[Ccwg-auctionproceeds] Wrt (not) lobbying

Mon Mar 27 15:22:24 UTC 2017

Important to remember that lobbying is a strictly defined and controlled activity and not subject to our interpretation but to that of the IRS and the reason that ICANN is restricted is not out of an arbitrary choice but a strict rule under the IRS of what a 501c3 non profit can and cannot do.

=James

-----Original Message-----
From: ccwg-auctionproceeds-bounces at icann.org [mailto:ccwg-auctionproceeds-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Dardailler
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 3:29 PM
To: Mathieu Weill <mathieu.weill at afnic.fr>
Cc: ccwg-auctionproceeds at icann.org
Subject: Re: [Ccwg-auctionproceeds] Wrt (not) lobbying

Hello Mathieu, all

Thanks for the pointers, especially the ICANN Lobbying Disclosures & Contribution Reports. If my understanding is right, they show that some lobbying areas are already OK, and that the set of areas can evolve over time.

Looking at the various documents, it's clear that the qualifier "attempt to modify legislation" can be subject to interpretation.

Our charter even says "Lobbying does not include public education about issues", which to me, clearly includes public policy makers as a potential audience (it includes everybody when it's online public/free and transparent education and outreach). This would also cover grass-root lobbying, aka indirect lobbying, i.e. when you don't talk to policy makers directly but you hope that your public audience will learn from you and influence the policy work in the end.

The important bit is all that IMO is not so much if you talk directly to policy makers or not, but if when doing so, you represent a political party, or a corporate interest, vs. you represent a public interest position, especially one that involves Internet technicalities.

Maybe we should look at some recent listing  of core Internet values (e.g. done at IGF) to identify which "lobbying" areas are potentially aligned with the ICANN core value of "preserving and enhancing the operational stability, reliability, security, and global interoperability of the Internet.".

On 2017-03-24 11:42, Mathieu Weill wrote:
> Daniel, All,
> 
> Reviewing the slides provided by ICANN Legal 
> (https://community.icann.org/display/CWGONGAP/Legal+and+Fiduciary+Cons
> trai
> nts+Related+Materials?preview=/64073737/64073741/DT%20for%20Auction%20
> nts+Related+Proc
> eeds%20-%20CCWG%20Legal%20Presentation.pdf ) on slide 13, it seems 
> that the statement that "lobbying is a forbidden activity for ICANN" 
> is not entirely accurate.
> 
> The slide recognizes that ICANN engages in some lobbying activities 
> (more about it is disclosed here :
> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/lobbying-disclosures-contributio
> ns-2
> 015-11-18-en) and mentions a requirement from our CCWG Charter against 
> providing funds in support of attemps to influence legislation.
> 
> The relevant section of our Charter is quoted below, from the "scope"
> section (https://community.icann.org/display/CWGONGAP/CCWG+Charter) :
> 
> "To align with requirements imposed to maintain ICANN’s U.S. tax 
> exempt status, the CCWG must include a limitation that funds must not 
> be used to support political activity/intervening in a political 
> campaing public office[2] or attempts to influence legislation[3]. The 
> definitions of the limitations that are imposed to meet U.S. tax 
> requirements must be applied across all applicants, and not only those 
> from or intending to use the funds within the U.S. These requirements 
> will apply to comparable activities across any location where 
> applicants are located or intend to use the funds."
> 
> So my interpretation would be that organizations who engage in 
> lobbying activities (such as the examples given by Daniel) would not 
> be ruled out as a matter of principle, but should commit and ensure 
> that any funds they would receive from the ICANN Auction Proceeds 
> would not be used in lobbying or political funding activities.
> 
> Would that be correct ?
> 
> Best,
> Mathieu
> 
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : ccwg-auctionproceeds-bounces at icann.org
> [mailto:ccwg-auctionproceeds-bounces at icann.org] De la part de Daniel 
> Dardailler Envoyé : jeudi 23 mars 2017 18:54 À : 
> ccwg-auctionproceeds at icann.org Objet : [Ccwg-auctionproceeds] Wrt 
> (not) lobbying
> 
> Hello all
> 
> In the legal slides, lobbying is pointed out as a forbidden activity 
> for ICANN and is loosely defined as "attempts to influence 
> legislation".
> 
> I'd like to understand exactly what that means.
> 
> For instance, both IETF and W3C have been active in various European 
> official fora (parliament, commission, national governments) to change 
> the old EU legislation wrt public procurement so that procurers be 
> allowed to reference our standards directly (e.g. IPV6 or HTML).
> This is clearly about legislation, and it's more than an attempt, 
> since we eventually succeeded (look for the EU Multistakeholder 
> Platform for details).
> 
> Is this sort of policy oriented work to make the Internet and the Web 
> technologies more "official", and therefore better deployed, without 
> fragmentation, considered lobbying ?
> 
> Let's take another example. Suppose that some governments want to pass 
> a brain-damaged legislation related to IP routing. Shouldn't ICANN be 
> allowed to inform the public authority about the risks of doing just 
> that ? If ICANN doesn't do it, who will ?
> 
> This is not a rhetorical case, every year or so, I get alerted by some 
> advocacy groups that "deep linking" is about to become illegal 
> somewhere on the planet (a deep link is just a link to a page "inside" 
> another site, bypassing their "home" page) in order to protect some 
> publisher business.
> Such an approach would undermine a fundamental piece of the Web
> architecture: freedom to link anywhere, and if we, the technical 
> community, don't explain that point to policy makers, who will ?
> 
> There are dozens of public policy topics that are directly related to 
> the Internet and the Web. They are all technical in nature of course 
> and they only exist because of the net, because of us. As it happens, 
> these topics are not very "hot" in the technical community, mostly 
> because of their "policy/legal" flavor (not geek enough), so it's 
> already difficult to find resources to represent our point-of-view.
> 
> My point is: at this point in time in Internet history, with lots of 
> legislators trying to control the net without much of a clue of how 
> things work, I think it would be a strategic mistake from the Internet 
> technical community to self-censored itself in these debates.
> 
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