[discuss] FW: Comcast undertakes 9 year IETF cosponsorship!?

Sun Mar 23 17:29:09 UTC 2014

Hi Mike,
At 07:16 23-03-2014, michael gurstein wrote:
>Many countries now have laws governing the behavior of lobbyists and
>requiring them  to register if they are going to act as lobbyists in
>attempting to influence public policy. The intent is specifically to ensure
>that there are controls and some imposed transparency on the attempts by
>lobbyists to influence public policy in support of the interests of their
>corporate clients.
>
>One issue that obviously arises with respect to multistakeholderism is the
>lack of such laws and such registration. (In response to your question such
>transparency might be useful even in a forum such as this one for example,
>so we know who is being paid to express certain opinions and whose opinions
>represent which corporate interests.)

Thanks for the response.

It is difficult to determine whether a technical 
specification affects public policy or not.  It 
is possible to verify what I am saying by reviewing a few Internet-Drafts.

Stephen Farrell mentioned that registration (see 
above comment about lobbyists) in the IETF would 
not fly.  Such a proposal would generate an 
excessive amount of (public) messages and people 
will point about why the proposal will not work.

There seems to be an assumption that the IETF is 
similar to other (technical or non-technical) 
organisations because of 
multistakeholderism.  There is a contribution 
from CGI.br (if I recall correctly) which 
mentions that there are many types of 
multistakeholderisms.  I did a quick search and chose some text [1]:

   "There is no clear-cut definition of a 'multi-stakeholder initiative'.
    Opinions differ regarding the scope of initiatives that MSI terminology
    should cover. Some experts feel that, in order to be worthy of the term,
    an initiative should be formally organised and characterised by a
    democratic, multi-stakeholder governance structure. Others consider
    dialogue platforms with representatives from business, civil society and
    other sectors to be MSIs as well."

I hope that the above illustrates how difficult 
it would be to agree on a definition.

In my opinion it is simple for the average person to find out who pays me.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. Credits to Mariëtte van Huijstee 