[governance] Re: Is really Bulgarian Cyrillic .?? (.bg) similar to other Latin ccTLDs?

Sat Nov 12 16:17:15 EST 2011

It has been said here more than once that ICANN is a corrupt  
organization.

The details that have come out, below - the recent discussion in  
Bulgaria sketched and analyzed, below - are just one of the many  
smoking guns, with actual evidence beginning to peek through  
unmistakably in this case, despite attempts to obfuscate.

Only beginning to peek out, not the full story.  But introductory of  
the the larger story.

To perform its public service function, ICANN must serve the many  
interests evenhandedly.  Instead, it has been beholden - in the policy  
outcomes actually implemented - to the interests of a tiny group of  
actors, those who fund it.  That is corrupt.

If ICANN were faithful to a bottoms-up process, that could be a start  
on public service that might have integrity.  Instead, ICANN staff  
decisions - from whatever staff - have in the end dismissively ignored  
long and grueling bottoms-up work and have, on germane decisions,  
taken steps with prospect to enrich ICANN's tiny coterie of funders.

The polite form of this complaint has become an increasingly angry  
shout, now ironically from ICANN's past master, the US government:   
"Be accountable."  The more direct statement - as the failure of  
accountability has glared ever more bluntly over long years of demands  
for reform - is:  "Corrupt."

Not just governments - and yes of course, also numerous governments  
besides the US government - see this stinking mess.  More than one  
individual who are privy, and at the very core of the beast, have  
acknowledged this corruption.

This unacceptable state of affairs is sadly all too evident.

David

On Nov 10, 2011, at 11:32 AM, Avri Doria wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I reject the accusation of ICANN Staff Bashing.  I see it as yet  
> another new Political Correctness  directive to limit freedom of  
> speech.  So sorry as much as I love many ICANN Staffers, I beleive  
> that ICANN Staff, as corporate operational entity, is in error here  
> and needs to be called on it.  I did not say they were bad people.
>
> When the ICANN Staff makes implementation decisions that are  
> contrary to policy decisions, they should be called on it.  And no  
> amount of Bashing Alleged Staff Bashers makes any difference to  
> those discussions.  Yes, I expect it is mostly due to decisions by  
> Senior ICANN Staff, and that most staffers are just following orders  
> for fear of losing their jobs in a bad economy.  We have seen what  
> happens in ICANN to those who disagree with senior management.  So  
> the poor bashed ICANN Staffers have my sympathy, but I do not  
> beleive that I am the ICANN Staff Basher.
>
> In this case, the implementation on harmful confusing similarity  
> goes beyond what is written in the Policy and is establishing  
> Policy.    Those implementation decisions by ICANN has not been  
> subject to adequate bottom-up process.  And in some cases it goes  
> beyond what is written in the recommendations. Also the restriction  
> against 2 character IDN ccTLD is not in Fast Track document which  
> says: "1. the string must be a minimum of two characters long (U- 
> label), " <http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/idn-cctld-implementation-plan-16nov09-en.pdf 
> >
>
> Since this issue is not a topic in any of the ICANN groups as far as  
> I know, e.g the At-Large where I think it belongs, I think it is  
> good that as the problem becomes apparent to IGC, which is a major  
> civil society aggregator, we discuss it here and that we take action  
> on it.  I am hoping that At-Large and other groups may take up the  
> topic in the near future, that is why I think we should forward any  
> letter we may write to the ALAC as well as to the ICANN Board.
>
> avri
>
>
>
> On 10 Nov 2011, at 09:58, Tina Dam wrote:
>
>> Hi Avri, thanks for the report from me as well.
>>
>>
>> But, I must say though that I am very surprised about your bashing  
>> ofICANN Staff. I obviously really do not like that and I don't find  
>> ituseful at all. If that is what this list is for then it certainly  
>> isnot for me.
>>
>> Avri, you of all people must know how hard ICANN staff works to  
>> followprocesses and work with all the different stakeholder groups  
>> to ensurefair implementation - yes that is, through the bottom-up  
>> processes.
>>
>> In terms of implementing the Fast Track Process this was done  
>> viacountless meetings and online public forums etc discussing  
>> andreviewing several proposed implementation plans that follows  
>> thepolicy papers and reports provided by the community. You were  
>> inseveral of those meetings.
>>
>> Certainly it is never possible to fulfill every single  
>> personsrequests, but I think we got really really close and so did  
>> others.Alternatively the implementation would have not been approved.
>>
>> About the restriction against any 2-char that resembles  
>> ASCIIcharacters - this has to do with the history of how country- 
>> codes aredecided upon. That is, via the ISO list. It may not be a  
>> very usefulrestriction, but a new ICANN process should not be  
>> against an alreadyexisting process. If this is to changed then an  
>> agreement must be madewith ISO that ICANN can use such 2-char  
>> combinations and that ISO isnot delegating them in the future.
>>
>> That may be more logically, but until this has been decided upon  
>> Ireally see no issue with ICANN having that limitation. I could  
>> neverbe certain, but I would guess the conversation on this list  
>> would havebeen completely different if an ICANN process would cause  
>> issues forexample for the ISO list and their future implementations  
>> on thatlist.
>>
>> Tina
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I was in Bulgaria for the domain.forun at which Rod spoke.
>>>
>>> Of course I do not know what Rod and Parvanov spoke about.  But in  
>>> other statements Rod, and Veni both made, they hid behind the  
>>> bottom-up process and stated that it was rejected because of the  
>>> bottom-up process and said that if the Bulgarians and Greeks  
>>> wanted to change the rules they needed to go back to the ccNSO.   
>>> It is amazing how many time they invoked bottom-up process to  
>>> defend unpopular Staff decisions - it was the mantra of the day.
>>>
>>> Of course they never spoke of what bottom-up decisions they were  
>>> talking about.  Was there a bottom-up decision about what sort of  
>>> things were confusing similar?  Was there a bottom-up decision  
>>> about a lack of transparency and the absence of an appeal of an  
>>> arbitrary decision or an extended review procedure?  No, these are  
>>> ICANN implementation details.  I was an observer of the ccNSO  
>>> group that made recommendations, and these issues never came up.   
>>> And for the GNSO, no matter how much the bottom-up process has  
>>> requested an extended review for confusing similarity, it has been  
>>> rejected by the ICANN Staff.  ICANN Staff has decided on its own  
>>> that it is supreme when it comes to harmful confusing similarity.   
>>> I remember no bottom-up decisions giving ICANN staff supremacy in  
>>> any topic, let alone this one.
>>>
>>> Another disturbing thing came up during these meetings.  There was  
>>> a new notion introduced by those who spoke for ICANN.  I must note  
>>> that I may have misunderstood it because some of it came from  
>>> ICANN Staffers speaking in Bulgarian so I only heard a  
>>> translation, but it sounded like the following:
>>>
>>> In any review of Cyrillic or Greek characters, not only do they  
>>> have to  worry about existing LDH (letter digit hyphen) ASCII  
>>> TLDs, but also myst complete with potential LDH ASCII that might  
>>> be applied for some day.  This notion was extend not only to un- 
>>> allocated ISO 2 character designations but to any Cyrillic or  
>>> Greek TLD that may look similar to LDH characters.
>>>
>>> I.e. the notion I got out was that if the Cyrillic or Greek looks  
>>> anything like ASCII, they can't have it.  ASCII trumps all. While  
>>> this is bad, considering the stretch ICANN Staff makes when making  
>>> these decision (б looks like b - really???), it is really awful.  
>>> From the discussions I understood this would apply in gTLDS as  
>>> much as it does in ccTLDs.
>>>
>>> If I understood correctly, this is a bad thing, and this issue  
>>> of .бг is just the tip of the iceberg of a really serious defect  
>>> in the ICANN process for new TLDs.
>>>
>>> avri
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 9 Nov 2011, at 10:06, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
>>>
>>>> As I can see from the ICANN website, ICANNs Rod Beckstrom had a  
>>>> meeting with the Bulgarian president Mr. Parvanow, the day before  
>>>> yesterday (November 7). Did the Bulgarian president raise the  
>>>> issue of .bg and what was Beckstroem response?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> wolfgang

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