Comments to ICANN Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD RA

After ICANN colluded in secret for 18 months with new gTLD registry operators, ICANN published for public comment Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement. Among other things, ICANN's Global Domains Division (GDD), headed by former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade's crony Akram Atallah, proposed eliminating price increase transparency for new gTLD domain names, and allowing ICANN to grant discretionary fee waivers to new gTLD registry operators. Comments closed 20 Jul 2016 23:59 UTC. A total of 23 comments were filed, of which the first five below were particularly relevant for domain name registrants:

1. Opposed to changes in contracts that reduce transparency of pricing, and that provide fee waivers to registries George Kirikos
2. Re: Opposed to changes in contracts that reduce transparency of pricing, and that provide fee waivers to registries George Kirikos
3. Business Constituency (BC) comment on Proposed New gTLD Registry Agreement Steve DelBianco
4. Ratification Pending: ALAC Statement on the Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement ICANN At-Large Staff
5. Comments from John Poole, Editor of DomainMondo.com, and domain name registrant 
6. Proposal submitted by PointQuebec Normand Fortier
7. Italian Comments Rita Forsi
8. Support to comments ON THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE BASE NEW GTLD REGISTRY AGREEMENT Josu Waliño
9. JPRS Comments - Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD RA ENDO Atsushi
10. European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online (eNACSO)_Comments_BaseRA Frinchi, Flaminia
11. Comment on Proposed New gTLD RA Amendment Ried, Bill
12. Comments from CORE Association CORE Association
13. Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) comments on Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement Stephane Van Gelder
14. Comments of India [GAC] Karine Perset
15. Google Registry Comments - New gTLD RA Amendments Stephanie Duchesneau
16. Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement Susan Payne
17. BRG Comments - Proposed Amendments to Base New gTLD Registry Agreement 
18. Comments on the proposed changes stated in section 1.7 of Spec 6 in the RA Bonnie Chun
19. Comment from the Security and Stability Advisory Committee Julie Hedlund
20. Comments Martin Joyal
21. Comments Regarding Section 6.7 of the Proposed Registry Agreement Michael D. Palage
22. Change to Registry Agreement Desiree
23. IPC Comments on Proposed Amendments to the Base New gTLD Registry Agreement 

The full comment filed by the Editor of Domain Mondo is also available here (pdf), an excerpt:

"... September 30, 2016, is fast approaching, and ICANN management and staff, particularly at the “Global Domains Division” (GDD) seem ill-prepared--still engaging in unprofessional, incompetent, inept or opaque practices, as noted above and below, with hostility to the interests of the vast majority of domain name registrants worldwide .... Any waiver of registry operator fees in the arbitrary and sole discretion of ICANN management and staff is an open invitation to graft, corruption, and kick-back schemes reminiscent of the FIFA scandals. ICANN lacks a comprehensive and effective conflicts of interest and code of conduct applicable to every ICANN employee, and ICANN may have already engaged in questionable, if not illegal, behavior. See, e.g., How ICANN and ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé Evade Accountability ... Most new gTLDs are failing and this has already been acknowledged by many in the new gTLDs industry ... If a registry operator cannot afford the modest fees charged by ICANN, they should go out of business. If anything, ICANN should first eliminate (or reduce), all of the registrant domain name registration and renewal fees, before it even begins to think about “waiving” registry operator fees. There are plenty of fools in the world with $185,000 to throw away, ICANN’s new gTLDs program is living proof of that. Next time they may learn to conduct a little “due diligence” before “drinking the kool-aid.” ... ICANN has been weakened, and perhaps corrupted, by creating a separate Global Domains Division (GDD) during the tenure of former ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade. While it allowed Chehade, who admittedly didn’t understand the domain name industry, to appoint his crony, Akram Atallah, to the second-highest paid position at ICANN, thereby allowing Chehade to travel and dabble in geo-politics with the Brazilians and Chinese (and others), and also allowed him plenty of time to hang out and party in Davos, Switzerland, at meetings of the World Economic Forum (on ICANN’s dime), the global internet community has not been well-served by the GDD:

• GDD’s “Contract Compliance,” staffed with Chehade’s cronies, has been called an “unmitigated disaster;” 
• The GDD’s crowning achievement to date has been the “dot SUCKS” fiasco; 
• Indicative of the ICANN community’s lack of trust and confidence in the GDD is the fact that the only major change to ICANN structure, in the IANA transition plan, is separating the IANA Department from the GDD, into a new separate corporation. 

"Hopefully the ICANN Board and new ICANN President & CEO, in the near future, will reorganize ICANN’s corporate and operational structure, and staffing, abolish the GDD completely (a GDD President is one too many “Presidents” for ICANN), and move “Contract Compliance” into a separate division or department that includes consumer trust and protection, as well as domain name registrants’ remedies and advocacy, reporting directly to the ICANN President & CEO, and the ICANN Board."

Next Steps: According to ICANN, "Following the conclusion of the public comment period, ICANN and the Working Group will consider the public comments, and submit the proposed final version of the amendments for Registry Operator approval (according to the process defined in Section 7.6) and approval by the ICANN Board of Directors. If these approvals are obtained, the amendment will become effective upon 60 days notice from ICANN to the Registry Operators."

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FIFA Corruption Scandal A Warning for ICANN Post IANA Transition (video)

FIFA Officials Allegedly Paid Themselves $80 Million in Bonuses:

A FIFA (domain name: FIFA.com) corruption investigation revealed former president Seth Blatter and two other former executives allegedly paid each other bonuses totaling $80 million over the past five years. Video published June 6, 2016 by WSJ.com.

"Most [ICANN] staff members participate in the at-risk [Bonus] compensation program. Senior management determines which staff members will be eligible to participate, and the level of that participation. The Board has approved a framework whereby staff members are eligible to earn an at-risk payment of up to 20 percent of base compensation as at-risk payment based on role and level in the organization, with certain senior executives eligible for 30 percent."--ICANN Staff Remuneration Practices as of 1 January 2016 (embedded in full at the bottom of this post) (emphasis added)

ICANN Bylaws ARTICLE XIV: INDEMNIFICATION OF DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND OTHER AGENTS: "ICANN shall, to maximum extent permitted by the CNPBCL [California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law], indemnify each of its agents against expenses, judgments, fines, settlements, and other amounts actually and reasonably incurred in connection with any proceeding arising by reason of the fact that any such person is or was an agent of ICANN, provided that the indemnified person's acts were done in good faith and in a manner that the indemnified person reasonably believed to be in ICANN's best interests and not criminal. For purposes of this Article, an "agent" of ICANN includes any person who is or was a Director, Officer, employee, or any other agent of ICANN (including a member of any Supporting Organization, any Advisory Committee, the Nominating Committee, any other ICANN committee, or the Technical Liaison Group) acting within the scope of his or her responsibility; or is or was serving at the request of ICANN as a Director, Officer, employee, or agent of another corporation, partnership, joint venture, trust, or other enterprise. The Board may adopt a resolution authorizing the purchase and maintenance of insurance on behalf of any agent of ICANN against any liability asserted against or incurred by the agent in such capacity or arising out of the agent's status as such, whether or not ICANN would have the power to indemnify the agent against that liability under the provisions of this Article." (emphasis added)

Office of the Attorney General | State of California - Department of Justice: "The Attorney General represents the People of California in civil and criminal matters before trial courts, appellate courts and the supreme courts of California and the United States."

California Corporations Code 5233: ".... (c) The [California] Attorney General or, if the Attorney General is joined as an indispensable party, any of the following may bring an action in the superior court of the proper county for the remedies specified in subdivision (h): (1) The corporation, or a member asserting the right in the name of the corporation pursuant to Section 5710. (2) A director of the corporation. (3) An officer of the corporation. (4) Any person granted relator status by the Attorney General ..."

Relator status: California Code of Regulations, Title 11, Sections 1-11: "SECTION 1 Any person desiring "leave to sue" in the name of the people of the State of California under any law requiring the prior permission therefor of the Attorney General (which person is herein referred to as the relator), shall serve his application (which shall include the papers referred to in Section 2) upon the proposed defendant and within five days after such service shall file the same with the Attorney General ...."

See also DomainMondo.com: News Review [Jun12]: IANA Transition Has Already Cost ICANN Over $28 Million (excerpt embedded below):


ICANN Staff Remuneration Practices as of 1 January 2016 (pdf) embedded below (highlighting added):


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FIFA Election: Who Wants to Clean Up the Mess? (video)

FIFA Election: Who Wants to Clean Up the Mess? Nine months of scandal. Allegations of massive corruption. A former president banned for eight years. Now, for the second time since May, world soccer's governing body is holding a presidential election. So who wants to clean up the mess at FIFA? WSJ's Joshua Robinson explains. Published on Feb 1, 2016

FIFA
Football Organization · Domain name: fifa.com
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association is the governing body of association football, futsal and beach football. Wikipedia

See also on Domain Mondo: 

• FIFA Corruption Scandal, Lessons For ICANN and IANA Transition
• Caveat ICANN: FIFA Bans Blatter and Platini For Conflict of Interest (video)

Tweets about fifa scandal Tweets by @FIFAcom Tweets by @FIFAWorldCup

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Caveat ICANN: FIFA Bans Blatter and Platini For Conflict of Interest (video)

FIFA Bans Blatter and Platini From World Soccer -  FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the head of European soccer, Michel Platini, have been banned from world soccer for eight years by a FIFA ethics committee for "Conflict of Interest."  Published on Dec 21, 2015 by WSJ.com.

What would happen at ICANN in a similar situation? The evidence indicates conflicts of interest, or inappropriate conduct with parties having vested interests ("stakeholders"), by ICANN Officers (and staff) are tolerated, ignored, or even encouraged and rewarded! Who's legally responsible? Ultimately the ICANN Board of Directors under California law. Has the ICANN Board of Directors been held accountable for its failure to have in place or enforce an effective Code of Conduct for all ICANN officers and staff? Of course not! That's the reality of ICANN accountability, now, and probably in the future, despite all the talk of "enhancing ICANN accountability"--see, e.g., on Domain Mondo: this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Will ICANN Ever Adopt & Enforce a Code of Conduct for @ICANN Officers and Staff? https://t.co/bCCXwPqYrc #Conflicts #Corrupt #ICANN

— Domain Mondo (@DomainMondo) December 21, 2015

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FIFA Corruption Scandal, Lessons For ICANN and IANA Transition

May 27, 2015: FIFA Corruption: Is It an Existential Crisis? - NC Partnership's Nigel Currie discusses FIFA corruption in international soccer. He speaks on Bloomberg's “Market Makers."
A "money driving corruption"

FIFA Officials Arrested on Corruption Charges | NYTimes.com: "Critics of FIFA point to the lack of transparency regarding executive salaries and resource allocations ... Policy decisions are also often taken without debate or explanation, and a small group of officials — known as the executive committee — operates with outsize power. FIFA has for years functioned with little oversight and even less transparency. Alexandra Wrage, a governance consultant who once unsuccessfully attempted to help overhaul FIFA’s methods, labeled the organization “byzantine and impenetrable.”"

Sound familiar?

However mundane the reality of US government involvement, the IANA oversight provides a symbolic umbilical cord between ICANN and an external body. Once cut, there would be no external constraints on ICANN, a private, unregulated monopoly with control over global critical Internet resources. This is the reason why the IANA transition has to take place within a wider conversation about ICANN’s accountability .... ICANN as a corporation is a largely unregulated, private sector body with control over critical Internet resources on which global economies depend. It has no natural competitors, is cash-rich (in 2014, its current assets were more than $350 million, with a further $145 million in deferred income), and directly or indirectly supports many of its participants and other Internet governance processes. Without effective accountability and transparency mechanisms, the opportunities for distortion, even corruption, are manifold. In such an environment, it is not sufficient simply to invoke trust ... In a public interest company, there is even more cause for concern, particularly as ICANN also has a contractual compliance function over those companies. There are at least theoretical conflicts in the dual roles of supplier and regulator... -- Emily Taylor, ICANN: Bridging the Trust Gap (pdf) (emphasis added)

Or is Multistakeholderism just another word for Elitism?

UPDATE: But it is not just the ICANN Board, officers, and staff that need transparency and accountability mechanisms--the ICANN "stakeholders" themselves are a BIG problem that has yet to be addressed by any of the ongoing ICANN and IANA transition processes--indeed, if anything, the IANA stewardship transition and ICANN accountability work groups have accentuated the elitist, narrow interests who control ICANN stakeholder groups. Look at the members and active participants of these "working groups" and see how the "same names" appear on multiple groups lists--probably less than 100 people total are actually directing and deciding the future accountability mechanisms by which ICANN and IANA will be governed. This is a well-known problem with multistakeholderism about which both ICANN and the US government prefer to deny exists rather than address. Why? Because it serves the incumbent "power" interests--

All stakeholders are equal...but some stakeholders are more equal than others

Multistakeholderism unmasked: How the NetMundial Initiative shifts battlegrounds in internet governance | LSE Media Policy Project: "... most controversies about internet governance were the result of a dichotomy between the proponents of traditional regulation through intergovernmental authority and those of a multistakeholder model, the hypothetical middle ground between a free-market model, a cyberlibertarian idea of self-regulation and the classical governmental approach. What the debates about the two divergent approaches rarely reveal is that most implementations of the multistakeholder approach are far from an ideal governance model. In fact, while multistakeholderism may have so far allowed various non-state actors to participate in internet governance processes, it does not necessarily lead to a wider range of views or a more global representation of interests and concerns. In several instances, multistakeholder processes actually tend to increase the overrepresentation of actors from the highly developed Western world, whereas they neglect developing countries, which often lack independent civil society networks and strong business players that could meaningfully engage in the existing structures... a new but much needed discussion on power mechanisms and could eventually shed light on the real interests of those proponents of the multistakeholder approach who seem eager to maintain the unbalanced representation of voices and concerns in internet governance. In the long run, this discussion could lead to a more honest and transparent scenario for multistakeholderism, which does not fail to consider the rights and interests that all countries and all users have in the governance of the global internet." (emphasis added)

See also: The REAL Domain Hogs: ICANN Officers, Staff, Lavish Pay, Benefits, Accountability Risks Institutionalized and ICANN, Dysfunction, the Public Interest, and the IANA Transition


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