[discuss] Questions regarding business sector participation

Mon Dec 23 02:57:06 UTC 2013

Dave, 

You are perhaps confusing the specific BASIS membership with the more general ICC membership. I think Ayesha will be best to provide the correct answer, but to provide some background, to my best knowledge the situation is as follows:

BASIS (Business Action to Support the Information Society)  is the successor to the CCBI (Coordinating Committee for Business Interlocutors) which was formed for the business constituencies at the WSIS. Because ICC has consultative status with the UN ECOSOC, ICC was asked by the UN to help coordinate global business through the CCBI. CCBI was open for all businesses, not just for ICC members. And it was paid for from the general ICC budget, even for those who were not paying ICC members. 

After WSIS, CCBI members asked ICC to continue this organizing function and the venues multiplied in which ICC through BASIS provided services to the whole business community (IGF, CSTD, ECOSOC, WSIS Forum, etc). At some point in time ICC suggested that while it could keep BASIS open to all business members (whether ICC paying members or not), it did not have the resources to pay for the staff and travel expenses to support this entirely from its budget and asked for BASIS members to help pay for the effort. 

Therefore, a scheme was introduced that reflects business size and whether the business comes from a developed or a devolving country. The contributions expected from those businesses participating are reflecting this scheme and are designed to defray some of the costs of BASIS. In practice, BASIS contributions never fully paid for the expenses. Hence BASIS is partially funded from ICC membership fees and partially by those who are in BASIS, whether or not ICC members. 

Membership in BASIS has continually grown over the years and includes many companies from all parts of the world and also organizations like the GSMA which is not a member of ICC. 

Not all members have the bandwidth to participate in all venues, so volunteers share the work and liaise with the larger membership. 

As to the specifics of this nomination process and its outcome I'm sure Ayesha will shed some light on the considerations that were discussed and agreed upon. 

Let's all wait for Ayesha to comment before jumping to conclusions. 

Peter H. Hellmonds
<peter.hellmonds at hellmonds.eu>
Disclosure: I'm a paying small business member of ICC Germany and volunteer as ICC Germany's special advisor on the digital economy, which allows me to participate in BASIS. 

On 20.12.2013, at 18:03, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com> wrote:

In the U.S., ICC Basis requires a membership fee, undisclosed but based on sales, that appears to be in the thousands. The exception is for lawyers in solo practice, $500. As a result, there are almost no smaller businesses. 

   It clearly speaks for large organizations, not the general U.S. corporate body.

db

> On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 10:59 AM, George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
> 
> I would like to ask the following questions regarding business sector participation in 1net and related Internet governance activities, and I would appreciate a public response from representatives of that sector:
> 
> 1. Is ICC BASIS the sole coordinator of private sector nominations to the 1net steering committee and to the several of the committees that will support the meeting in Brazil in April 2014?
> 
> 2. Does ICC BASIS restrict its nominations to within the group of "members" of ICC BASIS?
> 
> 3. In order to be considered a member of ICC BASIS, does an organization have to pay a fee to ICC BASIS?
> 
> 4. If so, how much is that fee, and is it a one time fee or a yearly fee?
> 
> Since much of our discussion seems stuck on representation issues (to my dismay), let's at least get the facts in the open so that we can eliminate unnecessary and unproductive speculation.
> 
> George
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