[discuss] Umbrellas [was: Heads up on Brazil meeting preparation]

Thu Jan 9 22:21:03 UTC 2014

I have removed the cross-posting to lists I am not on.

I have lost track of who wrote these words:

>> ISOC could have been the natural 1net but is too much of a US entity, even
>> though it has offices around the world. The 1net idea is to shift civil
>> society and other Internet actors under an ICANN umbrella,

Two comments.

1. From my observations, ISOC behaves (and has always behaved, since
1992) in a much less American way than ICANN; less fixated on
American legal peculiarities; offices outside the US from a very
early stage; members and chapters established round the world from
a very early stage (FYI, I was the first President of ISOC Geneva)
and of course no contract with any branch of the US government.

How an ICANN umbrella is in any conceivable way *less* US-centric
is utterly mysterious to me. I don't mean that ICANN hasn't made
many efforts to behave in a multi-stakeholder and trans-national
way, but ISOC did that from day one.

I would have preferred both of them to have been established
under a different jurisdiction, but there were practical reasons
for choosing US jurisdiction at the time.

2. I did not and do not understand 1net as being "under an ICANN
umbrella" or as an attempt to "shift civil society and other Internet
actors" (whatever that means). I have no plan to be shifted
under anybody's umbrella, personally.

Regards
   Brian