[Area 4] Business Constituency Stress Test #4

[Steve DelBianco]

Thanks, Eric.   Glad to have your advice about how to re-phrase that stress test.

To clarify, that one was designed to ask whether/how the community can restrain ICANN from funding causes that the community believes are outside ICANN’s scope.  So we're not concerned here about whether the expense was ‘lawful’.

The 2010 board resolution you mention was specifically about the new gTLD program.  But this stress test covers any/all ICANN expenditures, such as ICANN management’s decision last year to fund NETmundial (approx $1 million) .  The NETmundial event wasn’t anticipated in the ICANN budget reviewed by the community.  Nor was the funding decision put to the community for comment.  So the corporation made a legal expenditure, but the community had no way to challenge or review before the money was spent.

Hope that clarification helps.

Steve


From: Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net<mailto:ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net>>
Date: Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 9:48 PM
To: Steve DelBianco <sdelbianco at netchoice.org<mailto:sdelbianco at netchoice.org>>, Mathieu Weill <mathieu.weill at afnic.fr<mailto:mathieu.weill at afnic.fr>>, Thomas Rickert <rickert at anwaelte.de<mailto:rickert at anwaelte.de>>, "\"leonfelipe at sanchez.mx<mailto:leonfelipe at sanchez.mx> >> León Felipe Sánchez Ambía\"" <leonfelipe at sanchez.mx<mailto:leonfelipe at sanchez.mx>>
Cc: "ccwg-accountability4 at icann.org<mailto:ccwg-accountability4 at icann.org>" <ccwg-accountability4 at icann.org<mailto:ccwg-accountability4 at icann.org>>
Subject: Business Constituency Stress Test #4

Steve,

Members of the Business Constituency are aware that standard incorporation language (in California, Delaware, New York, ...) contains phrasing of the form "any lawful purpose".

Members of the Business Constituency are also aware that the Corporation Board " at its March 2010 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, passed resolutions recognizing the importance of an inclusive New gTLD Program, and requesting stakeholders to form a Working Group to develop sustainable support needy applicants for new gTLDs."

Yet the language of the 4th Business Constituency "Stress Tests" [1] posits the Corporation's use of "registration fees to fund grants to developing nations or other worthy causes" and further declares this hypothetical use by the Corporation of its funds as an "expands[ion of] scope beyond its limited technical mission".

In your revised language this restriction is expanded from the Corporation's recurring revenues to include its recurring revenues and its reserves.

Without commenting on the rational contained in both the original and your revised language, I must ask, how can an accountability issue arise from something that (a) falls within "any lawful purpose" and (b) has been institutionalized by the Corporation as a consequence of the Board's 2010 resolution?

Thanks in advance for your clarification.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon

[1] http://bizconst.org/stresstests
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