Hello,

I posted something today in the Drafting Committee section. That might not be the right forum so I dropped it here as well.

LINK HOEWING

I offered some comments today at the NTIA forum which bear on this discussion. I think we need to develop an understanding around process before we think about working groups or even "strawpeople". In the 22 years I was a PTSA officer, I spent quite a bit of time trying to organize volunteer groups to develop positions or programs and I found a number of "tools" or approaches are key to making progress with informal groups or organizations. All of these concepts presuppose that the organization wants to address or solve a problem - in other words it is made up of people of good will. My feeling is that this is the case from what I have seen of the NTIA meetings and the participants.

First, whatever group is formed must be seen as legitimate in the sense it is representative of the interests involved. That does not mean that every person who has a connection to the group is represented, although all people who step forward normally should be included. Rather, it means trying to develop a sense of who the major interests or stakeholder segments are and then reaching out to invite people to participate. Whoever does so is welcome.

Second, in a decision making group like this, it is very important to establish how the group will determine whether a decision is made on something. Voting is not a good approach since in a setting like this, it can be divisive. Instead, defining what a "rough consensus" is is the best approach. In my experience, a "reasonable person" standard can work. In other words, it usually becomes apparent at some stage that the group is getting close to rough agreement. The way I judged it was first to suggest at the right moment in discussion that I sensed general agreement on a particular point. Then, I would ask if there was general agreement that the point in question was agreeable. If anyone expressed very strong disagreement saying in effect that they would publicly oppose the idea if it was floated, then I would suggest either that we move on to another topic or that a task force be created to look in detail at that issue and come up with a proposal. And I'd included in that task force force the person who strenuously objected. This kind of disagreement frankly was rare. It should be understood that in a rough consensus scenario, people may not be totally happy but they can generally live with the consensus.

Third, there is a need to have an understanding about what happens with "loop discussions", situations where debates simply start going back over old ground more than once. Generally, there again should be someone calling the situation out and either suggesting that the group move on to something else, letting the dispute cool a bit (which often helps), or a working group could be created to come back with a solution.

Fourth, reinventing the wheel is also a common problem in groups like these. It seldom makes sense to start from scratch in most cases so having a framework or proposal that is already out there to start discussions makes a lot of sense. The work that the Future of Privacy Forum did to develop a matrix comparing the many mobile apps privacy frameworks already out there could be a good place to start. We may find that there are a number of areas that are addressed that are in common. We may not like the language in various places but we could still agree that the major topics that the frameworks have in common are a good starting point.

Link Hoewing
Verizon