[governance] Interesting story of the never ending ICANN Conflict of Interest. This time on .africa?

[parminder]

On Friday 12 October 2012 10:32 AM, Martin McOsieno wrote:
> Hi
>
> Interesting story of the never ending ICANN Conflict of Interest. This 
> time on .africa?


But isnt the problem of conflict of interest structural to 
multistakeholder (MS) governance (not multistakeholder policy inputs, 
but actual governance) because MS governance is about those who have 
interest (or stake) being part of decision making processes. ICANN board 
and its various decision making committees, for instance, are full of 
people from the domain name industry, an industry that ICANN is supposed 
to regulate. Could one, coming from an old fashioned democratic 
tradition, even think of US's Federal Communications Commission or 
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India having a rep from Verizon or 
Airtel respectively! No, certainly not, it would be unthinkable. But not 
so in the ICANN's world of MSism .

Consequently most conflict of interest talk at ICANN is window dressing, 
when the going, and the press, becomes too blatantly bad, as in the case 
of their former Chairman's misadventures. Otherwise, in the game as 
usual it is interested parties laying global CIR policies all the way, 
and the public or the supposed reps of the public sit in the gallery and 
clap enthusiastically about the untold wonders of MSism.

This is what the outgoing CEO of ICANN had to say

    “Icann must place commercial and financial interests in their
    appropriate context,” said Mr. Beckstrom, who is scheduled to step
    down from his post in July. “How can it do this if all top
    leadership is from the very domain-name industry it is supposed to
    coordinate independently? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/technology/private-fight-at-internet-naming-firm-goes-public.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1332165645-IV28j+gNERC8I8kD5rURmA 


See some examples of an endemic of conflicts of interest in ICANN at 
http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1072&doc_id=240923 .

Many of you may not have great positive thoughts about the democratic 
system of governance in India, but I can assure you that if any 
governmental/policy organisation in India approached anywhere near the 
conflict of interest mess that ICANN is, it would take one public 
interest litigation to the high court or supreme court to get it folded 
up in a matter of days, even if the government itself does not fold it 
up (which too I am sure it would do on its own).

parminder
>
> http://www.thedomains.com/2012/10/03/dotconnectafrica-sends-third-letter-to-icann-alleging-conflict-of-interest-issues-with-its-board-members-over-africa/ 
> <http://www.thedomains.com/2012/10/03/dotconnectafrica-sends-third-letter-to-icann-alleging-conflict-of-interest-issues-with-its-board-members-over-africa/> 
>
> http://domainingafrica.com/i-will-win-africa-because-i-have-friends-in-high-places-case-of-conflicted-board-members/ 
> <http://domainingafrica.com/i-will-win-africa-because-i-have-friends-in-high-places-case-of-conflicted-board-members/> 
>
>  Martin


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