[ga] ALAC's failure to generate public participation and outreach

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Article XI Section 2 Sub-Section 4 of ICANN's By-Laws states:
http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws.htm#XI

g. "Each RALO shall serve as the MAIN FORUM and co-ordination point for PUBLIC INPUT to ICANN in its Geographic Region."

QUESTION: Where is the Forum for Europe? Does it indeed provide the MAIN FORUM for PUBLIC INPUT? Where is that PUBLIC INPUT and how much has there been in the past year?

QUESTION: Where are the forums for the other regions? Does ICANN post the URLS for these forums on its website? Do the RALOs really provide the MAIN PUBLIC INPUT to ICANN?

j3. "The ALAC is responsible for promoting outreach activities in the community of individual Internet users."

QUESTION: Specifically what outreach activity has been carried out in the United Kingdom, my own country, in the past year?

j5. "The ALAC is responsible for establishing an outreach strategy about ICANN issues in each RALO's Region."

QUESTION: Could the European RALO please publish its "outreach strategy" for Europe (in accordance with ICANN By-Laws), and state when it was written? Can we also see the "outreach strategies" for all the other regions if they exist?

Because, you see, I believe that ALAC with its RALOs is simply a structure which ICANN has promoted to legitimise its expulsion of the democratic representatives of Internet Users from the ICANN Board. The central ALAC forum is moribund and inactive. RALO forums hardly seem to exist. User participation in ALAC papers and policy development seems almost non-existent. Too often, creation of ALAC positions is left to Vittorio or Thomas to write, and a handful of others to discuss briefly. There is no At Large community. There are no vibrant At Large forums or mailing lists. That is because individuals have been excluded from the process.

There cannot be real public participation and outreach until the At Large becomes a Membership of Individuals who can vote and take part and truly believe that they are helping to determine the future of their Internet. Until the hundreds of millions of ordinary Internet users feel they have some 'ownership' of the At Large, and some ability to determine who and what it is, and how they are represented, ALAC will remain a dead structure, just an ICANN device for locking out the true voice of the Internet.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson