[governance] ICANN stumbling on a hornet nest

[Chaitanya Dhareshwar]

O_O

No more public seats!? Gone the voice of reason is..?

There's QUITE some detail in your diary Karl. I understand how this gives
the public information - but how does this become insurance? Could you
elaborate please?

-C

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com> wrote:

> On 09/03/2012 03:02 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:
>
> >     I am that board member.
> >
> > Karl, which seat number was it that you occupied at the time?
>
> I don't remember having a number.
>
> I was the first (and only) publicly elected board member for the
> so-called "North American" area.  (I use quote marks because I thought
> it odd that ICANN's "North America" included Greenland but not Mexico.)
>
> There were five of these publicly elected seats, one for each of ICANN's
> geographic regions.  ICANN erased all of these seats so that there would
> never again be a public election.
>
> For the most part I thought that the five publicly elected directors
> were quite good - and in the North American election I felt that every
> candidate, except perhaps one, was extremely well qualified.  Because we
> all had to endure at least some degree of public selection the election
> process brought to the fore people who tended to be more opinionated
> than people who came to their board seats by a "nominating committee"
> process in which the criteria is sometimes that of choosing the least
> objectionable, most mainstream, rather than those who might give
> discomfort or ask too many questions.  There were complaints about the
> election process in that in some areas there was a lot of nationalistic
> and corporate activity; but that is to be expected when there are
> democratic processes - the winner often tends to be he/she who is the
> best organized.  (For online elections in these days of social media the
> value of corporate money and organization does not seem as strong an
> advantage as it is in more political governmental elections; I hope that
> this isn't just a transitory or illusory situation.)
>
> Here in the US there were seven of us running for the seat.  Some you
> may have heard of - such as Larry Lessig.  All were very good and we had
> a very vibrant election process including face-to-face debates (at
> Harvard and Stanford universities and several open online debates.)  My
> campaign platform is still online at:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm
>
> Many aspects of that platform remain important, but I'd like to draw
> your attention to one that is close to my heart:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm#full-members
>
> I regret one aspect of that platform - I misjudged Louis Touton and did
> not give him the credit he deserved.
>
> I also felt that it was important to give to the public the reasons for
> what I did when I was on the board, so I kept an on-line diary of my
> decisions.  (In order not to step on the toes of others I tried to
> record my points of view and not to reflect too much about what other
> board members were thinking - I figured that that was their obligation
> to perform, or not.)  I received a whole lot of subtle flak from ICANN
> for publishing that diary, although it now seems that what I did back
> then that was found so objectionable has been adopted to a degree in
> ICANN's inclusion of a rationale section in its board meeting minutes.
>
> That diary is still online at:
>
> http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/diary/index.htm
>
> One of the reasons that I maintained that public diary was that I was
> (and am) quite aware of the tremendous risks of personal liability that
> hang over every director of a non-profit corporation.  Some of these
> liabilities seem to be such that they can not be protected against by
> any kind of insurance policy.  So, in addition to it simply being "the
> right thing to do" I created and maintained that diary so that I, should
> the occasion arise, have means to demonstrate that my acts were
> legitimately within the "business judgment rule" that protects corporate
> directors.
>
>         --karl--
>
>
>
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