[CPWG] On .ORG and ICANN's new existential threat (long)

[Evan Leibovitch]

By now I'm sure most of you are aware of the maxi-controversy regarding the
proposed sale of PIR, the registry for dot-org, its proposed change from a
nonprofit to a for-profit, and the resulting (and nearly universal
condemnation) of the transaction by ISOC Chapters, the EFF, charities and
nonprofits around the world...

... and now, the Attorney-General of the US State of California (AG).

I am not here to re-debate the substance of the opposition, which at this
point is well known. What has now changed the debate is the recent
intervention of the AG, which has come down forcefully on demanding that
ICANN reject the sale (in part referencing ALAC advice to do so).

We now have a situation in which the ICANN Board may make a decision, not
on the merits of the case, but based on its own instinct for
self-preservation. While it was generally thought that ICANN would
rubber-stamp the Ethos sale and weather the negative PR the way it has done
with so many decisions in the past, this time it it different. ICANN may
well throw Ethos under the bus, not for any public-service rationale but
just in order to save itself.

In a recent opinion piece in CircleID
<http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200427-icann-attorney-generals-ends-means-and-unintended-ends/>,
CPWG Co-Chair Jonathan Zuck has expressed concern for these events and
fear-mongers over "what next".

*"Today, it's the .ORG sale. Tomorrow it could assert itself into ICANN's
> privacy policies or compel changes to Internet standards that may
> unwittingly help foreign governments, including China."*
>

[Personal aside: Really, Jonathan? "*Including China*"? You really had to
play THAT card? Just ... wow. Such pandering immediately suggests that a
really weak argument is on its way. ]

I for one am delighted to see the AG taking an active role, that finally
SOMEONE is being proactive in upholding the public interest and providing
some form of actual accountability. ICANN's Orwellian-named "empowered
community" is finally held up as the *utter sham* that it is in its failure
to protect the public interest or indeed any view from outside the bubble.

ICANN hasn't really served the public interest since I've been involved
with it, and that now goes back at least a dozen years. Is nobody else
amused that the AG has explicitly quoted ALAC advice in its one position
statement more than ICANN Board decisions have in the whole history of
At-Large?

In cutting ties with the US government and replacing it with stunningly
bureaucratic "accountability" to its own internal community, ICANN
significantly REDUCED its commitment to the public interest. Instead it
doubled down on being driven by its insiders, technocrats and industry
elites. But although it severed nearly all ties with governments (save for
the GAC which is fragmented and powerless), this one thin but crucial
tether remains -- ICANN's registration as a California nonprofit. At the
time of its accountability-reducing "transition", ICANN had the choice to
re-incorporate as an international NGO in a neutral country. Or it could
have undertaken the harder but more-stable approach of a treaty-based
organization. But it chose to remain a California corporation for reasons
that have served it well .... until now. By ignoring all the protests
against the Ethos sale and seeming intent to ratify it, ICANN woke its only
real overseer, and its life may never be the same.

Jonathan laments that this "opens a door where ICANN could succumb to
pressure to revise its privacy policies for registrars and registries to
comply with California law — or face scrutiny over its nonprofit status."

To which I say -- as a non-American outside of the ICANN insider bubble --
it's *about damned time*.

ICANN has had many opportunities over the years to pay more attention to
its internal public-interest communities such as ALAC and NCUC and even
GAC, and now it's paying the price for distracting us and over-processing
us and under-resourcing us and ignoring us (and literally laughing at us,
based on my experiences serving within ALAC leadership). Not only ICANN
future decisions, but also past bad ones, may finally get the
public-interest scrutiny denied for so long. It more than makes up for the
second Board seat that ICANN didn't think the public deserved.
ICANN is at a point of reckoning. It can clean up its act and take the
public interest seriously internally, or expect more such *necessary*
interventions in the future. Or it can whine at the nasty California
interventions while the world outside the ICANN bubble cheers.

Or maybe it can re-incorporate in Delaware. That would really piss off
China which is what we ultimately want, right?

This has been a long time coming, and I'm happy to have been around for it.
The whole effort may yet fizzle, but it's welcome and a little gratifying
to see a little squirming from those who have ignored us for so long.

-- 
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch or @el56
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