[discuss] Questions regarding business sector participation

Fri Jan 3 17:43:36 UTC 2014

I agree with Nick here -

While there are a substantial number of businesses that have ‘brochure ware’ sites, a vastly larger number of businesses have internet functionality at their core. While that functionality may be provided by third parties, they have no less of an interest in the governance structure of ICANN (in this thread) and the internet at large.

Its important not to limit the internet functionality provided by infrastructure providers to simply transport, connectivity or domain names. These providers businesses are much broader than such a definition.

David Snead
Co-founder and public policy chair.
Internet infrastructure coalition

From: Nick Ashton-Hart
Sent: ‎Tuesday‎, ‎December‎ ‎24‎, ‎2013 ‎2‎:‎41‎ ‎AM
To: Shatan, Gregory S., 'Avri Doria', discuss at 1net.org

Actually, I don't think the underlying premise - that most businesses are simply users - is really true. For example, the supply chain of much of industry is now dependent upon the Internet. Many companies interface their supply chain 'hooks' into their production and logistics systems. Services, which are a majority of the developed world's economy, are tradeable because of the Internet - which means that a very large number of business are reliant upon the Internet for the delivery of their products.

That doesn't mean that industry cannot have sub-groupings to represent different sectors - and in fact this is true now, there are trade associations that focus on Internet services' issues, ISP issues, etc.

The divisions in ICANN are understandable at least to some extent - registries and registrars have different interests to everyone else on many things thanks to contractual relationship with ICANN.

"Shatan, Gregory S." <GShatan at ReedSmith.com> wrote:

I think there are fundamental differences between infrastructure providers (e.g., registries (ccTLDs and gTLDs), registrars, DNS providers and ISPs) and the general business community.  The vast majority of businesses are "users" -- they plug into the internet and take it as they find it.  They will use it to allow the rest of the world to find their website, and to conduct business and payments, and to send and receive emails, but the Internet itself is more or less a "black box."  Infrastructure providers have a fundamentally different relationship to the internet as builders and maintainers of the Internet and sellers of internet services of various types (domain names, connectivity, etc.), in addition to their "business user" relationship.  The question is how and where does those infrastructure issues, interests and concerns find representation?  These concerns are irrelevant to the rest of business (except to the extent that business, like civil society,
individuals  and every other user depends on the "black box" to work).  Furthermore their approach and desired outcomes to IG issues, interests and concerns may be significantly different from (or even diametrically opposed to) those of business users.  For these reasons, shoehorning them into "business" is an uncomfortable fit.

Of course, anytime you try to divide a complex ecosystem into 4 parts, you will have a range of views within each of those parts.  But I think this "fit" issue is a fundamentally different one, because infrastructure providers have a direct and unique relationship to the Internet that is fundamentally different from those of business users (or any other users).  While the business stakeholders can represent infrastructure providers' generic concerns as "business users" of the Internet "black box," whether and how they should represent their concerns as infrastructure providers inside the "black box" is entirely a different matter.

Greg
Shatan

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Monday, December 23, 2013 9:06 AM
To: discuss at 1net.org
Subject: Re: [discuss] Questions regarding business sector participation

On 20-Dec-13 11:16, Neuman, Jeff wrote:
 Sometimes technical is also including.  But many of the infrastructure providers, including registries (ccTLDs and gTLDs), registrars, DNS providers and ISPs are left out of the mix.

For the most part, in the larger scheme of things, aren't they, for the most part, businesses.  I would think that at the scope of 1net, business would include all of these as sub-groupings and would need to deal internally with that diversity.

This is the same way that CS is now grappling with
the problem of trying to be inclusive of all perspectives and grouping of organized civil society.  Etc.

avri

________________________________

discuss mailing list
discuss at 1net.org
http://1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

                                                                * * *

This E-mail, along with any attachments, is considered
confidential and may well be legally privileged. If you have received it in
error, you are on notice of its status. Please notify us immediately by reply
e-mail and then delete this message from your system. Please do not copy it or
use it for any purposes, or disclose its contents to any other
person. Thank you for your cooperation.

                                                                * * *

To ensure compliance with Treasury Department regulations, we
inform you that, unless
otherwise indicated in writing, any U.S. Federal tax
advice contained in this communication  (including any attachments) is not
intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (1)
avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state
and local provisions or (2) promoting, marketing or recommending to another
party any tax-related matters addressed herein.
                                                                        Disclaimer Version RS.US.20.10.00
________________________________

discuss mailing list
discuss at 1net.org
http://1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://1net-mail.1net.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20140103/6d466846/attachment.html>