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

Mon Feb 3 13:59:28 UTC 2020

Thanks Nat.  I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have found “single issue” participation on the list by commercial interests to be often frustrating and the voices often to be quite shrill. To answer your specific points, after which I MUST return to bed!

  1.  My response to David was because he said that the AG’s entry pointed to a flaw in At-Large consensus building as though somehow the AG was paying attention to At-Large consensus building rather than simply being another opportunity for David to air his grievance.
  2.  The domainers HAVE played an extremely aggressive organizing role. You even quoted some of the emails that went out to non-profits in an earlier note that were pretty provocative.
  3.  As for the NRO inspection request, it DID come out of the blue and it turned out that it WAS, in fact, motivated from the outside.
  4.  Again, on the 3k comments, a huge majority of them were form emails generated from the ICA website.

I agree it’s wrong to be completely dismissive of these things, and I try not to be, but you have to admit having totally new voices, with no innate connection to the public interest, and no expression of interest in any other topics, suddenly join up a list and start throwing around accusations of illegitimacy, is a bit hard to stomach.

From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of Nat Cohen <ncohen at telepathy.com>
Date: Monday, February 3, 2020 at 5:47 AM
To: David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com>
Cc: CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [CPWG] Fwd: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Receives Letter from California Attorney General Regarding .ORG Change of Control

David,

That the California AG has seen it necessary to step in to look after the public interest since ICANN has failed to do so, should be a wake up call and prompt reflection as to where ICANN went wrong.

Certain people in At-Large presume to speak for end users while simultaneously delegitimizing the voices of end users and registrants.  While accusing others of comments that "are designed to put folks on the defensive, to shut them up, not have constructive discussion" that is often their own contribution to the discussion.

Mr. Zuck, just now: "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."

Mr. Shatan: re Sam Klein piece:  "There’s a heavy reliance on domainers and their (direct and indirect) handiwork, which contributes to the overheated tone and rush to judgment imbued in this piece."

Mr. Zuck: re NRO inspection request:  "I suspect, from reading how carefully this is worded, that EFF is behind this. Very interesting tactic."

Mr. Zuck: re an EFF letter: "I confess I’d be interested to see who is behind this site.  The talking points are very similar to those with which we were bombarded by ICA during the original discussions around .ORG. Deep down, we ALL know that the only ones truly harmed by a price increase are volume registrants. It was you who suggested that a price hike might actually be pro-consumer. Let’s not lose site of all that because we’re pissed at ISOC. Let’s try to keep from being manipulated again and do a reasoned analysis of the situation."

Mr. Shatan: re Jacob Malthouse article: "There are more important things than a pissing match in the toilet of public opinion."

Mr. Zuck: re public comments on .ORG: "In a world where the domainers can gin up 3k ridiculous comments, activation needs to be a priority for the At-Large!"
Regards,

Nat Cohen

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 7:20 AM David Mackey <mackey361 at gmail.com<mailto:mackey361 at gmail.com>> wrote:
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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