#multistakeholder

VIDEO | AUDIO | RECAP | ARCHIVE | PERMALINK On March 9 2026, during the ICANN 85 Community Forum in Mumbai, in a panel ‘WSIS+20 Lessons Learned & Next Steps‘, Internet governance leaders and community members reflected on the WSIS+20 review process and discussed what comes next. SPEAKERS Kurtis Lindqvist – President and CEO, ICANN Sally Wentworth – President and CEO, ISOC Ian Sheldon – ICANN…

VIDEO | AUDIO | RECAP |  ARCHIVE | PERMALINK On June 12, 2025, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Dynamic Coalitions (DCs) held their third Global Webinar with the theme ‘Future of Multi-stakeholder Governance‘. The digital age is rapidly evolving, presenting both unprecedented opportunities and intricate governance challenges. As technologies increasingly intertwine with every aspect of human…

The Multi-stakeholder hearing will offer all actors including Member States, civil society, academia, private sector, and philanthropy organizations, among others, to actively engage in discussions towards an ambitious FfD4 outcome.

Watch (Part 1) Intersessional Multi-stakeholder Hearing in preparation for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4)!

The event aims to mobilize the much-needed political momentum at the highest level to inject additional impetus to the ongoing negotiations to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment by the end of 2024.

The specific objectives are to:

Inject political impetus to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to agree on the global plastic instrument by end of 2024 at the fifth and final session of the INC in Busan, Republic of Korea

Highlight the challenges, best practices and opportunities for tackling plastic pollution including innovative solutions from around the world

Share perspectives on how to enhance synergistic actions in addressing plastic pollution including through streamlined global environmental governance architecture

Encourage Multistakeholder collaboration including public-private partnerships for tackling plastic pollution

Concept Note

Watch Galvanizing Momentum for the Global Plastic Pollution Instrument!

EFF, along with eight other consumer-focused privacy advocacy organizations has backed out of the National Telecommunications Information Administration’s multi-stakeholder process to develop a privacy-protective code of conduct for companies using face recognition. After 16 months of active engagement in the process, we decided this week it was no longer an effective use of our resources to…

New Post has been published on http://www.brianbrown.net/2014/10/27/multistakeholder-process-to-develop-consumer-data-privacy-code-of-conduct-concerning-facial-recognition-technology/

Multistakeholder Process To Develop Consumer Data Privacy Code of Conduct Concerning Facial Recognition Technology

Background: On February 23, 2012, the White House released Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy (the “Privacy Blueprint”). [1] The Privacy Blueprint directs NTIA to convene multistakeholder processes to develop legally enforceable codes of conduct that specify how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies in specific business contexts. [2] On December 3, 2013, NTIA announced that it would convene a multistakeholder process with the goal of developing a code of conduct to protect consumers’ privacy and promote trust regarding facial recognition technology in the commercial context. [3] On February 6, 2014, NTIA convened the first meeting of the multistakeholder process, followed by additional meetings through July 2014.

Matters To Be Considered: The November 6, 2014 and December 15, 2014 meetings are continuations of a series of NTIA-convened multistakeholder discussions concerning facial recognition technology. Stakeholders will engage in an open, transparent, consensus-driven process to develop a code of conduct regarding facial recognition technology. The November 6, 2014 and December 15, 2014 meetings will build on stakeholders’ previous work. More information about stakeholders’ work is available at: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2014/privacy-multistakeholder-process-facial-recognition-technology.

Time and Date: NTIA will convene meetings of the privacy multistakeholder process regarding facial recognition technology on November 6, 2014 and December 15, 2014, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Eastern Time. The meeting dates and times are subject to change. The meetings are subject to cancelation if stakeholders complete their work developing a code of conduct. Please refer to NTIA’s Web site, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2014/privacy-multistakeholder-process-facial-recognition-technology, for the most current information.

Place: The meetings will be held in the Boardroom at the American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20006. The location of the meetings is subject to change. Please refer to NTIA’s Web site, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2014/privacy-multistakeholder-process-facial-recognition-technology, for the most current information.

Other Information: The meetings are open to the public and the press. The meetings are physically accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language interpretation or other auxiliary aids should be directed to John Verdi at (202) 482-8238 or [email protected] at least seven (7) business days prior to the meeting. The meetings will also be webcast. Requests for real-time captioning of the webcast or other auxiliary aids should be directed to John Verdi at (202) 482-8238 or [email protected] at least seven (7) business days prior to the meeting. There will be an opportunity for stakeholders viewing the webcasts to participate remotely in the meetings through a moderated conference bridge, including polling functionality. Access details for the meetings are subject to change. Please refer to NTIA’s Web site, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2013/privacy-multistakeholder-process-facial-recognition-technology, for the most current information.

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Rumors are flying that ICANN wants to move away from the bottom-up meme that has become its badge of legitimacy.  This is not a good thing.

I have been researching the definition and roots of the term bottom-up for a while now, and it has a mixed background of definition and usage ranging from financial analysis and protein instrumentation to computer science.  IETF, a group whose decision making practices evolved from engineering and research practice, uses it to refer to the rough consensus process. In On consensus and humming in the IETF

we strive to make our decisions by the consent of all participants, though allowing for some dissent (rough consensus), and to have the actual products of engineering (running code) trump theoretical designs. [RFC7282]

I recommend RFC7282 to anyone interested in the meaning of rough consensus as it includes a very fine discussion of both the practice and of things that can be misunderstood about the process. There are three important elements in the IETF definition:

consent of all participants is the goal

some dissent on issues can occur

fact and experience based decision making

ICANN also has its practice of bottom-up decision making though it is not described anywhere with the elegance of RFC7282. It is reflected in gory detail, however, in the policy development practices of groups like the GNSO. A review of these procedures will show that they are:

consent of all participants is the goal

some dissent on issues can occur

fact and experience based decision making

For many years now ICANN has been referring to its private sector led methods as the multistakeholder bottom-up process. This has referred to the structures, both formal and in practice, that define the trust model for ICANN activities between the Stakeholder community and ICANN as a corporate entity composed of Board and Staff. 

The threat referred to in the title of this blog comes from a misunderstanding of bottom-up. ICANN is currently engaged in a tussle between the community and the corporation. The root of this tussle is  a confounding of:

consent of all participants is the goal

with

fact and experience based decision making

The fact that all participants must consent to decisions, does not mean that all facts and experience, or ideas, must originate among the participants.  In the IETF  a protocol can come from anywhere, as an idea from the leadership, a university paper, or a corporate r&d development prototype. But while it may not matter where the idea for something comes from, it matters whether all participants come to a rough consensus on the protocol.  Beyond that, once the participants accept a protocol, it comes under their change control.  They can then twist it, fix it and render it completely unrecognizable according to the dictates of rough consensus.

Similarly, in ICANN policy development process (PDP) the idea for a policy or practice can originate anywhere.  Most PDPs start with a staff analysis of the issues.  Most practices start with a staff rough proposal. Once presented though, what the community does with these raw materials is under the control of the various ICANN consensus processes.  Once they complete their work they send it on to the corporation, i.e the Board and staff, as a recommendation.

But the process does not end there.  It continues. If the Board and staff have difficulty with the recommendation they must be sent back to the community for more work, they can't just change it on it own, though they can offer suggestions. The process of ICANN consensus involves a cycle where any ICANN outcome must first achieve balance of the community and corporate concerns.

A couple of rules in this process emerge:

No matter where a suggestion, experience or fact comes from, it is the participants who must come to consensus on the outcome.

Once a consensus is reached the corporation must review and it may even make further recommendations to improve the outcome.

Whenever an outcome is changed by the corporation, it must go back to the community.

This cycle of ICANN community and corporate, the ICANN consensus, continues until the outcome is stable. When the ICANN system works, it reaches a homeostasis.  Those are the good times at ICANN when everyone is in harmony with trust abounding.

With the sensitive and pressing nature of the work being done on new gTLDS, IANA Stewardship, ICANN accountability, and the pressures of the global Internet environment, the ICANN cycle of community and corporation has started wobbling.  As any cyclist knows, once a wheel starts to wobble, trust in the bike begins to ebb. Trust only returns once the wheel is trued.

Recently the ICANN corporation has been worrying about the trust of the community. As is often the case in social dynamics, this has been understood in emotional terms.  Sometimes when people are emotional,  they start to look for radical solutions.  For example some might decide that the bottom-up processes no longer work, are not obligatory and can be circumvented.  Others decide that the corporation is no longer fit for purpose.

And the wheel starts to wobble even more.

And the emotional content increases.

Perhaps what is needed is to stop, look at the wheel and take the time to true it.  At ICANN this means allowing that the community and corporation to cooperate in the upcoming accountability process. We need to review our structures and strengthen them so that the ICANN corporation can fulfill its commitments, so that the ICANN Community can again believe that ICANN is fit for purpose and so that we can convince the global Internet environment that ICANN deserves its role in the governance of critical Internet resources.