[governance] IGF Cancelled

Sat Jul 27 05:31:54 EDT 2013

Parminder,

Without subscribing to your theories about an ICANN "Internet tax," I'd
like to say that your e-mail raises an interesting point: the possibility
of having ICANN fund (even if in part) the IGF on a permanent basis. There
are at least two reasons why this would be worth exploring, in a very
constructive manner, by the community.

The first is that the possibility of transforming one of the three public
meetings it has every year into an IG. To accomodate the needs of the ICANN
community, the IGF will have an ICANN track so pressing issues can be
discussed face to face by the ICANN community. The IGF is a
multi-stakeholder process, and ICANN is interested in, and will benefit
from a strengthened multi-stakeholder process in its community.

I know that when I was on the ICANN Board, we on a number of occassions
dialoged on the issue of what to do about surplus new gTLD program
revenues. This is another reason why I think it is a good idea to pursue
the possibility of ICANN to fund the IGF, because I think it would be make
sense to use some of these revenues, which could be substantial, to fund
the IGF. Given that the revenue from the new gTLD program application fees
is one-off (until we have another new gTLD program; whenever that is), we
can work toward amending the registry/registrar agreements to include
a clause to apply part of domain name registration fees (e.g. $0.01/name
which would mean $2 million per year for 200 million names). So we can use
the windfall from the new gTLD program application fees to kickstart the
funding, and in the medium term make arrangements for a more sustainable
funding model based on revenues from domain name registrations.

I think such an ICANN/IGF match would be one made in heaven ;-)

Katim

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 6:13 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>wrote:

>
> On Friday 26 July 2013 10:04 AM, parminder wrote:
>
>
> On Friday 26 July 2013 09:16 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>
> On 26/07/13 11:31, Ang Peng Hwa (Prof) wrote:
>
> According to third party sources I asked, ie not the Indonesians, one
> major item that added to the cost is that the UN had apparently asked for
> US$900k to fly personnel and security equipment for the event. ****
>
>
> Time to cut the UN apron strings.
>
>
> Why sure, we can check with Google. They will be quite happy to run the
> global internet policy dialogue.... It is most astounding that after
> subverting and ditching the tradition of strictly public funding for policy
> spaces and activities,....
>
>
> The game has in fact begun.......Google has already offered 20k..... now
> we can wait for Facebook, Microsoft and AT&T to come in too.. Inter alia it
> can be very useful to wash, or rather 'persuade' people to gloss over,
> their sins that we know from Snowden disclosures...
>
> Next, the Indian parliament will fall short on budget and google with
> bankroll it too (dont consider it too far fetched, the ideology is fast
> catching) .... Do know the future that so many of us seem to so
> enthusiastically be rooting for....
>
> And all this (public fund shortfalls) of course happens becuase in the
> first place google et al do not pay their taxes.... What a good use of the
> money saved in this way to bankroll policy spaces.... you can try and steer
> the debates away from any possible tax avoidance discussions, or from a
> discussion on the role of global Internet companies in using personal data
> for various kinds of control, political as well as economic...
>
> ICANN had more than 50 million US dollars in cash reserve, coming from the
> Internet tax they collect from Internet users. This inflow/reserve is
> expected to balloon with the new gtld program.. It is this money  that
> should be employed for funding the global IG policy dialogue, ie is the
> IGF.... Rather than just using it to build and cultivate a community of
> rather fanatic supporters of ICANN...
>
> Such a proposal for using ICANN collected funds to support the IGF was put
> forward in the WG on IGF Improvements by my organisation as well as by
> India, and supported by developing countries. Why did other non gov
> stakeholders (including civil society) and developed countries oppose this
> proposal.... Can at least the civil society members of that group who are
> on this list explain.... I can see why private sector or corporate funded
> technical community did not want it... can also see the agenda of US
> supporting developed country constituency.... but why did civil society
> oppose it... If the IGF is really their most loved child...
>
> All of them opposed UN funding for the IGF (which they will pass off as
> likely to increase US control - never mind corporate control).... but can
> they explain why they opposed 'committed' funding from ICANN collected
> Internet taxes, say of 2 million every year... Isnt that the right model of
> funding the IGF , keeping if safe from staist as well corporate controls....
>
> To avoid such obvious models of 'public' funding for the IGF seems to me
> almost a certainly deliberate strategy to ensure corporatist control over
> the IGF... I am happy to hear argument against this proposition.
>
> Can we have a discussion on this here - the appropriate model for funding
> the IGF... Can various actors present their arguments for and against the
> model I propose....
>
> parminder
>
>
>
>
>
> and adopting the neoliberal and anti-democratic (and fancy)
> multistakeholder funding model, now that it has collapsed one is to blame
> the public systems for it....
>
> To repeat: this disaster occurred precisely because of cutting of the
> apron strings that policy space should always have tied to public funds and
> public systems. When Indonesian government said last year that it was
> unable to fund the IGF, it should not have been handed over to a private
> committee headed by a businessman. ... It should have been shifted to
> another country willing to host it.... We are participating in an absolute
> privatisation of governance and politics, and simply following the neolib
> agenda that represents the interests of the most powerful...
>
> And this is indeed sheer 'power' - that those who are responsible for a
> 'failure' can so conveniently blame others for it, and employ their own
> failure to further their cause....
>
> And why should this be seen as a 'failure'. See it as an opportunity to
> completely do away with pulbic funded and pulbic systems supported public
> spaces... Lets go over completely to corporate funded policy spaces and
> policy making.... Why make these moves in such shifty cautious ways. So at
> least we will all know what is that we are contributing to building - what
> kind of society...
>
> (By the way, right now we have a full fledged experiment of this kind -
> corporate run policy spaces - running in India, it shows the pattern and
> the larger design of certain ideologies and forces, and the extent to which
> they have been successful.)
>
> parminder
>
> (PS: This is a general response, not just to your email, Jeremy. And
> please do excuse my cynical language. These anti-democratic shifts are
> really disturbing.)
>
>
> --
>
> *Dr Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Policy Officer
> Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
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