[governance] Re: [Arab IGF] ICANN to get $8 Million More from New .com Deal

[Fahd A. Batayneh]

Salanieta,

On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <
salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Fahd A. Batayneh <fahd.batayneh at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Alejandro, while I have no negative stance against the ICANN board or any
>> board member in particular, there remains two unanswered questions for me:
>>
>>    1. How did the board approve .xxx while the community was against it.
>>
>> To examine and analyse this discretionary power and authority one has to
> go to the ICANN By laws. Is the Board obliged to accept the advice of
> Advisory Committees or do they have their own discretionary capacity.
>

Leaving the bylaws aside, it is widely known that board members always work
in the best interest of the various stakeholders involved. ICANN approved
.xxx as means to move forward in the New gTLD program, or else they would
have jeopardized been dragged to court on claims of bias. In addition, the
GAC was against the whole approval, but no body listened to them.

>
>>    1. How did the board approve the New gTLD program while many answers
>>    and concerns were unanswered. Even after the program was launched, the "TAS
>>    glitch" caused lots of controversy. Even worst, ICANN is talking about the
>>    next New gTLD round (initially planed for 2013) when current issues have
>>    not been resolved yet.
>>
>>  If you revisit the Transcripts of the ICANN Meeting in Singapore, there
> was one sole dissenter (I could be wrong, maybe there were two, it would be
> worthwhile to check) and the lone dissenter raised objections with his
> rationale. However at the same time, to be fair the commercial world
> thrives on risks and the Board in this instance had the ultimate discretion
> to make the call. The obligation to manage and mitigate the risks is
> another issue. There is a delicate balance between listening to the
> community and feedback and  making decisions. I still recall Tina Dam
> raising at the San Jose meeting her reservations about "Digital Archery"
> which was ultimately scrapped. However, one thing must be said is that
> ICANN is a community that is open and you can write or make submissions as
> an "affected party". For Governments, the GAC, for non- commercial
> stakeholders and At Large. There are other avenues other than commercial
> stakeholders where people can raise their concerns.
>

My concern here was not about the board vote, but rather the entire
process. Some people at the Singapore meeting questioned ICANN's
correspondence publishing policy in which some claimed that some
correspondences rejecting the New gTLD program launch were never published
on the ICANN website under correspondences. I would never disagree that
ICANN is an "Open Community", but there is lots of lobbying, and ICANN must
get its gears intact.


> One of the remarkable things about the current Board is that they are also
> going out of their way to extract feedback from the global community. They
> are also bound by core values within the ICANN By Laws and if people are
> not happy with how this is unfolding, then there are mechanisms in place to
> raise these concerns etc.
>

This is the new board under Dr. Stephen Crocker, but not the previous ones
(no hard feelings to past board members). One of the best sources of
information at ICANN meetings is not published data, but rather the side
talks with key industry players. You get to hears lots of petrifying issues
going on behind the scene.


>
> What makes things even worst is that many board members (in their capacity
>> as employers of their respective firms) benifited their respective
>> employers with the approval of the New gTLD program. Even more, some past
>> board members jumped to greener shores with business ventures elsewhere
>> (and I am sure you know what I exactly mean).
>>
>> Yes, that literally enraged the wider global community in terms of
> "conflict of interest" management. The reality is that situation boiled
> down to personal integrity and ethics as legally. This was of course
> through rigorous consultations with the global community  addressed so that
> it never happens again.
>

In summary, there is lots to be done for ICANN to prove its legitimacy and
and relaunch a brighter image for itself. The New gTLD program has caused
enough controversy for ICANN to start thinking of repositioning its hidden
strategies. With the new CEO, he has an uphill of tasks to re-direct ICANN
into the right direction.

Fahd
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