[CPWG] Sale of .ORG REJECTED

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Fri, 1 May 2020 at 02:41, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck at innovatorsnetwork.org>
wrote:

> My STRONG preference would have been for the board to approve the sale and
> have the empowered community object to it and see where it went. I wasn’t
> happy with the sale either and, even more so, saw it as a chance to get
> some strong DNS protections in one of the contracts, perhaps reform PICs,
> etc. etc. Having the AG intervene early like this will always cause the
> question to be asked, what if.
>

Suffice to say I'm quite happy it didn't turn out that way. The
fundamentals of changing a viable nonprofit into a saddled-in-debt
for-profit wasn't going to be fixed through PICs or other cosmetics, so
that process would have failed miserably. And by the time the objection had
run its course, the transaction would have been completed beyond the point
of no return. It's a "what if" I'm really happy never came to pass.

How about having an ICANN that makes the right decisions at the outset,
rather than anticipating failure and designing a massively bureaucratic
appeal system?

The issue is, as Vittorio correctly identified, a fundamental flaw pre- AND
post-transition. There is no built-in consideration (let alone protection)
of the global public interest within ICANN governance. This problem is core
to the character and culture of an ICANN that's designed to cater to the
needs and wants of lobbyists and career insiders (hence the Orwellian named
"empowered community"). Had ICANN maintained sufficient public-interest
mechanisms in its decision-making, the AG would never have intervened. It
was an extreme situation as it has never happened before in all the years
ICANN has been a California corporation.

The system worked. The CA-AG was alerted that ICANN was not acting
according to its charter to serve the public interest, and it ordered ICANN
to do so. The situation can be prevented from repeating, but first ICANN
has to admit it has a massive problem of being unaccountable outside its
bubble.

If not to governments, then who? That's the challenge, and ALAC has a role
to play should it be called upon. But the systemic mentality that (among
other errors) enables ICANN to deny At-Large multiple Board seats has got
to go. Perhaps it's time to go back to global elections for the ICANN
Board, and to have a Nominating Committee that actually nominates (rather
than selects).  So long as ICANN denies the public interest in its
decision-making, the interventions will (and should) occur.

(And keep in mind that no matter where ICANN is, it will always have a
government overseer. Arguably Switzerland is tougher on its nonprofits than
California.)

- Evan
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