[governance] Issues about ISOC and the public interest registries.

[Joly MacFie]

Hi Deirdre

>  1.3 billion is a finite amount - it will finish.

My understanding is that the principal will be invested, only (some of) the
income will be spent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_endowment

According to the Q&A sessions, some factors in the Trustees thinking (in my
interpretation)

1) They had long been concerned that nearly all of ISOC's financial eggs
were in one basket. In fact it was one big egg.
2)  There had also been discussion of the need to invest in PIR, and how
that might affect ISOC's immediate income.
3)  There had been offers, but such that they were summarily dismissed as
unrealistic.
4) The Ethos offer was significantly more and would guarantee ISOC's income
over a diverse set of investments.
5) Expert advice informed them they were unlikely to get a better offer,
and an auction could lose them the offer/ mess with PIR.
6) The same advice told them that the likelihood that Ethos would flip PIR
was next to zero.
7) Ethos made undertakings to continue  run PIR in the public interest, and
hired people familiar with community concerns.
8) In any auction it would be pretty much impossible to evaluate such
commitments.
8) The investors in Ethos had eggs in other baskets, and more money, thus
would be freer of financial pressure.
9) The trustees had a fiduciary duty to ISOC and to sustain its mission.
10) In their understanding of the domain name market, major price rises
were proven losers.
11) No one can say that  the DNS will rule forever.
12) The endowment would allow long term planning.
13) PIR is constrained by its contracts with ICANN.

Thus the BoT, itself a multistakeholder body representing Organizational
members, Chapters, and the Technical Community, unanimously voted in favor.

I am sure there was plenty back and forth before that happened.

joly

On Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 11:04 AM Deirdre Williams <
governance at lists.riseup.net> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> An issue that I haven't seen addressed is the issue of history and the
> reason why. Forgive me if it has been said already.
> In the beginning ISOC was endowed with the public interest registries
> a) to provide a steady income for ISOC to enable its work
> And b) to ensure access for the public interest.
> 1.3 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money now, but 5 years from now?
> And 1.3 billion is a finite amount - it will finish.
> In a way ISOC is a trustee holding an income producing asset. A trustee
> MIGHT consider selling such an asset to meet a very serious and urgent need
> on the part of its ward, or to invest in an alternative project better
> suited for revenue creation.
> My questions for ISOC would be:
> a) what is the urgent and serious need which forces the sale of this asset?
> b) absent that, what is the alternative project which will guarantee the
> continuance of ISOC's income?
> Best wishes
> Deirdre
> ---
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Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
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