Registries (where the 
majority of Internet end users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have their 
registration) and is advertising the At Large idea?

 

3.      What I miss totally in the proposed draft is a chapter which defines 
the aims and principles of an European RALO.  Para. 3 in Chapter II says only 
that the purpose of the EU-RALO is to provide a "channel for participation by 
the European individual Internet users into the activities of ICANN". This is 
only a formal and procedural point. Why you did not define some content and 
value related criteria which would make Internet user involvement different 
from the involvement of other stakeholders? I think there is a need to describe 
more in details the special role and responsibility of Internet users and their 
organisations in the ICANN context from a European perspective. 

 

4.      While I fully support to have two categories of members - institutional 
and individual - I do not see a right balance between the two categories in the 
proposed draft. As it stands now, individuals are rather marginalized in the 
proposed "Executive Board" (EC). What will be the outcome if the EU-RALO would 
be established now? We have now 8 (or 9) ALS that means each would get one seat 
in the EC. With the low level of outreach so far I would be surprised to see 
more than 20 or 30 individual members within the next three months. With other 
words, the EC would have ten members, nine from the accredited ALS. This looks 
like a closed club which does not like "foreign members" but want to give the 
impression that they are "open". Such a structure is exclusive, not inclusive. 
It keeps people out and decourages individuals to join. 

 

5.      My counter proposal is to establish a Council with ten seats, five 
filled by the institutional members, five filled by the individual members, 
based an the principle of geographical diversity, that would mean two members 
(one individual and one institutional) form Western Europe, two from Northern 
Europe, two from Eastern Europe, two from Southern Europe and two from Central 
Europe. 

 

6.      I strongly disagree that the officers of the EU-RALO (including the 
ALAC members) are selected by the Executive Council. This opens the door for a 
"friend of my friends network" and  allows all tricky games behind closed 
doors. Civil society and At Large stands for bottom up, open and transparent 
processes. But this is closed, intransparent and top down. This is totally 
unacceptable. And it is the result of the failure of Chapter II of the proposed 
draft, where the mission is defined in "technical terms" only and excludes all 
values and content related orientation.

 

7.      I support in Chapter VI - Funding Mechanism - that the EU-RALO should 
be in the first 24 months supported by the ICANN budget. But as it stands now, 
it looks like the former and current ALAC members are asking for money for a 
half day job for one person in Brussels (selected by the EC) and to guarantee 
financing of Travel and Accommodation for EC selected people for two years. 
There is no paragraph which says, that money should be used for local seminars 
and workshops for further outreach or human capacity building. If money comes 
from ICANN it should not be spent in five star hotels but to help people on the 
ground to understand better the challenges of Internet governance from a user 
perspective. 

 

8.      The dateline for Comments - February 15, 2006 - is totally 
unacceptable. Giving the low level of outreach and publicity, the call for 
comments has got so far, this can not be taken seriously. The authors of the 
draft should use the forthcoming IGF consultations in Geneva, February 16 - 17, 
2006, to inform about the efforts to build a EU-RALO and to get feedback from 
the different constituencies, which will come to Geneva. It looks like a coup 
to create facts before the IGF consultations.   

 

9.      So my final recommendation is that the paper should be immediately 
withdrawn and the former and current members of the ALAC should present a clear 
and workable plan for outreach and capacity building, based on defined aims, 
values and principles which serve the interest of the Internet end-users in 
Europe. 

 
 
 

_______________________________________________
governance mailing list
governance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance