[CWG-Stewardship] Question re fiduciary duties and separation

[Mueller, Milton L]

From: cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org [mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Jordan Carter

I keep coming back to the status quo. At the moment, the USG can reassign the functions. We need to be careful that, given there is a principle of separability, it isn't rendered inoperable by the CWG's proposal through this matter.

Frankly, I think the current proposal comes very close to rendering separability inoperable. While separation is theoretically possible, it suffers from the absence of the basic notion of competitive bidding. As one journalist (Kieren McCarthy) put it, “There are no less than 10 steps that have to go through seven different committees. Two of those committees have to be specially created and the process requires super majority votes from the two main supporting organizations not once but twice.”  The process is essentially designed to avoid change and keep it in PTI/ICANN’s hands in all but the most exceptional circumstances – and in most of the exceptional circumstances one could imagine a process this slow and complex would be practically useless. The basic idea of a renewable contract has been buried by a mound of steaming….committees and reviews. The CWG lost sight of the basic question they should have been answering, which is: “how can we keep the contractor honest and the process of RZF editing maximally efficient by making the possibility of the IFO’s replacement real?”

My two cents
--MM

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