<div dir="auto">Here you go again Evan, this malignant propensity to being erudite and sane. <div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">FWIW, I am proud to associate and support the POV expressed.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">CAS</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, 2 May 2019, 4:24 am Evan Leibovitch, <<a href="mailto:evan@telly.org">evan@telly.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><u><b>TL;DR version:</b></u></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><u><b><br></b></u></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"> Q: Are capture and conflict of interest issues in ICANN fair game to talk about?<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"> A: Well, sure, but norms on these issues in the outside world are gleefully ignored within ICANN. So good luck with your conversation.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><u><b>Long version:</b></u><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Well, this has been ... interesting.<br></div></div><br><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default">First, a few disclosures:</div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default"><ul><li>I
have been involved in the Internet Society though many vectors. I
co-started a chapter, was the primary drafter of its most recent
chapters advisory council charter, and I have been recruited by ISOC
staff to help impartially resolve disputes in other chapters. All of
this has been done voluntarily. My involvement at this moment is negligible.<br><br></li><li>I own or manage about a dozen domains, none of which are being held for resale.<br><br></li><li>While
on ALAC I "benefited" from travel subsidy that nowhere near covered the
value of my time participating at ICANN conferences. I have also gone
to two ICANN meetings at my own expense, and I am one of only two people
I know (besides Sebastien) who has hosted ALAC social events at their
home.<br><br></li><li>Codes of conduct and conflicts of interest are a thing to me. I <a href="https://www.lpi.org/conduct" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">created the code currently in use</a> at my nonprofit employer which addresses multiple contexts, and is an amalgam of a number of other codes.<br><br></li><li>Not
only do I agree that the dot-org price cap should be lifted as a
significant matter of public interest, I advocate a sharp increase of
the fees that ICANN charges all registries for domains. I'd actually like to
set a minimum fee rather than a maximum. More details on the rationale can come later, but this discussion seems well beyond the specifics of that public comment issue.<br></li></ul><div><br></div><div>Now to a few points:</div><div><ol><li>Conflict
of interest, in a governance context, has a more specific definition
than simply one's having conflicting interests (by being part of
multiple constituencies, perhaps). It means that someone's vote, or
advocated point of view, is driven by potential gain in either money or
power. If we want to strictly apply CofI principles, we find that
Internet Society chapters who are ALSs and whose members are not ISOC
staff do *not* have a direct conflict of interest, because their policy
viewpoints would not affect their income and power. Conversely, NGOs who
protest the lifting of the .ORG price cap are absolutely conflicted
because they are defending their own ability to pay as little as possible
for domains. Their actions are those of registrants, not end-users, and
the issue of price caps is one of those few where the interests of
registrants and end users can be very, very different.<br><br></li><li>I
experience hand-wringing denouncements of conflict-of-interest within
ICANN with the sense of creepy entertainment that I get watching an
episode of Black Mirror. ICANN was built on a foundation of widespread
and openly visible conflict of interest and remains that way to this
day. <b>Nothing is off-limits so long as you declare</b>. Quoting other
constituencies' harping about CofI within ALAC betrays a dangerous
ignorance of both history and culture. From the day At-Large began as an
alternative to direct public elections of the ICANN Board there has
been a constant and predictable effort within most of ICANN, including certain senior staff, to
de-legitimize us. The goal of that has been to preempt anything we might say that dare disrupt
the cozy compact between domain buyers and domain sellers. Sadly, over
the years ALAC has been so timid and self-censoring that such belittling
campaigns have proven largely unnecessary.<br><br></li><li>As for
capture, I struggle to see it within ALAC. Despite a list of flaws that I
could take a book to detail, ALAC and the other ACs are by far the
least-corrupted components of ICANN. Elections tend to be
robust, and the NomCom factor works to reduce cronyism. If anything,
ALAC suffers from the same ills as many democratic entities in that
often the politically sociable will win over the duller policy wonks,
and ALAC has traditionally been wonk-poor. I myself once believed that there
was ISOC chapter capture until I saw just how freaking diverse the
chapters are; considering them a cohesive interest bloc within At-Large,
once one looks at the reality, is laughable. Just because a group has reached a conclusion with which one disagrees doesn't make it "captured" without further evidence of manipulation.<br><br></li><li>Of
*course* complaints are legit that a poorly-resourced 25-person
ALAC/RALO council can't possibly do a fantastic job representing "the
billions". Yet it does sorta OK with what it's given, considering that it has
no discretionary budget; ALAC-approved projects have been rejected by ICANN
without reason. I have always wished that ALAC got more involved in
public polling and education to better know with confidence what the
global public wants from ICANN, but (a) doing that is expensive and (b) I'm
quite sure ICANN really doesn't want to know this information. I also note that ALAC is the only constituency within ICANN that has forced geographic diversity.<br><br></li><li>Small nit that I couldn't let pass, even though the point is irrelevant: The assertion that "<i>nothing would stop ISOC/PIR from selling out to private equity</i>" is bullshit. Conversion of a nonprofit body to a for-profit is impossible or horribly difficult in most jurisdictions, and even transfer of assets would quickly come under the disapproving eye of regulators. I've seen some attempts first-hand and they didn't end well.<br></li></ol><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>Evan</div></div></div></div></div><br><br></div>
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