[governance] Review Panels

[Danny Younger]

Hello George,

You are correct in noting that cynicism can stem from years of experience.  

I look back at other notable reviews such as the At-Large Study that involved such worthies as Carl Bildt and Esther Dyson (wherein outreach to the community extended over an eight month period, in meetings and online, with the consideration of over 1163 
  forum comments and input from 16 outreach events worldwide).

That particular review resulted in a recommendation from a team that found a broad-based community consensus to seat at-large directors on one-third of ICANN's board.

Of course, we all know what happened:

1.  The board thanked them for their work.
2.  The board disagreed with their findings and recommendations
3.  The board completely disregarded the recorded community consensus
3.  The board went on its merry way and wiped out all board-level at-large representation

In the ICANN world, recommendations from review panels are too readily ignored as ICANN fully understands that it is accountable to no one.  The Affirmation of Commitments has not changed that reality.  

As always, I'm willing to be proven wrong by healthy changes at ICANN... unfortunately, I don't currently see the organization on that path.  The approach taken regarding new gTLDS well illustrates that point.  

There is a large community that has vociferously argued that an "open-the-floodgates" approach is not a prudent way forward, will severely impact holders of marks, and can't effectively be managed by an ICANN Compliance team that won't be able to scale to meet the challenge.  Rather than putting together a team to devise principles to govern the allocation of names in a measured release of new gTLDs, the board is now saying to the GNSO, "you have 2 months to come up with a plan to fully address intellectual property concerns, and if you don't succeed in that limited time-frame, we will move forward come hell or high water with the Staff recommendations that have already mangled your earlier proposals".  

This is board hell-bent on having its own way no matter what the rest of the world thinks.  No amount of reviews will ever change that dynamic.





      
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