[Gnso-newgtld-dg] Under-served Regions, Private Auctions, and Fiduciary Issues Query (Landrush - Applicant Auctions - Informed Consent)

Mon Oct 6 16:37:23 UTC 2014

Sam,

Your question touches on one we're dealing with here in New York City 
right now. The situation...

The Landrush for .nyc ended at 11 AM this past Friday. On Saturday 
afternoon one of the organizations with which I am involved received 
notice from the registrar (GoDaddy) that more than one applicant had 
requested the MentalHealth.nyc domain name. And that we'd soon be 
informed by SnapNames about an auction that will be held "on behalf of 
the registry." (Auction revenue here goes 60% to registry and 40% to 
city government.)

In this situation we are advocating for transparency of the type ICANN 
offered for 2012 New TLDs, believing that there are benefits to having 
the various applicants connect and discuss the use of the domain name. 
In the instance of MentalHealth.nyc, perhaps a collaborative effort 
would ensue, or if another party has a superior plan, we'd be prepared 
to drop out of the auction. Currently a blind auction is planned: We 
have no idea who we might be bidding against. Our organization is a 50 + 
year old not-for-profit serving a small section of the city. Perhaps the 
others applicants do similar work. In the context of [Gnso-newtld-dg] we 
see awareness about the impact of transparency in this situation being 
part of an Informed Consent regiment.

There's a second Informed Consent aspect to this. In the current 
situation there is the possibility that the MentalHealth.nyc name could 
be sought by a comedy club, or maybe to market a magic elixir of some 
sort. And while both of these might qualify as beneficial to mental 
health, from a city administration perspective, the more traditional 
health use of the name would seem more appropriate. For this reason, 
we'd like to see the Informed Consent provisions include 
multistakeholder engagement in selecting public interest name set-asides.

Our situation differs in important ways from the one you raised. If 
there are four not-for-profits seeking MentalHealth.nyc,  I believe the 
last resort should be an applicant auction with revenue staying "in the 
community." But in the instance you cite (ICANN applicant auctions), I 
tend to agree with using auction funds for the public interest. I 
realize there's a seeming conflict in these views, with an explanation 
left for another post.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt
Connecting.nyc Inc.

P.S. I've attached a City-TLD Landrush Models graphic which depicts 
different approaches to the landrush process.

On 10/6/2014 10:03 AM, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
>
> As a development economist with a particular concern for "underserved 
> regions" I have a question about a possible link between ICANN funding 
> for underserved regions and the practice, in the past gTLD round, of 
> Private Auctions. In simple terms ICANN hands over a valuable property 
> to a pre-screened group to engage in a win-win auction where the 
> winner wins the gTLD, at a price, and the losers win by sharing in the 
> proceeds of the Auction. ICANN received nothing from the process.
>
> I am most familiar with this process when the asset in question is 
> some part of an inheritance, and where the beneficiaries use this 
> process to decide who within the family gets the asset and others 
> share in the proceeds. It also occurs when an asset is donated to a 
> charity auction, where the proceeds are for a good cause. The ICANN 
> private auctions look an awful lot like the reverse. A not-for-profit 
> turns over a valuable asset to a private auction for private gain. I 
> don't know about the rules governing ICANN's not-for-profit status but 
> in a public company this would verge on board failure of fiduciary 
> responsibility, and there would be hell to pay.
>
> Is there not some way that a new round of gTLD can re-jig the private 
> auction process so that it feeds funding to efforts to support 
> underserved regions, and be less like an asset hand off that could 
> raise issues of fiduciary responsibility? This should certainly 
> precede a suggestion that ICANN, or others, go hat-in-hand to other 
> possible funding sources to assist underserved regions. . Charity (and 
> maybe integrity) begins at home.
>
> Sam Lanfranco, Policy Committee Chair
> NPOC
>
>
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------
> "It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured
> in an unjust state" -Confucius
> ------------------------------------------------
> Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar)
> Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3
> email:Lanfran at Yorku.ca    Skype: slanfranco
> blog:http://samlanfranco.blogspot.com
> Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852
>
>
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