[governance] Good faith at ISOC & comment on IGF

Mon Dec 2 05:11:30 EST 2019

So – as you say it is a much simpler activity, what are the major requirements to run a registry, and what would YOU quote if you were to buy .org and operate it on an at cost basis?

From: <governance-request at lists.riseup.net> on behalf of parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
Reply to: parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
Date: Monday, 2 December 2019 at 3:33 PM
To: <governance at lists.riseup.net>
Subject: Re: [governance] Good faith at ISOC & comment on IGF

To further build the case why IGC should take a clear stand:

We must understand that unique names and addresses on the Internet are basically a common or public good... Its value is not created by anyone to be able to profit from it, it belongs to all, the logic of which is self evident. 

For this reason, core gTLDs, esp as carrying denominations that are essential to definition of some social entities, like .org, or .edu, .health, etc, should also be common or public goods.

These should ideally be managed as non -profit -- on no-profit no-loss basis. But, in these neo-liberal times when even non profits are advised to work on market principles, even if for efficiency sake we are to take the services of a for-profit to run this commons/ public service it should be so arranged that the profits, or service fees, are quite modest.

But the talk of 1 billion or 2 billion dollars for running .org, which today is much simpler activity than it used to be -- basically keeping a directory, allocating  non-duplicating names, and maintaining a server that periodically confirms to ISPs the addresses under .org -- is simply ridiculous!!!

A billion dollar is a very big money, esp for developing countries... The very few start ups that may cross that amount in evaluation immediately become  national stars. 

People, or even, orgs making money as rents from our commons assets is basically a tax upon us.... So it does not matter if it is $5 or $10 more.... The question is why should I take any tax increase at all, when that money goes to some US based insiders, enjoying access to a perpetual global tax. Why should it be not on no loss no profit basis, or at the most a modest service fees for the activity operator. And when the tax collection system is to migrate from a non profit, claiming to be the legitimate global representative of the technical community, to a newly, and somewhat shady-ily, formed US business, by ex ICANN insiders, there is obviously reason to be concerned and oppose this deal. 

These are the key questions to be asked and discussed, especially in the civil society dedicated to IG issues, which discussion one hopes will be a little different from the discussions taking place among business and technical groups. And it is primarily IGC's responsibility to do it.

parminder 

On 02/12/19 2:25 PM, parminder wrote:

On 02/12/19 12:03 AM, Joly MacFie wrote:

Hi Mwenda,

My guess is, if you were on the ISOC Board you would have done what they did. Take expert advice  

Apparently there were earlier offers - more than one at least - but nothing that the ISOC BoT considered remotely acceptable. Then this offer came in. So, they contemplated an auction. They took expert advice, The advice was

Thanks Joly, you seem to know much more than was is publicly available... What are your sources, in case you can tell us that..

As for expert advice, it is not difficult to get the expert advice one wants to get. That is why due processes of accountability beyond expert advice exists. 

1) they were unlikely to get a higher bid,

You have no way to prove that I could not have pulled together a consortium in India that would have paid a higher price. Can you? This is especially my right as an ISOC member, when ISOC is supposed to be a global body. Why then do a sweetheart deal after some confabulations among US insiders? 

2) an auction could damage PIR both in morale and value. Plus Ethos had said they were not interested in participating in an auction, and it was thought they might just walk away. The decision was made to negotiate. 

Why does then ICANN auction gTLDs, and not take expert advice to make secret deals to maximise its reveues? Does its auction process reduce the morale and value of gTLDs or its buyers? I absolutely did not get your logic.

ICANN has a rulebook whereby it has to auction gTLDs.... This rule exists as an obvious good practice, especially when dealing with a public or community asset.... ISOC did not have such a rule pre-established for it bec it is normally not in gTLDs selling business. But this does not mean that it can avoid observing the normal good practice, especially as involving a public or community asset, which most people take PIR to be, and is also indicated in its name. ISOC may not have broken any rule, but its secret sale of .org is absolutely against the spirit of community trusteeship that it is supposed to embody. 

It is for the civil society engaged with IG issues to seek accountability from ISOC in this regard. With non IG civil society organisations like Girl Scouts taking up the cudgels against ISOC it will  be greatly amiss if we do not take any stand in this matter.

parminder 

Joly

On Sun, Dec 1, 2019 at 1:10 PM Mwendwa Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com> wrote:

If I was on the ISOC board, I would probably suggest an auction as the best bet. Buying a $100m annual revenue company with few overheads at $1.3b is a steal anywhere. With the right strategy, the return on investment will be in less than 10 years. A simplistic reasonable RoI of 20years puts the value of .org way beyond the $2b mark

On Sat, Nov 30, 2019, 23:58 Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com> wrote:

Folks

I know many of the board members at ISOC. I've been one of the most skeptical of the deal, which clearly causes some important harm. That said, I have written they are honorable and not corrupt. 

When the $1.135B figure was (finally) released, I write the below, including "If I were on the board, I might have voted for the deal." Reasonable people might decide that $1B+ for an organization committed to the Internet for everybody is enough to balance the harms we've discussed. 

I'm sending this here because I'm sure most of the people on this list are likewise honorable, even if I think their positions wrong. There are crooks in this world, including many US Congressmen, but very few of them bother with this list or the ISOC board.  

It's now important we work to bring ISOC back to its mission and open internal processes. ISOC is very far away from living up to our principles. If you're not an ISOC member, do join and choose a chapter. If there's no chapter where you are, the New York Chapter welcomes you. A third of our members are not local.

My strength is tech, not policy. If you need to know whether Massive MIMO is the cost-effective way to a robust Internet, please ask. (It is, per Stanford Professor Paulraj.) Or what's really going on in 5G. 

I've also included an opinion piece on IGF. I listened to a session on IoT which was completely out of touch. To be widely adopted, IoT devices need to cost $2-$5. The suggestions on that panel would cost more than that. 

https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1166-1-300-000-000-to-internet-society-if-org-deal-goes-down

Breaking: $1,135,000,000 to Internet Society if .org Deal Goes Down
Tim Berners-Lee, over 10,000 at https://savedotorg.org/#add-org, slews of reporters, 3 ISOC Chapters and almost all well-informed independents are strongly opposed to the deal. The Internet Society just revealed it would get 1.13 Billion from very rich US investors for .org. That is enough money that honorable people have decided the damage to the Internet from the deal should be overridden. The deal will die if Pennsylvania or ICANN blocks or even delays.

If I were on the board, I might have voted for the deal. I've been among the most skeptical, partly because the amount and many other key details were totally secret. I would have demanded much more information and public discussion. 

I'm strongly advocating ISOC now take extraordinary steps to heal the rift with the chapters and restore the public perception of ISOC. 

https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1162-igf-talkfest-crisis-chaos-or-just-evolving
IGF Talkfest: Crisis, Chaos, or Just Evolving
"The Internet Governance Forum does need to evolve," ICANN & ISOC-NY board member Avri Doria emails. "Speaking personally, I do not believe the IGF would disappear. If something were to happen, or if in the future it was not renewed by the UN General Assembly, then it could be recreated in a bottom-up manner as an international place to bring the various groups together. I also said that I considered the National and Regional Initiative one of the greatest outcomes of the IGF because they brought "Internet Governance" to the national and regional level." 

The most common criticism of the IGF is that all it does is talk, talk, talk. That's valuable, but many hope for IGF to have direct results. Monika Ermert, the best-informed commentator on "Internet Governance," writes, "In Berlin, the hosts want to work hard to lead the IGF out of the crisis, which has been around for a few years because it only debates and does not act. ... Die Machtlosigkeit ist dabei ein Geburtsfehler." Ermert describes a highly chaotic program.

>From the beginning, governments did not want to give away power. I've reported that the non-government participants have come overwhelmingly from the US and allies, as well as some others in general agreement. The non-government attendees rarely spoke from the point of view of the global south, which now represents the strong majority of Internet users. Two-thirds of the world want a more internationally representative group in charge, presumably the ITU. 

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