Many of the proposals in the 2006 LSE Report to reform the GNSO are good – for example, standardized term limits for GNSO Council Members, reducing the number of constituencies from 6 to 3 — and consolidating the business, intellectual property rights lobby, and internet service providers all in a single “commercial” constituency. This would be an improvement because currently many of the same companies dominate more than one constituency, so are given much greater power within ICANN than other constituencies. For example, companies like Disney, News Corp, and the International Chamber of Commerce dominate both the IPR and business constutiences – giving their interests double weight on ICANN’s GNSO Policy Council.
However, LSE inexplicably argues that the business constituency should have a veto on all policy development at ICANN. The report recommends that the business constituenncy receive 5 seats on the newly reformed GNSO council, the registration constituency receive 5 seats on the council, and that non-commercial interests receive ONLY 3 seats on the council. The LSE Report explicitly recommends that both the business and the registration constituencies should be each given a VETO on all policy development at ICANN – effectively shutting out the civil society viewpoint from the policy development process.
LSE provided no explanation as to why private commercial interests are worthy of more policy development power at ICANN than the public-interest non-commercial voices. Read NCUC Comments.