[WP1] Comment on various discussion of membership model

[Paul Twomey]

Hi Mathieu, Thomas and Jordan

I have been following the great work of the CCWG from outside for some 
time, but only recently joined as a participant.

I wonder if I may raise a concern, that I am not sure how best to insert 
into the various working group and other lists.   I see in discussion 
papers from the lawyers and in various comments on the lists, the 
consideration of ICANN adopting a membership model.   Now I realise that 
this is only one option and I support the approach of developing out 
models for the community to consider.  I am sorry to be coming to this 
issue later than others, and perhaps you will be able to parse my 
concern to the right audience.

I wanted to raise my grave concerns about the potential unintended 
consequences of a membership model for ICANN.   Having reviewed 
non-profit legal structures throughout much of the world, I realise that 
the membership model is common, particularly in parts of Europe.  But it 
is not a universally accepted model.

For an international organisation serving a changing Internet community, 
there is a big difference between a "participatory" model and a 
"membership" model.   In 1997-99 we discussed these issues very 
carefully, and settled on an open-ended participatory model to ensure 
the best mix of "all can feel free to attend and participate" with an 
incentive, similar to the IETF, to reward meritocratic participation.   
This also had the very important benefit of not building anti-trust risk 
by having participation limited only to a set of members who may at some 
time show cartel like behaviour. And as the litigation with Verisign 
from 2003-05 showed, anti-trust and other litigation can be a VERY 
significant risk to ICANN (or any other entity with limited 
resources).   It does not matter what jurisdiction, judges can bring 
down harsh damages for anti-trust action.  Now throughout the Verisign 
litigation, the courts regularly came down on the side of ICANN, and its 
open participation model was an important factor in their evaluation of 
ICANN's decisions.

Further, many may not recall, but the one time ICANN considered a form 
of more 'class based membership' - the election for board members based 
on anyone who had a domain name - we saw important differences.   While 
some regions had voters only in the hundreds ( a reflection of the 
activists who cared then), one region suddenly went through a very 
different dynamic.   A candidate from one economy was getting tens of 
thousands of votes, then suddenly a rival economy had a candidate who 
attracted over 100,000 votes and then a third rival economy put forward 
a candidate and was garnering tens of thousands of votes a day, before 
the deadline cut this competition off.   Now, they were all excellent 
candidates, but the point is that mere inter-country rivalry resulted in 
very significant mobilisation of empowered voters who were not 
necessarily motivated by the mission and values of ICANN - it appeared 
more a form of nationalist competition.

I can foresee numerous scenarios where if ICANN were to move to a 
membership model that such non-mission related incentives could end up 
with large numbers of members being recruited.  Indeed, a membership 
model may also put in place perverse incentives for contracted or other 
affected parties (companies, associations, governments, ethnic 
groupings) to mobilise large numbers of members. /Remember, members do 
not have to be participants/. But by the fact of having membership they 
get a more or equal say.    And clever players could game restrictions 
within various SOs/ACs to build coalitions of members in each.

I have seen this sort of gaming occur in several large important 
membership organisations.   Indeed, in one in Australia, a 
roadside-assistance organization, the membership dynamics eventually 
developed into two parties which were defacto proxies for the country's 
main political parties - and the two sides spent years in the courts 
trying to outdo each other.

I apologise if this issue has already been discussed fully by the CCWG 
in meetings.   I just wanted to put into the mix concerns about 
unintended consequences.

Best

Paul


-- 
Dr Paul Twomey
Managing Director
Argo P at cific

US Cell: +1 310 279 2366
Aust M: +61 416 238 501

www.argopacific.com

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