[governance] Good faith at ISOC & comment on IGF

[Mwendwa Kivuva]

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
> <https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1166-1-300-000-000-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
> <https://netpolicynews.com/index.php/89-r/1162-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,"
> <https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Die-Rettung-des-Internet-Governance-Forum-4594822.htm> 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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