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repeat;">Hi Bruce,
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I believe it was deliberately set up as public benefit rather than a member
organization - to avoid the situation where the members become limited to
say gTLD registries and registrars and hence it ends up operating primarily
for the benefit of the domain name registration industry.</blockquote>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Sorry,
Bruce, this just isn't accurate. Under the California Corporations Code
§ 5310(a) a Public Benefits Corporation can chose to 1) have or 2) not
have members. There are California Public Benefit Corporations with members
and California Public Benefit Corporations without members. All are public
benefit corporations with the same responsibility to serve the public. The
differentiation in California law is not between public benefit corporations
and member organisations, as may be inferred from your comment, but between
PBC's and Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporations which, likewise, may or
may not have members but are not imbued with the wider social purpose of a
PBC. The Corporate Flexibility Act of 2011 created a new type of corporate
vehicle in California, the California Benefit Corporation, which frankly is
something that if we were operating in an ideal world we might want to
consider. It is designed for for-profit corporations but requires Board
members to consider multiple factors (commonly referred to as "people,
profit and planet") in making decisions and not solely to consider the
institutions provincial best interests in decision making
processes.</div>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I'm
not sure your view of history is completely accurate. Certainly in reading
Karl Auerbach's archives ( http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog/ ), and
others, one gets the impression that membership was rejected in an attempt
to marginalise those who held differing perspectives from the individuals
perceived to then be running things at ICANN (One L.A. law firm
in particular). I'm not sure anyone would claim the Karl
himself, or others supporting the membership option, at that time were
interested in benefitting the domain name industry. Of course, I'm sure
there are differing views amongst those involved in things at that time, and
times have changed - just wanted to point out that things aren't as cut
and dry as some may wish to present.</div>
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Any move away from a public-benefit corporation to a membership
corporation </blockquote>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Again,
there would be no such move. We would merely change ICANN from being a
PBC without members to being a PBC with members, per California Corporations
Code §5310-§5313. Absolutely no change of corporate type, merely
an internal change within the statutes governing California PBC's.
ICANN would still be a Public Benefit Corporation with
the same public service commitment, merely one with Members.</div>
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padding-left: 1ex;">- would need to carefully consider how to ensure that
the members are reflective of the broader Internet community and don't
become limited to a few members</blockquote>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I am in
complete agreement with you here. We need to be creative and inclusive in
creating membership vehicles. There needs to be a place for anyone and
everyone in a new membership based ICANN. Lots of politics, lots of
compromises, but it can be and should be done. We're supposed to be a
BOTTOM UP multi-stakeholder organization. Properly designed, nothing is more
bottom up than an inclusive organisational structure where the Board answers
direct to Members who themselves consist of the diverse, broad and global
internet community. The other option - some sort of appellate board
regulating our current Board - is just more top down in a process whose
legitimacy is based upon it being bottom up.</div>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Kind
Regards,</div>
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<div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Ed
Morris</div>
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