[governance] Good faith at ISOC & comment on IGF

Mon Dec 2 05:56:40 EST 2019

Joly is right about pricing. The normal price for a company with $50M in
annual earnings is $300-600M. That's a multiple of 6-12 times. PIR is going
for 22 times.

While it's not impossible we'd get a higher bid, it would be unlikely.

There are important issues beyond price that could make the deal a mistake.

On Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 5:44 AM Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Parminder
>
> > What are your sources, in case you can tell us that.
>
> Sure. Last Friday's Q&A. I made a transcript.
>
> https://isoc.live/pir/PIR_Community_Forum.pdf
>
>  > 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.
>
> As trustees their fiduciary duty was to get the best advice available and
> act appropriately in the best interest of the organization and sustaining
> its mission.
>
> > > 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?
>
> No I cannot prove that. I don't think there's anything even now to stop
> you gathering such a consortium and making an offer. There may be penalties
> if ISOC pulled out of the deal., That's something that has not been
> disclosed.
>
>  > > 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.
>
> Those are not ongoing concerns. Not the same thing at all. Again this was
> the expert advice from people experienced in such transactions.
>
> It behooves ISOC to get all of its eggs out of one basket in the Interest
> of the entire Internet Community, not just .org registrants, for whom the
> sky may not fall.
>
> joly
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 3:55 AM parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> 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
>>>> <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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>>
>>
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>
> --
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> Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
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