FYI, another side of the user rights issue from the Governance list. Regarding Danny's comment and if ICANN defines and declare rights, then it assumes an agency function; it has a duty of care to enforce them and involve itself in the process to redress grievances arising from breaches. Well, we know enforcement is not ICANN's strong suit. Picture this. In order to get online, almost every Internet user enters into a contract, expressly or implied, for goods and services with somebody in the value chain. Somewhere in nation states all over! And once you begin to talk about "rights" within the context of a contract, then folk will naturally think "justiciable" rights. I rather suspect the real problem here is ICANN is now left to define "rights" in such a way that it does not compel - I say compel - ICANN to initiate juridical action for enforcement, redress or remediation. It cannot arrogate to itself a sovereign right and role. Neither can it afford to seriously offend its principal funders. Or, saddle itself with unbounded liabilities stretching way into the future. Delicioso! Carlton Samuels ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> Date: Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [Coalition] ICANN Meeting in Mexico To: governance@lists.cpsr.org, Public Voice < coalition@mailman.thepublicvoice.org> Ginger, In July 2008 ICANN published a series of proposed amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement -- one of those amendments was a direct response to a concern first raised by the ALAC's Vittorio Bertola, namely that Registrant Rights be clearly detailed in the contract. The exact text of the amendment follows: "In the event that ICANN gives reasonable notice to Registrar that ICANN has published a webpage that identifies available registrant rights and responsibilities, and the content of such webpage is developed in consultation with registrars, Registrar shall provide a link to the webpage on any website it may operate for domain name registration or renewal clearly displayed to its Registered Name Holders at least as clearly as its links to policies or notifications required to be displayed under ICANN Consensus Policies." Since this amendment was proposed, neither the ALAC nor any of the proponents of this measure have acted to define such rights -- they haven't even started. If this rights subset hasn't been worked on at all in the last year, I wouldn't hold my breath awaiting this Summit to yield a full exposition of Internet User Rights. ____________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: governance@lists.cpsr.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: governance-unsubscribe@lists.cpsr.org For all list information and functions, see: http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance