[CCWG-ACCT] Membership thoughts

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Greg,


>>  Just brainstorming: one possibility may be to create "mirror" or "alter ego" organizations (perhaps corporations, perhaps some other form of organized entity), roughly along the lines of the NRO/ASO relationship (the ASO is an ICANN internal structure, while the NRO is not, yet they are essentially "alter egos").  Thus, each SO and AC could create an entity independent of ICANN, but answerable to that SO and AC.  The external entities could then be members of ICANN.  

My understanding also is that to be "members"  the organizations would need to be legal entities.   In a few of the examples given in this thread,  the "coordinating" organizations are not yet established as legal entities.   

For example, the Number Resource Organization ( https://www.nro.net/) is a coordinating body for the 5 Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).   These five RIRs are legal entities - so it may make more sense for them to be the "members" of ICANN.   

My understanding is that groups like the Registrar constituency, and the registrar stakeholder group (http://www.icannregistrars.org/ ) are deliberately not established as legal entities, or as trade associations.    They are coordinating groups - but any legal agreements etc are always between individual registrars as legal entities and ICANN.      Recently a domain name industry association was established - I assume this is a legal entity (http://www.thedna.org/ ).

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin