[WP1] Comment on various discussion of membership model

Fri Apr 10 17:03:19 UTC 2015

Paul — Greg’s answer is what I was thinking, too.
When you get a chance, look at the lawyer docs regarding Member and Designator models.

Best,
Steve
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From: Greg Shatan
Date: Friday, April 10, 2015 at 12:51 PM
To: Paul Twomey
Cc: "wp2 at icann.org<mailto:wp2 at icann.org>", "wp1 at icann.org<mailto:wp1 at icann.org>"
Subject: Re: [WP1] Comment on various discussion of membership model

Paul,

I think this is a little different than past thoughts on membership.  What is being considered here is that current ICANN entities (e.g., SO/AC/SG/C/RALO organizations) would themselves be the members.  This has its issues, but it probably avoids most if not all the issues you cite.  Further, I don't think anyone is looking to change the current open participatory model.

Best regards,

Greg Shatan

Apologies for brevity.

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On Fri, Apr 10, 2015 at 12:26 PM, Paul Twomey <paul.twomey at argopacific.com<mailto:paul.twomey at argopacific.com>> wrote:
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

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