[CPWG] Fwd: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Receives Letter from California Attorney General Regarding .ORG Change of Control

Mon Feb 3 13:33:41 UTC 2020

Thanks David. It was great to meet you at ATLAS and I’m glad you’ve found an issue about which you feel so passionate. Personally, my passion for AT-Large IS the process so I welcome these suggestions.

It is certainly the case that most of the consensus “temperature taking” is done on the CPWG call, not on this list. As I mentioned to you, I will explore how better to incorporate the list or, at the very least, report out to the list. That’s not a bad idea. The problem with the list, however, is that it is open to all, regardless of your membership in At-Large, so it’s very easy for folks to become interested in a particular discussion and simply sign up and start making points. I’d rather NOT restrict the list but this certainly complicates using the list as a measure of consensus. It’s pretty easy to “stuff the ballot box,” so to speak.

I have NOT performed a formal evaluation of the email threads here, as I said, and simply gave you my impression that the calls to “block the sale” were coming from a relatively small group of people. I can take a shot at GREP’ing the list to actually see where things stand.

Roberto Gaetano has taken the thought leadership role on this list primarily with a lot of people supporting his positions as they have evolved over time, beginning with some emotional responses at the start to constructive recommendations towards the end.  Our ultimate positions grew out of his recommendations and several lengthy conversations across multiple CPWG calls. His position as a former board chair at PIR, along with this long standing participation in At-Large, certainly carried a lot of weight with folks.

On the other hand, shrill voices suggesting that At-Large is captured, has a legitimacy problem, is a dictatorship, by those with a clear agenda in the outcome, are tougher for folks in At-Large to consider.  Op-eds by interested parties suggesting that any inclination that non-profits are not individual end users is tantamount to disregarding  “the views of the Jewish community… [on .NAZI]…purely because they were Jewish,” are designed to put folks on the defensive, to shut them up, not have constructive discussion.

Finally, the draft position (largely a couple of emails from Roberto) was published some time ago, and announced on this list for comment by anyone. I guess that’s the closest connection we have between the list and the consensus building process.

Happy to work to improve the interactions between the listserv and the calls and eventually the ALAC. I’m also interested in getting ALSs spun up more to participate in these discussions and doing more polling. I look forward to your comments on the work of Alan’s WG efforts to get ALSs more engaged. At-Large consensus building is certainly a work in progress and your ongoing participation is appreciated.
Jonathan

From: David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 3, 2020 at 5:01 AM
To: Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
Cc: Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org>, CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] Fwd: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Receives Letter from California Attorney General Regarding .ORG Change of Control

"concrete proposal for improving the bottom up consensus building model of At-Large," Thanks Jonathan, that's a great lead in ...

1) You told me last week you personally counted four people in At-Large who prefer that ICANN withhold consent on the transfer of .ORG.
  1.1) Can you please tell me how many people prefer that ICANN consents to the transfer with conditions?
  1.2) Can you also please tell me how you determined these numbers and why have you not published information about consensus building in a public way?
  1.3) Can you please publicly confirm the process that was used to create the approved draft letter discussed on last week's CPWG call?
Not having a publicly documented consensus building process might be an efficient way of generating advice, but then again dictatorships are more efficient than democracies.

2) It appears that conversations on this list are not connected to the weekly phone discussions in a transparent way. It's not possible for everyone on the list to attend the weekly calls, nor is it necessarily desirable. How can you connect the listserv discussions to the weekly calls better? Most issues likely don't need to be over-reported, but the .ORG consensus building status has been completely absent on this listserv.

3) For some important issues, we have the benefit of having five RALOs, yet I haven't seen anyone take the opportunity to ask the different RALOs to collect and share their opinions on the transfer of .ORG. Yes, I get it. You don't want to do overburden the consensus building process with too much overhead, and yet if you don't then At-Large is open to the criticism that our official opinions are controlled by gatekeepers on the ALAC board. The ALAC board should be a steward of the At-Large consensus building process, not in charge of controlling the opinion of end users across the globe.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers!
David

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 7:27 AM Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org<mailto:JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>> wrote:
Okay, David LOTS of jabs at the At-Large process lately. It’s almost as though you’re singing from a hymnal at this point. The idea that the California AG was somehow disappointed in the At-Large bottom up consensus building process and therefore made a heartfelt entry into the fray is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. He was obviously lobbied, saw an opportunity for some positive PR, perhaps even had promises made for support for a gubernatorial campaign and stood up.

When you have a concrete proposal for improving the bottom up consensus building model of At-Large, I’d love to hear it. Meanwhile, these not so subtle jabs in every single email get a little old.
Jonathan

From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org<mailto:cpwg-bounces at icann.org>> on behalf of David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com<mailto:mackey361 at gmail.com>>
Date: Monday, February 3, 2020 at 4:20 AM
To: Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org<mailto:greg at isoc-ny.org>>
Cc: CPWG <cpwg at icann.org<mailto:cpwg at icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] Fwd: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Receives Letter from California Attorney General Regarding .ORG Change of Control

Hey Greg,

"... no invitation needed." Thank you for stating the obvious. Your response shows that my attempt to convey a sense of humour failed. I guess my failure just adds to Olivier's original failed attempt at humour when he shared the picture of protestors.

Unfortunately, I don't view the Cal AG's entrance into the game as merely interesting. I view it as a failure of iSOC to respect the trusted stewardship of .ORG. It also shows a lack of trust in ICANN's multistakeholder model to do the right thing based on principles. Finally, this issue has exposed a potential flaw in how At-Large conducts an open and bottom-up consensus building process.

Lots of work to be done here, I guess.

Cheers!
David

p.s. Hopefully my comments are pithy enough for this list. Unfortunately, I wasn't given much time on the CPWG weekly call to have a meaningful conversation about the important issues in front of At-Large. I remain committed to sharing my thoughts in a respectful way with the hope that positive change on multiple fronts might come out of this discussion.

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 12:46 AM Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org<mailto:greg at isoc-ny.org>> wrote:
David,

FYI, the California Attorney General was already at the table, no invitation needed.  By law, the Cal AG has formal oversight authority over all non-profit corporations domiciled in California, including ICANN.  That said, I can't recall the last time (if ever) that the Cal AG exercised that authority with ICANN.  So this is an interesting turn of events....

Greg

On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 12:23 PM David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com<mailto:mackey361 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thanks for sharing the information Marita.

You know, it's a little funny. I don't remember seeing the California's Attorney General in the picture that Olivier shared with us a few days ago.

It's possible that important issues on Internet Governance are so disconnected from the average end user that they have no clue what happens between Internet leadership organizations like ICANN and iSOC.

This disconnection of knowledge might allow for funny behaviour motivated by financial gain for some insiders which adds no value to end users, but increases risk to a stable Internet by introducing financial leverage which didn't exist before an unnecessary financial transaction.

Since iSOC has chosen a process which takes advantage of the disconnect with the public (end users), it would be nice to see ICANN make a principled decision based on an open multistakeholder process. The failure of an open and effective multistakeholder process invites other people to the table, like California's Attorney General for instance.

Within ICANN, we also have our At-Large community. Having received the great training at ATLAS III about how the multistakeholder process is supposed to work, I wonder if the reality of the At-Large consensus building process is also severely disconnected from the ideal process that was taught at ICANN66. Unfortunately, the .ORG transfer seems to be pressing the fault lines of a public test of consensus withinin At-Large. This is a different problem from the .ORG transfer issue itself.

Just a thought or two. :-)

Cheers!
David

On Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 4:53 PM Marita Moll <mmoll at ca.inter.net<mailto:mmoll at ca.inter.net>> wrote:

Attached for your information, letter to ICANN from the California AG.  ICANN has is now seeking a deadline extention from PIR  in order to reply to the 35 questions posed by the State of California re the proposed sale.
Marita

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:
[NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Receives Letter from California Attorney General Regarding .ORG Change of Control
Date:
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 12:58:57 -0200
From:
Bruna Martins dos Santos <bruna.mrtns at gmail.com><mailto:bruna.mrtns at gmail.com>
To:
NCUC Discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org><mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>

Dear NCUC,

FYI

During this morning, at the NCSG call with Board Member Matthew Shears, he mentioned that the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California has requested information from ICANN regarding the PIR deal. The correspondence<https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/ca-ago-to-icann-board-23jan20-en.pdf> asks a set of 35 questions/requests to ICANN, from organizational matters, ICANNs capacity to regulate the registration fees and so on.

Icann also issued a blog post<https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2020-01-30-en> explaining that they are also "providing formal notice to PIR, pursuant to the terms of the PIR Registry Agreements, because the CA-AGO has requested that ICANN provide information that PIR designated as confidential.

In addition, the CA-AGO has asked for more time, surpassing the current ICANN deadline to review the proposed change of control of the PIR Registry Agreements that is currently set as 17 February 2020. Accordingly, the letter from ICANN to PIR requests additional time, up to 20 April 2020, to conclude both the CA-AGO and ICANN reviews."

Best regards,
--
Bruna Martins dos Santos

Skype ID: bruna.martinsantos
@boomartins
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