The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> THERESA SWINEHART: Hi, everybody. We'll be starting in about three minutes or so. Thanks.
Hi everybody. Okay. If I could have everybody's attention. Sorry. This is an awkward -- oh, there we go. Wonderful. Okay. Could I have everybody's attention, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Fantastic. I know that the out sound -- the sound out there is a bit disturbing, but if at least we keep the room quiet, then we can at least hear all the panelists. Closer to the mic. Wonderful.
Okay. So first of all, welcome, and welcome to this session. It's an absolute wonderful opportunity at this IGF to be having a session about how the multistakeholder model worked in the context of the IANA Stewardship Transition and how that is a case study and example for work in other areas, and to hear from both the panelists and from the audience in the discussions about their experience and their observations around this.
As many of you know, the process that was used and facilitated by ICANN for retrieving the results of the transition involved not just the ICANN community but the much broader community and the communities of the respective operating communities, so namely the IETF, the Regional Internet Registries, and the naming community, so it was very broad in scope.
I'd like to introduce the panelists briefly and then give you an outline about how the agenda will work, and we will leave plenty of room and time for discussion with the participants in the room and also with remote participation, the moderator will also be Baher Esmat, my colleague. The panelists are Göran Marby president and CEO of ICANN; Larry Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information, U.S. Department of Commerce; Steve Crocker, chairman of the board of ICANN; Thomas Schneider, chair of the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee; Alejandro Pisanty with ISOC Mexico; Lise Fuhr, Director General ETNO -- she also has an opportunity to serve on PTI, which is a post-transition aspect that we have now -- and William Hudson, senior advisor for international policy over at Google.
We will start out with some brief remarks by Göran Marby, followed by remarks from Larry Strickling. Then we will go for remarks and some questions that I will oppose to Thomas Schneider, Alejandro Pisanty, Will Hudson, and Lise Fuhr; some closing remarks on observations by our chairman of the board, Steve Crocker, and then we'll open up for questions and discussions, so we will keep our remarks as succinct as we can and look forward to a good dialogue with everybody. Göran, if I can turn it over to you.
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Thank you, Larry. You're always a good support.
>> LAWRENCE STRIKLING: That was Theresa.
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Yeah, but you gave me the microphone. Thank you. Nice being here, and it's a very interesting subject. As you know -- as you know, I come in very late in the process when I started the end of May, but personally, I had the opportunity to have some interesting interactions during the process, especially when together with gentleman went to the U.S. Congress for a hearing, which I thought was interesting in so many ways.
But as I -- I said this a couple of times now as a general reflection is that I'm -- I'm really impressed by the work from the community in this room. And I've said this before and I'm going to say it again because I don't think there's been any time when so many people from so many countries for such a long time came together and worked on a proposal to hand over to the U.S. government, and I think that I'm repeating it because I think that looking at it, I think for many people, it just became natural, but for an outsider to see this, it was really remarkable, and it proves the strength about the multistakeholder model, not only in our setting, the ICANN setting, but also with our partners in the technical and protocol and in the numbering community that we actually can work together with the underpinnings of Internet.
And when this replicates -- Steve could probably say something that this was probably a totally mastered plan from the beginning and it all worked according to the plan, even if it was -- you would say it was, I suppose, but I think that looking from the outside, you should take a lot of credit for that.
Another thing I'm really taken with was that during the last couple of months and the last couple of weeks, even days before the session, someone was actually very close of hijacking the whole process, and we should make sure that that never happens again. We have to make sure that the community involved in Internet governance and the Internet has to be an active lot, not only one within ICANN, but also in the other, our partners, because that will be the shield we can use to make sure that no hijacking could happen in the future, and therefore, I think a discussion like this, another discussion during IGF, is going to be extremely important.
I often get the question, what happened, and to some people's surprise, the Internet didn't stop working the day after the decisions because I think there were people that were frightened the day after something would happen. In retrospect, nothing really happened, but the thing is we replaced one revision to something else, which is we have a community who really runs what ICANN does, and that model has never been used before, and I think it's a unique model, but to tell something how Internet actually works, because it works according to the principle of Internet. There is no central point. It's a distributed system.
What that really has provided with us is an accountability working forward. I get my mandate from a community which has worked together to produce something like this, and I feel very strongly that anyone who now talks about representing something about Internet, when we now talk about ICANN, we have that accountability and that mandate going forward because we can truly say that we represent the Internet users of the world.
I'm going to be short because there's so much more people here who have been much more involved in this, but again, I have said it many times, I would like to say it again, thank you very much for anyone involved. Thank you.
>> LAWRENCE STRICKLING: Thank you, Theresa, and thank you, Göran. I'm delighted to be here to speak on this topic. Let me just say at the outset, without a doubt, the IANA transition has been the most successful demonstration of the power of the multistakeholder model, and I think what we want to talk about today is how it provides important lessons as we consider how to build on the momentum created by this remarkable achievement.
With the help of many people in this room and other stakeholders from around the globe, we have finally fulfilled the promise the United States made nearly two decades ago to privatize the Internet Domain Name System, and we took those final steps with the expiration of the IANA functions contract as of October 1st and by modifying the cooperative agreement with Verisign to remove NTIA's role in authorizing changes to the authoritative root zone file, so I know many of you understand the significance of this historic moment in the evolution of the Internet, but I think it's also important to understand it in the context of the development of the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance and policymaking.
For more than a decade, the United States and countries that participate in the IGF have strived to promote the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance because of the attributes of the Internet itself. From the World Summit on the Information Society, to the World Conference on International Telecommunications, we have argued that the Internet is fundamentally different from other communications networks. It is a diverse, multilayered system that thrives only through the cooperation of many different parties, operating in a bottom-up manner to reach consensus, and unequivocally, the success of the IANA function stewardship transition serves as a validation of that premise and of our ongoing and unrelenting commitment to the multistakeholder model.
Hundreds of stakeholders around the world worked for nearly two years in an open and transparent process to develop the consensus transition plan. Many of you have heard the statistics. I'll just repeat a couple of them. They worked more than 26,000 hours on the proposal exchanged more than 33,000 messages, held more than 600 meetings and conference calls, and, of course, incurred millions of dollars of legal fees to develop the plan.
Folks know that when the plan came to us, we led a very intensive review among the agencies of the U.S. government to ensure that the plan met our criteria, and we, on June 9th, concluded that that plan satisfied each and every one of our criteria.
Now, folks also know there were some last-minute attempts to derail the transition, and these attempts included a hearing on a temporary restraining order in a Galveston, Texas, courtroom -- don't ask me why Galveston -- on the afternoon of September 30th, literally hours before the contract was set to expire, but stakeholders, such as you, stepped forward to resist these last-minute attacks. A certain -- a coalition of stakeholders filed in the court case arguing that blocking the transition or even delaying it could harm United States' credibility around the globe and embolden those countries that would prefer to see governments control the Domain Name System, so fortunately, these attempts to delay or block the transition did not succeed, and so the IANA functions contract expired on October 1st.
And upon expiration, the agreements and accountability mechanisms developed by the global customer community for the performance of the IANA functions went into effect, and at the same time, the revised ICANN bylaws, designed by the global community to enhance ICANN's accountability, also went into force.
So looking back on this two-year effort to complete the transition, there are some questions we can ask. First, is there any question whether we were correct to call on the multistakeholder community to develop a transition proposal?
I believe, without a doubt, we were.
And could any other process have brought together the views and ideas of so many people in such a short period of time to solve such complicated and important issues? And I just don't think so.
So I think we should be enormously proud of what we accomplished with the IANA transition, but there is certainly more work to be done as it relates to the Domain Name System. This includes insuring that we, as members of the multistakeholder community, hold ICANN accountable to the commitments it made. We must ensure that it meets the needs of the customers of the IANA functions contract and we must ensure ICANN abides by the principles of the multistakeholder approach and the reforms developed by the community.
At the same time, we must consider how we expand and evolve the multistakeholder approach, and we have to ask an additional question, can we build on the success of the IANA transition to tackle other Internet policy challenges?
On the Internet, policy challenges are not easily addressed, simply by passing a law or implementing a regulation. Top-down solutions that may work in other arenas rarely work on the Internet. We have seen the multistakeholder approach work in the allocation of critical Internet resources, such as IP addresses and domain names, but can we now bring stakeholders together to address some of these other thorny issues through the consensus decision-making that characterizes the approach?
Can the multistakeholder approach help make progress on questions of data protection, software vulnerability, research, artificial intelligence, and other emerging issues? I think it can, but to understand where it can best be utilized and how to maximize the likelihood of success, we need to focus on the key attributes that characterize effective multistakeholder processes.
It is clear that the most effective of these processes are ones that, first, include and integrate the viewpoints of a diverse range of stakeholders, ensuring that underrepresented groups have a meaningful say in the policies that impact them.
Second, it produces outcomes that are consensus-based, reflect compromise, and are supported by the greatest number of stakeholders.
Third, that agendas are built through bottom-up contributions rather than delivering top-down mandates.
And fourth, these processes have to earn their legitimacy by practicing openness and transparency and developing an environment of trust.
And let me elaborate on this legitimacy point because it's perhaps the most critical component, as we think about extending the multistakeholder process to other issues.
Participants must have trust in those convening the process and a sense that the world at large will accept and recognize the outcome of a process as authoritative, so where does this legitimacy come from? Often it can come from a government or some other official entity that convenes the process.
In the United States, the legitimacy of the domestic multistakeholder processes that NTIA has facilitated on privacy and cybersecurity have certainly been helped by our convening them, but governments do not have to be the legitimizing force. For example, the Internet Engineering Task Force is an example of a successful multistakeholder body that has gained legitimacy organically over the years and did not require the blessing of any government agency like NTIA. Instead, it gained its legitimacy by producing voluntary standards of the highest quality that have become the gold standard for the Internet since the body's inception.
So while legitimacy is a crucial factor in the success of a multistakeholder process, there may be different ways to obtain it.
One thing is clear. To be accepted as legitimate, a process needs to be open to any participant and consciously include a diversity of stakeholders.
As I noted, the Internet thrives only through the cooperation of many different parties. Solving or even meaningfully discussing policy issues in this space requires engaging participants from industries, Civil Society, government, and the technical and academic communities, and absent this openness and diversity, it can be difficult to achieve the degree of legitimacy needed for a multistakeholder process to be successful.
At the same time, participants must know that they will be the ones to make the decision, not someone else, and that it will be a consensus decision. Some countries or organizations have run what they call multistakeholder processes that are, in reality, only consultations because the so-called multistakeholder group is not empowered to make the final decision, but when groups know they control the final decisions, they are more likely to put in the extra effort often needed to reach true consensus.
Usually, reaching consensus requires making compromises, but participants are more willing to compromise when a group feels that reaching a shared decision is the most important goal.
So clearly, the multistakeholder model has a successful record of accomplishment on Internet policy questions, especially when it comes to technical Internet issues, but as we think about extending the model to more difficult issues, it's useful to understand where it has not been as successful, and, for example, look at the effort launched in the wake of the very successful NETmundial conference in Brazil in 2014. This, of course, you all know was a conference hosted by the Government of Brazil, which brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including technical experts and Civil Society groups, industry, and government, all on an equal footing with each other, and at this meeting, participants agreed that Internet governance should be built on Democratic multistakeholder processes. In fact, the meeting itself replicates a compelling demonstration of the open participative and consensus driven governance that allowed the Internet to develop as an unparalleled engine of economic growth. The meeting was a success in every dimension.
Following the meeting, the World Economic Forum, at the urging of ICANN's CEO at that time, invited stakeholders to come together to work on ways to net the NETmundial efforts porter, and they created the initiative to develop an international platform to bring together government business, all stakeholders, to discuss how to sustain and strengthen an effective multistakeholder approach to Internet governance.
One of the stated goals of this effort was to encourage more participation by developing countries in Internet governance.
In 2012, at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, many voted for greater government control of the Internet, and following that conference, many of us came to the realization that we needed to do more to strengthen existing opportunities and develop new ones for these developing countries to participate in multistakeholder processes to solve their problems in, and the hope was that the NETmundial initiative could demonstrate to developing countries how they could engage the multistakeholder approach and adopt the ideas of inclusion and participation in their own countries to reach better outcomes.
Yet, despite support from the United States Government and others and despite the fact that the motives at work here were of the purest, the NETmundial initiative never got off the ground, and why? Well, there were a number of reasons, but I believe the primary reason was the lack of support and participation by key stakeholders, most notably the business community and the Internet Society, and I'm not blaming them, but I'm simply saying that the initiative was developed in a top-down way and did not adequately seek their support or input, and in their eyes, the initiative lacked the initiative it needed to succeed. So as we look to expand the role of the model, it's important to keep in mind that these processes must be based on inclusion and participation from the first day in order to develop the legitimacy they need to be successful.
A second key issue to be considered, as we discuss the future of the model, is the fact that the process does not guarantee that everyone will be satisfied with the outcome. But it is critical to preserving this model of Internet governance that all parties respect and work through the process and accept the outcome once a decision is reached, and it's clear we have more work to do on this front.
Even ICANN, which has all this experience running multistakeholder processes, is not immune to detractors who attempt to undermine the process after an outcome has been achieved. After the community completed the IANA transition plan last March, as I mentioned, there were those who tried unsuccessfully to delay or block the transition at the 11th hour.
Of course, there will always be those who are not entirely happy with the outcome, but if you believe in the process, you must respect the process by bringing your concerns or ideas forward before stakeholders come to a consensus decision, not after.
So how do we defend against last-minute attacks of the process from those who either did not participate in the process or who did not prevail in advancing their views? One way is to offer as many opportunities as possible for all parties to participate, which would allow potential critics to air their issues within the process.
Protecting the process also requires a dedicated and concerted effort to educate people about the model. It is up to those of us who support the model to build greater awareness and understanding of it among key policymakers, business leaders, and others around the world. When we engage in these educational efforts, we must be direct and up front and explain that multistakeholder processes are not easy, they can be chaotic, and they do require a serious commitment of time and energy from participants, but we can point to a record of success, we can explain that they offer a nimble, flexible approach, much better suited to rapidly changing technologies and markets than traditional regulatory or legislative models.
If you take away one message from me it's this: With the success of the IANA transition, the challenge for the multistakeholder community is to build from that experience and find opportunities to apply the model to those issues where it has the best chance to succeed, and at the same time, we still have work to do to demonstrate to stakeholders everywhere, but especially in developing countries, how they can utilize this tool to solve technical policy challenges better than top-down regulatory approaches offered by governmental organizations.
So with that, I want to thank all of you for being here today and for participating, because it is only through your participation in events like these that we can continue to ensure that the Internet remains an engine for prosperity, innovation, and free expression.
Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you, Larry. That was really exceptional. Thank you.
With that, we're going to turn over to our panelists. In addition, one thing I'd like you to also touch on, also in the context of Larry's remarks, is how you see the success of the transition demonstrate the validity of the global multistakeholder model and any observations to this important question around the multistakeholder process and how it gains legitimacy. I think this is a very important theme, especially as it's applicable and we start looking at the model in the context of some of the other issues that have been highlighted. If I could start with Thomas and then I would turn to Alejandro and then Lise and then Will, if that would be appropriate. Thanks. Thomas.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Funny microphones, but I hope it worked. Okay. Well --
>> LAWRENCE STRICKLING: (Off microphone)
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: It's not so beautiful, but I'll try to do that next time. Hello to everybody, and thank you for being part of this discussion. First of all, I think there seems to be quite commonalities between the Swiss way of thinking and U.S. way of thinking, so basically Larry has almost said everything that I think is key to this discussion about participatory democracy systems which we've introduced in the empowered community in something like 1291 and modernized it in 1848 in our constitution, so we know that participatory inclusive Democratic processes are painful, but they are the most sustainable that I personally have experienced so far.
So -- and just to highlight the key point, which is what he said, is inclusivity, in addition to clear roles, as clear as they can be, in a moving -- fast-moving environment, clear roles, inclusivity that gives the legitimacy to a process that is the basic reason for why people will sign up to a result that they don't know in the beginning because they trust the process and they trust that people will follow the process and care about each other, and I think it's been very courageous of the NTIA to actually start an open process in a very particular moment in time in 2014 -- '13-14 in that situation and leave it up to the so-called community. Of course, you defined some conditions that set the framework, but I think this is a unique exercise, and I really also would like to congratulate you for the courage that you had.
To the room for improvement that you mentioned, of course, there were -- this process was extremely intense, and there are some that had the resources to participate, while others didn't. Others didn't even have the resources to understand what is going on, and this is one of the key challenges that we all have to improve to do better, and this is one of the roles that I see with governments, at least, the way that I understand -- as a Swiss, we understand our government more and more as a facilitator, as a door opener to those who are not yet in -- included in processes but that all stakeholders, in particular government, should support those who are not yet in to make them be part of these processes because, as you said, if we don't have everybody somehow represented at the table, then the legitimacy is probably not the one that you need in order to have a sustainable solution that people also accept and will implement. I'll stop here for the time being. I guess others will want to talk as well. Thank you.
>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Thank you, Theresa. Thank you for the invitation. This is Alejandro Pisanty speaking from the National University of Mexico and the Internet Society chapter in Mexico.
ICANN was multistakeholder a decade before the word even became a word. One can say anecdotally that the World Summit on the Information Society came to the multistakeholder wording by governments asking for a seat at the table where they already had it open but not occupied.
The process that ICANN has followed and the structure that now holds for the IANA oversight function is very unique. I did some research, published last year, about multistakeholder processes in many fields, and most of them, when they manage something that is critical or important, they end up having a governmental backstop, they have an advisory body to governments, but the governments do the voting and so forth, so this is a very unique process.
We saw it coming as a very unique and novel process when it started, when Larry and others started calling for this next step in the transition, as a very unique -- it's a field that still needs the political science and the international relations theory to be properly developed for better understanding and for extending the model. It's so novel and, therefore, also so important.
Very recently, many of us in this room have been involved, either directly or closely, with some intergovernmental processes related to the setting of technical norms, spent two weeks in a resort without even getting the sand between our fingers, by attending discussions that went until 1:00 a.m. Some of the documents in discussion had differences between the two parties involved of a total of seven words by the fact that stakeholders were only nominally invited to speak but wouldn't vote, and it's only governmental representatives who actually do the voting and deciding, not necessarily having the technical wherewithal to actually negotiate a better solution.
We have a very imperfect result, and this is happening over and over and over. The goodness of the multistakeholder model is not only proven by having a good multistakeholder organization, like ICANN and the IANA transition but by comparing to the places which should be working in a multistakeholder model and are failing, and they are failing humankind, they're not only failing internally, but they're failing to deliver a result that humans need by not going full multistakeholder.
New challenges that the structures now face have already been spelled out in part by Larry and they have no disagreement with what he and Göran have already told about these challenges and Thomas, but there's a rebalancing, a redistribution of power within ICANN, and the new people were able to make the -- the rebalancing groups that have now much more weight in decision-making still have a challenge, and it's a very tough one because it's for themselves to do, there's no one else who can do it. They have to limit their powers. They have to set bounds to what they have to do or what they are able to do, and they have to set very stringent accountability and transparency requirements upon themselves.
The group, the structure has been able to impose extreme accountability and risk of decision conditions on the board, for example, the board has extreme abilities with its hands much more tied than before, but the actual power holders, the decision-makers, are not equally bound, and this is something that has to be done really fast. Accountability and transparency are two-way -- are two-edge swords, and the second side has to be sharpened, as sharp as the first one, if not even more.
This is a case of the innkeepers' wife or Caesar's wife -- sorry for using this antiquated sexist figure, but the person more in likely suspicion has to be the one cleared of that suspicion.
Second, all this has created enormous structure. There's already enormous inertia, and there's fatigue, so things will settle down, and ICANN needs to be able to evolve and react to innovation, not only innovation internally, but react to innovation in what it manages.
I think there's a huge congratulations that still has be expressed to all participants, but particularly to Larry Strickling and the group he works with in the U.S. government.
This is very unusual, the timing, the risk that -- I mean, this was no imaginary risk, it was materialized in severe mistreatment that no one else would think that you have to incur. The admission, the analysis that the NETmundial process failed in the end for being top-down fulfills a prediction of a number of participants. It was forecasted to be difficult for its top-down components, and the lesson, again, not only what works well, ICANN worked well, but for being bottom-up. It's so unmessy and so forth, and what was wrong with NETmundial, which is this very -- it's small, but clear top-down deadline-driven nature that's, again, an important comparison.
So to bring this to a close, if you see the many things that were thrown against this process, I am reminded of an old Clint Eastwood movie called "The Gauntlet," where he's carrying -- the character is carrying a prisoner that someone in the police actually wants to kill and is driving her on a bus into a city, and he's challenged with everything, shot at, bombed, what have you. This was the gauntlet that the ICANN process has been able to run and to again end on an antiquated Clint Eastwood quote, the next -- if this process is finished well, documented well, and well-known, then the next process will not have to ask the next thing, as Larry has mentioned and many others have in mind, that it's going to be transformed into a full multistakeholder model. Many need that. They won't have to ask do you feel lucky today.
(Laughter)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: On that note, Lise, could you talk a little bit from the business perspective, followed by Will.
>> LISE FUHR: Well, thank you. My name is Lise Fuhr. I come from the European Telecom Network Operators Association.
>> (Off microphone)
>> LISE FUHR: Closer to the mic? Is sorry. I'll try to get closer to the mic. I've actually been part of this process, both from a registry perspective and also now as a business stakeholder, and I think it's been a very long process. It started more than two years ago. It's been concluded, and it's really nice. From a business perspective, it's been very important that this has been a truly cross-community process. We have working groups that worked with many different communities and stakeholders and worked equally together on this process.
And, well, all the meetings were recorded, transcribed, and public in every way, and I actually think it was a truly multistakeholder process, which was one of the first times where we truly tried to work this way where you went more horizontal between the different stakeholders.
And as Larry says, it's not an easy way to work. It's very messy, but it's also been very educational, I think, from all the -- all the participants. It was a very tangible goal we had, which made it easier, and also, of course, made the responsibility the greater that we had both a goal and some time pressure, but I think the key was that all the stakeholders worked together in a very open way.
I think Göran mentioned that this might have been the plan all along that we should perform and be very multistakeholder. I'm not sure that was the actual plan, but I actually think that the community and also ICANN learned along the way as we were working. We had a lot of processes to actually -- to work with and find a way that actually was inclusive and how to actually create consensus with different stakeholders.
That being said, I actually like the idea that Larry is saying, actually to use this kind of self-regulation as a multistakeholder model is on other technical issues. That's very interesting.
If we look back, does this mean that the process that went along was perfect? No, and I don't think we have found the golden bullet to have -- to work with this as a process. I actually think we made a big step forward regarding accountability, and we also made the community as a whole more aware of accountability that they are a part of the accountability to themselves, which I think it's key here.
But we still need to work much more on inclusion, on language, and diversity in general. We still need to ensure that all regions are included. Coming from the business, it's -- it's still a very elite part of the business that are active within ICANN, and we're all part of actually being more responsible for including these, but also other regions need to be included in this.
I think language is still a big issue. It was a big issue during the work that has been done. I know there is still focus on this. It's a difficult issue to solve, but I think if we don't work with it and keep focus on it, it will still be a big issue.
And the outreach is going to be key here, but here, again, I think it's important, as all the communities are responsible for outreach, it's not ICANN who's responsible for outreach, it's everyone, it's all of us, and if we don't realize that, we will not proceed or we will not progress with a multistakeholder model.
So we have made a big step. We still have a lot of things to work with, but I think it's great we have accomplished what we have done with the IANA transition. Thank you.
>> WILL HUDSON: Hi. Can everyone hear me? All right. So I have the coveted final spot where so many distinguished people have already said everything I intended to say, so what they said and I'm done. No.
I mean, I think -- I'm Will Hudson, I'm with Google, and we were one of the other companies that were involved in the transition, and I think, you know, while I can't speak for, you know, every company that was involved, every stakeholder that was involved, I think that one of the things that was really important to us throughout this effort was that while it was called a transition and something was, of course, changing at some level, what this was really about for us and Larry alluded to this replicates sort of, you know, preserving the way the Internet has always sort of functioned, in a very sort of bottom-up way, and that it was important to us to both preserve that and to put it in a position -- to put the process in a position where, you know, the Internet can continue to grow up, right, that it can -- you know, the process can prove itself to be valuable for these other issues that Larry mentioned, and be durable, and I think that, you know, for us, when we think about, you know, preserving the way that it's always been and helping it be adaptable for the future, you know, we mentioned multistakeholder model and, you know, the IGF, everyone understands what that means, but you go into some countries or you talk to some officials or stakeholders and, you know, they think you're making up words with them.
I think one of the things for us is sort of proving -- and the IANA transition proved this through its actions not just through its words, was it was a transparent process, it was an inclusive process, and it was a participatory process, and that when we're talking about what it means to have a durable multistakeholder process, those are sort of three key elements for us as we think about it.
Of course, what that means is it sort of, you know -- it's evolving, it's a process, it's an organism. You know, we've talked about, you know, completing the IANAtransition, that in many respects we have accomplished a great deal, but there's a lot of work left to do, which my colleagues have touched on and that, you know, for business, that's a challenge, to be frank, right? This sort of -- it's one thing when you're looking at, you know, I need to devote these resources for one year to get X result, right? If you say, you know, it's a moving target and there's value in the process itself, that's harder sometimes for people to understand, and I don't think that's unique to business. I think for governments it's the same, for Civil Society and technical community it's the same type of thing, which is why that -- as everyone has already said, education and driving people to participate and making it relevant to them, it was because it's regionally diverse, it has the right languages involved is so important because it's not enough just to get people in the room, right? They have to -- for the process to work, people have to be engaged, it has to be self-sustaining, and so I think that I'll just close by saying that I think while it's appropriate and I think everyone should congratulate themselves for all the work that went into this in getting us this far, it's remarkable, I think that we need to -- need to remind ourselves that there's a lot of work to be done, and I would just implore everyone in this room and everyone listening to participate, show up to the meetings, participate in some of the working groups, you know.
This -- we can't do this without more people participating.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I think that's very true, and that's certainly going to be one of the challenges moving forward, to keep that energy and the interest and the commitment towards any of the processes that exist. Steve has kindly suggested that we actually move his remarks to the end and have the discussion prior to that and questions, so with that, I will open this up for questions, including remote participation, and then I have a few extra questions for the panelists, in case the audience runs out of questions.
So -- yes, I see -- yes. Hello. Please -- and please introduce yourself and if you have a question for a specific panelist or if it's for the entire panel. Thank you.
>> BENEDICTO FONSECA: So thank you. Good morning to everyone. I'd like to thank all the panelists for the --
>> PANELIST: Introduce yourself.
>> BENEDICTO FONSECA: Yes. I'm sorry. My name is Benedicto Fonseca. I'm from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, and I'd like to start by thanking all those who made interventions. We think -- I would like -- I would like in particular to praise the U.S. government, through Larry Strickling, for the very important and bold decision to have kick-started the process that led to the collaboration of the IANA transition proposal.
Maybe today, as we look back and as we are engaged in the process, we might have the impression it was something taken for granted that this would take place this way, but as Larry said, maybe there will be alternatives. It was a decision on the part of NTIA, on the U.S. Government to request the community to come up forward and to prepare such a proposal, and it has proved to be a valued and right decision, so first word of praise to the U.S. Government.
Second, to also recognize that the IANA transition process provided very important lessons in regard to how the multistakeholder approach would work. We, coming from Brazil, we are a country that fully embraces the multistakeholder approach and we rely on the experience and an internal experience of having a multistakeholder process for Internet discussion, governance, that predicts in ten years the consensus that was reached that was from the World Summit InformationSociety that Brazil embodied was established in 1995, so just ten years from the second phase, so everything that I would say from now on, I'd like to be put in that perspective. It's coming from a country that is friendly to the multistakeholder approach that fully embraces, that has participated fully in the process.
But I must also agree with a colleague who said that the process itself was -- could be certainly improved. I think we should, of course, congratulate ourselves on the process, on its successful outcome, but looking to further ways of improving processes, and our way, the way to improve is to make sure that each stakeholder participates according to the principles that were outlined by the WSIS agenda. In there, at the end, we made perfectly sure that each one participated in its -- according to its roles and, you know, in a way that can exert its responsibilities. I think this is a key that provides us the key to success.
Of course, in the context of the IANA transition, we worked under very tight schedule, we had a very clear goal to achieve; however, we ended up with an impression that not in regard to the IANA transition but in regard to the ICANN configuration itself of a feeling of unfinished business, that there are still important issues to be looked into that, unfortunately, could not be investigated and discussed and addressed in the course of those 18 months, 24 months' period, and the proof of that is that we now have in place a Work Stream 2 that is looking to some of those issues, including human rights, jurisdiction, which, for us, is a very important topic.
We -- I want also to be very clear that when we mentioned jurisdiction as an issue, we're not thinking any way of moving the headquarters from the U.S. or changing anything, let's say the practical aspects of operation of ICANN, we are thinking basically from the perspective of government and trying to address some situation which -- particularly in regard to dispute settlements in which some interests of government can be brought to court and need to be decided by a judge according to legislation that as -- we didn't have an opportunity to agree, so we think there is an issue that should be addressed in the benefit of improving the organization, not to unravel what has been done, and we are somewhat concerned about the -- as I understand, we have a very tight time frame for dealing with those issues. I understand that now the discussion's taking shape, so we think that by working a very tight schedule that might be counter-productive from the perspective of what we want to achieve, but this is something we should be discussing in the context of -- of the Work Stream 2 itself.
And finally, I'd like to make a point with regard to the multistakeholder approach. I think much has been said, and we fully agree that the lessons provided by the IANA transition can be adequately taken up and further expanded in other directions. We would certainly be willing to look into this; however, I'd like to, again, state the position we have been taking in that regard. We think that the formulation that is coming from the WSIS is one that can address each and every situation that can be encompassed by Internet governance, and then, of course, we're not only dealing with critical resources but also security, with issues regarding economic aspects, even cyber defense, the fight against cybercrime, so we don't think that -- we think the multistakeholder vision that -- in each and every case, each stakeholder should participate according to its responsibility and their roles should apply in each and every case, but we don't think that one size would fit all discussions, so we don't think that for discussing issues against cyber defense or cybercrime would be the same configuration that was used for the IANA transition, although we think that even if the mix or the mechanisms are different, we must make sure that all stakeholders participate in their roles and responsibilities and fully participate in the discussion.
In that regard, I would like -- I apologize for making personal publicity. As the chair of the working group on enhanced cooperation, I'm very honored to be in that position. I'd like to take the opportunity to invite all of you to contribute with ideas for the work to be undertaken by us. The focus of the work is to investigate what can be proved in regard to the mechanism -- the environment that we have to deal with public policies and to -- we certainly are working in a multistakeholder environment. We think the multistakeholder approach will be there, but as Larry and others are saying, what are the best issues to be addressed what are the issues to be addressed, what are the approaches to be taken?
We are -- we have launched a process of consultation. The deadline has been extended to December 15th, exactly to take onboard the possibility of people in the IGF would contribute, and we would certainly -- would love to have as many inputs as we can to assist us in further stages of the work, exactly to do what Larry and others have said, what other issues can also be addressed by the community in which format to improve the overall environment we have to deal with Internet governance-related issues.
And the last -- very last point would be in regard to NETmundial. I would like to thank all of those who made reference to NETmundial. We are very proud to have hosted it in Brazil in association with the Brazilian committee in 2014. I would only like to very respectfully to differentiate the NETmundial meeting, which took place in Sao Paulo in April 2014, and the NETmundial initiative that was an attempt to follow up on the NETmundial outcomes and which has been already said, in many ways failed because it's deviated from what we tried to do in NETmundial to have the bottom-up approach, the inclusiveness, and we think as the NETmundial initiative deviated from this, this was -- and this, again, shows that the -- one of the factors for the success of the multistakeholder approach is the inclusivity, are the bottom up, the opportunity to all participants. Thank you very much for this, and I apologize for the time for this intervention.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you very much. The speaker down there. First, does anybody want to respond to the remarks here? Otherwise I'll go ahead to the next question. Very briefly, and then the next participant, and then I'll ask if there's a remote participant.
>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Alejandro Pisanty. Speaking, I think he has made several important points. The one that I think that we most have to pick up is the call for other mechanisms to be adaptive to -- they say going against the idea of one size fits all. I think that is essential. Most people in the community think that way. If you are going to involve different stakeholders, all groups of stakeholders in cybersecurity, you will first have to stop using that word. I think if you're solving public security, national security, what risk analysis you're actually backing, and then decide what form follows function, just make sure everybody's involved.
And maybe that would be one way to approach your problem with enhanced cooperation, which is to see what of the many different definitions and intentions behind enhanced cooperation for Internet governance or not that part actually fit a multistakeholder model. A large part of enhanced cooperation as formulated in WSIS 12 years ago was for only governments. It was how do you manage a club of governments? So maybe you'd have to really find the problem in order to find a solution in this new solution space.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you. The gentleman down there, and then I will turn it over to Malcolm. Please remember there are roaming mics, so anybody in the audience who is not sitting at a table would like to pose a question, please raise your hands. If you could introduce yourself, please.
>> HANS KLEIN: Okay. Thank you.
(Microphone feedback)
Okay. I seem to be generating a little bit of feedback here. My name is Hans Klein. I'm from the Georgia Institute of Technology. I want to commend Larry Strickling for his focus in raising the issue of legitimacy. Legitimacy remains an important issue in ICANN. It's been an issue over the years, and much of the transition is around questions of legitimacy and continuing legitimacy. ICANN's legitimacy is important because, of course, ICANN does more than perform technical functions, ICANN touches on a lot nontechnical issues that deal with human rights like privacy and who is, like freedom of expression and domain names. ICANN touches on societal values even, like decency. We saw that in the old Doc XXX issue years ago, and ICANN, like other institutions that touch on human rights and societal values, is subject to the standards of legitimacy, to fulfill standards of legitimacy, and indeed an institution that deals with issues of human rights is subject to the highest standards of legitimacy, and really, the gold standard of legitimacy is popular sovereignty, popular sovereignty in which decisions over rights and values are made by the people, the population.
In practice, popular sovereignty is realized through elections. Elections are held to give the people the voice so they appoint the leaders who make decisions over rights and over societal values, and ICANN historically has been subject to popular sovereignty, really in two ways. Obviously, most recently, in the sort of imperfect model, the U.S. oversight, for better or worse, did give oversight by popularly elected officials, not globally but the citizens of the United States had some popular oversight over ICANN decisions, and influenced directly or indirectly issues of rights and values.
Prior to that, and somewhat there was some overlap here, ICANN itself had mechanisms built into it for popular sovereignty. Many of us here remember the at-large membership mechanisms and the global elections, which were held in the year 2000, which gave a popular sovereignty expression of the people around the world to elect about half the board of ICANN and ensure that the popular sovereignty -- that high standard of legitimacy was embodied in ICANN as an institution.
The ICANN elections ended -- were done away with around 2002, I believe, at the Accra meeting in Ghana, and now we're seeing the withdrawal of the United States of a democratic elected government performing oversight of ICANN, so in some ways, as Larry Strickling raised, legitimacy is an issue, it's important. We don't have any more connection to popular sovereignty, and I sort of pose this as the panel to the committee, are we confident that the legitimacy of the institution is correspondingly high with the powers of the institution and the kind of decisions that it makes, since they do deal on rights and on societal values? Or can we be confident that the legitimacy standard is being met? Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I shall turn that to Thomas. Thank you.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you. I'm going to pass it to Google.
(Laughter)
Okay. I think you're -- and before you raised a number of very pertinent question -- questions, and in particular, if you -- if you are empowering the so-called community, the question is, then, who is the community? How is this community put together? Because you may not be able to give a voice to eight billion people at the same table, so what are the representation schemes and so on and so forth? I will not go into history of development of how kingdoms around the world turned into parliamentary democracies, but it's like an institutional building exercise that we are probably going through, now calling it multistakeholder that has happened in various stages of human history, and, of course, this is very pertinent, and as open as the process has been set up, of course, by the U.S. Government, they basicallydictatorially defined the framework of this. Fortunately, there were some reasonable people because if Alejandro is pointing at the U.N. discussion on enhanced cooperation, if the whole ICANN community had the chance to discuss about the framework, we would probably still be discussing about the framework and not having started the process yet, so reasonable top-down decisions may be helpful in very limited points in history, so that's just a side remark.
But to come back to the issue of legitimacy and inclusivity, if you are forced to select or take a sample of people that somehow are supposed to speak on a large number of other people, then, of course, you need have some processes in place that will probably develop a little bit more over time. Also, in a multistakeholder model because it's not just who is at the table, as I said before, who has the resources to sit there because it's either paid by somebody who it's a retired person or he's a freak or whatever you call it, so this is not necessarily a representative sample of the world's interests, of the whole people's interests. It's amazing how it worked out with how unregulated -- if I may call it this -- it has worked, but this is something if we want to make sure, I fully agree with you, at the risk of capture -- avoiding minimizing capture is probably the most important element now for the new ICANN, and if you want to make sure that we minimize capture, we have to discuss this and we'll probably have hard fights on how to minimize risk of capture, by whom, but this is a discussion that, of course, need -- has only started. Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: That's an important point. Malcolm, if you can turn -- please introduce yourself, and, again, if anybody has any questions who's not sitting at the table, please also let the team know. Thank you.
>> MALCOLM HUTTY: Thank you, Theresa. Malcolm Hutty from the London Internet Exchange and the Pan-European Trade Association for Internet ServiceProviders Associations.
I was going to talk to comment a little on the legitimacy question, but particularly the -- with a particular focus on what the process that we've just gone through tells us about the growing maturity of the multistakeholder model, growing maturity, with respect to this issue and respect to the legitimacy in general.
When the NTIA announced the transition call, it was very widely welcomed. There was a general consensus that this was a great thing and we would like to see this happen, and it would have been easy and simple but simplistic for the community just to leave it at that and to allow the -- a small group of closely involved insiders to prepare technical mechanisms to allow this to transfer, but that's not what happened. Instead, the community quickly -- a sense quickly developed in the community that ICANN needs to be not only capable of doing these functions, which it already is, which we're satisfied it is, that it needs to be a body that is fit to be entrusted to perform that function in an enduring fashion, and there was quickly a consensus built that actually under the existing governance mechanisms that wasn't really the case.
Things worked well enough for the time being, but there needed to be key governance reforms in order for us to have confidence in the enduring nature when the U.S. was no longer there in an ultimate oversight role, and that gave rise to the accountability process.
Now, ICANN as a corporation's initial reaction to this was to be open to it, to say, yes, we'll set up a new accountability mechanism to -- mechanism to develop our accountability things, but to provide for delinkage between the two issues, and, again, the community said, no, we are going to insist on a linkage of these things. It must be -- these necessary forms must be put in place for us to be satisfied that ICANN is a fit body to take on this responsibility without U.S. Government ultimate historical oversight continuing.
And key parts, key blocks of the community, put a formal saying that their consensus to the transition was going to be contingent upon this accountability process, concluding having an acceptable outcome and being implemented, and it was -- and they chose to exert that leverage that the NTIA had given by saying community consensus was needed in order to ensure that that happened.
Now, to say in a in a circumstance where actually you want this to happen but you nonetheless identify a significant governance problem that needs to be fixed, that is a sign of maturity, I would argue. Then, the issues themselves were difficult issues and they were hard fought over. It was not a simple process, but the community came together to identify key things to change, not to try and change everything that we wanted to fix about the details of how ICANN works on a day-to-day basis. In fact, the CCWG proposals didn't lead to any operational changes at all, nor, indeed, any day-to-day changes in the way that ICANN is structured and works. These are fundamental governance protections that were put in place, namely a clarification of the mission so that it could be justiciable and a mechanism to enforce that so as to ensure that ICANN continues in its proper functions in an enduring fashion and can be held to that, and then some basic community powers to hold the community -- to -- the board to account so as to ensure that that could happen if it went off the rails, while at no time seeking to interfere with or radically change or really substantially change the ways that things were working at the moment. This was about the preservation of the status quo but making sure that it could continue in an enduring fashion that would continue to be community led.
Now, the fact that the community was able to make those nuanced decisions and to push -- and to make them stick and to come together and find solutions to those problems and in the tight time frame that we had available given the circumstances, given our practical circumstances, all of that, I would say, is a real sign of a group -- a very significantly growing level of maturity in the multistakeholder model to grapple with real difficult issues.
If we had seen this in an intergovernmental format, I think we might also still be talking about this for some years, so anyway, that's my comment on that. I think that it's important to recognize not only to pat ourselves on the back and say this was difficult and we got it done but to understand the significance of the kind of thing that we got done and what it says for the faith that we may have in the multistakeholder model as we extend that in other context as well. Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you. Does anybody on the panel want to comment on that? We have time for one to maybe two more questions. Any --
>> LORI SCHULMAN: (Off microphone)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Okay. Yes. Please introduce yourself.
>> LORI SCHULMAN: I'm Lori Schulman from the International Trademark Association and an officer of the Intellectual Property constituency of ICANN and Work Stream 2, in full disclosure of all my interests. I have a lot of thoughts, listening to this conversation, having worked on the transition and now on Work Stream 2.
Number one, I think the U.S. government, while we're talking about, you know, removing the oversight, I think it is important to remember that that oversight for the most part was quite benevolent. It's a soft yolk, not a heavy yolk, so a lot of difficult issues we had before, whether or not the U.S. Government has now oversight or not oversight, we still have them, and I don't think that the U.S. controller or lack of it -- control or lack of it now is really going to change much of the debate, quite frankly.
I want to add in terms of the engagement on the private-sector level, speaking particularly Lise representing a lot of different interests than myself, we here have a challenge, and I'd like to throw the challenge out to the group, echoing what Thomas has said, what Will has said, and what my own Board of Directors has said. I was very privileged to give a very positive briefing on where we are with the transition, and one of the questions that I was asked by my board member from a very large technical corporation, who will remain unnamed because I didn't ask permission, but she said to me, we do want to be involved, we want more of a voice, but that's sort of what we're paying you for, but at the same time, I am one voice, but sometimes it's very hard to understand that my voice is actually representing 6,500 voices, which is as large as our membership is.
So how do I have -- how do we scale engagement? Because I can't have all of my members all in or all out, and I had one of my members say, I'd like to be vocal, I'm a visible name, I have market power, I could maybe help because I'm also -- you know, I understand the technical issues around sustainability and connecting the next billion and all the important issues that we're going to discuss here in the next week at IGF, but she then said to me, if you're telling me I have to be all in, I can't be all in, so I need to be out. I think the challenge, the next generational challenge, is multitiered engagement. How do we create a level at multitiered engagement and at all levels too? Göran has aptly expressed his vision of ICANN, and particularly since there are issues that the board is considering, there's issues that the organization or the operation's team and the staff are considering, and then there's issue that the community as the community at a policy level are considering, and when we integrate all those things, we still have this issue of you're either all in or all out, and the only way we're going to get to those people who didn't participate, Thomas, is to figure out a mechanism where you don't have to on calls 20 hours a week.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you. Anybody want to comment on -- no.
>> (Off microphone)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Okay. Room for one more question. We don't have any remote participants? No.
>> OLIVIER CREPIN-LeBLOND: (Off microphone)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Olivier. Thank you. I don't have my glasses on. Thank you very much.
>> OLIVIER CREPIN-LeBLOND: Thank you, very much, Theresa. Olivier Crepin-LeBlond. I'm the chair of the European At Large organization at ICANN, and I'vealso participated in the IANA transition work.
I wanted to comment on one thing regarding the points that were made earlier about the 2003 elections as being democratic, fully democratic, et cetera. As it happened, they ended up being captured, and I think that's one of the main reasons why there was such a reorganization of ICANN and of at-large being made into an art-large advisory committee rather than having the ability to select all of the people on the -- or the majority of the people on the board, and the premises which were put instead in place, including the nominating committee and the different selection of members of the board by the different component parts of ICANN served as a stabilizing factor for ICANN and certainly, I can see this as being an enhancement in being able to have the right people in the right location on the board.
The question I have for the panel -- and this is really aimed at all of the panelists -- we've now had one definite example of an important process that needed to be discussed and decisions being made in a multistakeholder fashion whilst in the past many people said well, multistakeholder systems have great for discussing things but not making decisions. We've now proven the process that it can work. What challenges do we have in the future for the multistakeholder model in view of the other models that we see out, there specifically the multilateral model trying by various means to control maybe the Internet of Things and other issues that are now coming ahead of us, not maybe specific to ICANN but specific to Internet governance as a whole?
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you, Olivier. Would anyone like to respond to this? And then I saw Alejandro and Lise had some additional comments. Would you like to respond to this?
>> GÖRAN MARBY: Thank you for today's easiest question. I'll refer to you as well. I think the multistakeholder model has existed for a longer time. The ICANN environment is -- is the result of the multistakeholder thought and has produced policies, guidelines, a lot of discussions over the years, and we shouldn't forget that, that tradition is kind of the top of everything but it's actually worked before, but one of the things that we are working on now is to try to -- we -- the community itself has to go on and be better. We -- and in competition to other technologies or other ideas, we -- I used to think -- internally, I thought we have to deserve the right to serve. That's the ICANN organization vs. the ICANN community and the ICANN board, but it's also the whole of ICANN refers to other ones that come up. At one point maybe someone will come up to replace us all, and that would be great as long as we serve them.
I think one of the things going forward now is also what I sometimes call demand-driven engagement. We definitely have to be better at understanding the needs of the community on different parts of the world. I'm Swedish. I can't -- you know that. I'm a middle-aged man from Sweden. My belief systems and my knowledge is from my part of the world. We need to be able to engage on people in African countries, in South American countries, in North American countries, on a more understanding model so we can understand the needs from them, and I think we, together, in the whole ICANN community, need to be doing that better.
So we started at work very slow, and I talked about that in India. We're going to continue doing that, but more -- this is going to be a bottom-up process going forward because it's really you who's going to decide that, and that goes back to your discussion, how do you -- your voice is strong, may I say that? You sound like about 5,000 people often. I mean, and we -- I think that the community has to adopt and go into that and look into how we can do that, but so far it's been working quite well. We have to make sure that we do it even better without sort of doing any -- we don't fix any problems that we don't have. Thank you.
>> LAWRENCE STRICKLING: I'll add an observation or two as well. My advice would be let's find a problem and set out to solve it. I think too much of the discussion of multistakeholder is, wow, what a great process. You know, I read off my list of attributes. Let's just go create one and wait for people to show up and use it, and again, I think that was partly the lesson of the NETmundial initiative, and Benedicto, I would like to make it very clear, I was distinguishing in my remarks from what happened in 2014 in Sao Paulo from what came afterwards. The meeting in Sao Paulo was an unqualified success, but back to the point, which is then your question is how do you get that critical mass of people who think a problem is so urgent that they want to sit down and solve it and how do you get such a critical mass that everyone else either sees, wow, this is the place I should come to have that discussion, or if I'm not willing to do that, at least I will acknowledge the -- again, the legitimacy of that group that's, you know, trying to make the effort to solve it, and if you got enough of the right parties together, you could make progress in some of these issues, and many of us here in the room were in Paris two weeks ago for the Internet & Jurisdiction Conference, which brought roughly 200 people together, and I have to say I came out of that at the end thinking that Bertrand de La Chapelle, who organized that effort is very close, I think, to getting critical mass on one or two of the issues that he has been working on for five years, but it's taken that long, I think, for enough people to come together and talk about it, and you need creative facilitation too.
You need people who are making the commitment not to be top-down but to provide the opportunity for enough people to come together to allow that bottom-up discussion to take place. It's a skill, it's an art. There's no cookbook, there's no technical manual for how to do it, but that, I think, is what we need to see happening here, building on the success of ICANN and the IANA transition.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: So I'd like to ask Alejandro, Lise, and Thomas if anybody else -- very brief. We are running out of time, and I want to make sure we have sufficient time for the closing remarks from Steve, which will be quite important. Thank you.
>> LISE FUHR: Thank you. I actually want to respond to Lori's point on -- I think it's a very important point you made regarding it's difficult to involve people if it's an all-in participation. I don't think it needs to be. Actually, I think that will make it even more impossible to get more people involved, and even if you combine it with the point made by my colleague Will, which is saying we have these difficulties of explaining the multistakeholder model and what's the target and what the outcome's going to be for a business, it's -- it's actually killing the participation, but I think it's not that straightforward, and actually, that's why I think outreach is important, because by outreach, we, as a community, can actually keep people involved, and then they can step in whenever there's an issue they find is important enough to get involved in, and especially for the businesses, just keep people involved, reach out and try -- try to actually get them engaged that way, and I think this is not an issue for ICANN alone, it's an issue for all of us. Thank you.
>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Very briefly. Alejandro Pisanty. Malcolm has started an important point that's recurrent. I'll very briefly say that accountability demands are often made by a group who wants more of a voice or more of a seat at a table. Once you get this, when you have to prove when you are about accountability, you need to show now the generosities and inclusion of others.
The Internet of Things that was mentioned is a very important test case for the multistakeholder model because it involves much more things than the Internet layer. You have things happen to be made at the spectrum level, some at the chip level, the electronics, and the security programme into these things, but you don't want, I think, to have a multistakeholder or any other unique process holding the whole thing together. You have to make decisions that cut across layers, but you have the challenge to keep them in their layers when -- and modular once you get to work, and for the scaling, I think this is not only important for business but for the Civil Society, the technical community, and everyone else, we may still be able to test the concept of web of trust with which we build the at-large participation. It has to be refined, it has to be tested. It's being evaluated, but that web of trust is one way of scaling up. Thank you.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Yes. Thank you. Just one thing that inclusivity is not just a challenge for multistakeholder processes but also for multilateral processes because just the fact that one country/one vote does not mean that everybody understands and has the means to actually participate, and with regard to what Larry said about we have to do concrete steps now to actually improve things, there are a number of low-hanging fruits around in ICANN that you can pick up easily. Just one silly example, you use the CCWG, ACC, WS2, SG4 acronyms without every time for the first time explaining to people what this is, that would already significantly lower one of the entry barriers to accessibility of these processes. I could go on about this for hours.
And -- but -- and the other thing is the key element is time. Inclusive processes take time because otherwise they are not inclusive. That's a nature -- that's a tradeoff, but as I said before, sometimes time is worth spending it because sustainabilities saves you a lot of time and a lot of lawyer's money and a lot of nerves of everybody afterwards. Thank you.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you, everybody, and I'd like now to ask Steve to make his remarks and observations, and thank you, everybody, for your participation.
>> STEVE CROCKER: Thank you. Thomas, if you expand all the acronyms, they won't fit in 140 characters.
(Laughter)
So, I'll try to be very brief, but I do want to say one or two things. First of all, thank you to everybody, of course, who worked on this. I want to thank particularly Larry Strickling, not only for leadership and all the energy that he and his team put into this along with the rest of the community, but for a certain amount of bravery that has been tested and I hope doesn't get tested again, but thank you.
Governance is a big challenge, and it doesn't come easily. Many of us, and I speak from personal experience, got into this business not because we were interested in governance per se but because we were interested in building the network and making it useful.
We had the good fortune to work with a number of very smart people, and one of the consequences, one of the attributes of working with smart people is that you can get into the mind-set of thinking that you can think your way through everything and that when you finish thinking, you've solved the problem and that that's the answer.
It comes from both, as I say, being smart and also being conscientious and being devoted to public service, but it doesn't take very long before most of us, anyway, learned that smart as we might be, we didn't know how to solve all the problems and that we were limited and, worse yet even, fallible. Oh, my goodness.
So one of the things that emerged out of this process -- and again, I'm speaking certainly for myself, but I think for many of us, is that it was vital, absolutely vital that the decisions that we make and that the processes that we set up have both a high degree of transparency and inclusiveness and also a flexibility that they can be revisited and tweaked or thrown out, if necessary, over a period of time.
The bottom line is we're not in a -- none of us who were in the privilege of having responsibilities and being in central pivotal positions with respect to Internet governance are doing this on a permanent basis, and we have no particular gain that's going to last forever out of it, so the closing point that I want to make is not only do we welcome all of the attention and all of the additional mechanisms, but in short order, we're going to be gone and there's going to be vacancies. Think about it, get involved. Thank you.
(Applause)
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you, everybody, for your participation, and I hope the rest of the IGF goes very well for you. Thank you.
(Session concluded at 12:33 p.m. CT)