News Review: US Gov NTIA Rebukes ICANN Board; IGF 2017 Dec 17-21

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-12-17) with analysis and opinion: Features •  1) a. US Gov NTIA Rebukes ICANN Board, 1) b. Internet Governance Forum IGF 2017 Dec 17-21, 2) ICANN news: a. VeriSign o.com cleared for auction, b. ICANN Board Conflicts of Interest, c. Self-Serving CPE Review, and more, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: .com, ccTLD .au, GoDaddy, China, 4) ICYMI: Censorship, Net Neutrality, 5) Most Read.
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1) a. US Gov NTIA Rebukes ICANN Board of Directors over its interference with SSR2:

There's no way to sugarcoat this--Larry Strickling is gone, Trump's pick, David Redl, is in charge--his letter to Cherine Chalaby, ICANN Board Chairman (pdf) embed below (highlighting added):

For background read on Domain Mondo:

• News Review | ICANN60, Abu Dhabi, ICANN Board Suspends SSR2 Work 29 Oct 2017.

• News Review | ICANN60: ICANN Board Crashes The Party in Abu Dhabi 5 Nov 2017.

Present status of SSR2 Review Team work? Still SUSPENDED (another team member just quit) (source: SSR2 mail list).

[Editor's note: I don't think the ICANN Board actually intended to sabotage the Security and Stability Review (SSR2) by taking the unilateral (and unprecedented) action of  suspending the SSR2 Review Team's (SSR2-RT) work, but the effect may have been the same, with the suspension now approaching two months in duration (since Oct 28). Nor is it clear what, if anything, the acquiescing AC/SOs' "leadership" is doing to re-start the review. I wouldn't be surprised if more members of the Review Team resign before the end of the month. They were clearly trying to do a thorough, conscientious job, for the global internet community, before being undercut by the ICANN Board and AC/SOs leadership. I, like many others, still do not really understand why anyone was feeling so threatened by the SSR2 Review Team work plan, particularly compared to all of the obviously dysfunctional and incompetent ICANN Working Groups and Review Teams whose work ICANN regularly funds, accepts, and implements.]

1) b. Internet Governance Forum, IGF 2017, Geneva, Dec 17-21

IGF 2017 | Geneva 17-21 Dec 2017 | Internet Governance Forum

UPDATES: (1) My IGF 2017 lesson learned: remote participation wasn’t a viable alternative way to participate | LinguaSynaptica.com

(2) IGF 2017 day 2 session: “ICANN – Looking ahead: Challenges and Opportunities”

Internet Governance Forum 2017 (IGF 2017) video above streamed LIVE on Dec 19, 2017 (session starts at 12:42).

Domain: intgovforum.org  | Host: igf2017.swiss |  @intgovforum |  #IGF2017 | youtube.com

Local Time Geneva 

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a global multistakeholder platform that facilitates the discussion of public policy issues pertaining to the internet.

Full Schedule: https://igf2017.intgovforum.org/  (note: 'day zero' is Dec 17);

• Online participation. UPDATE: better consult this guide first.
• Daily news and updates: Internet Governance Forum | GIP | dig.watch.

ICANN to Participate at the 12th Internet Governance Forum 2017 in Switzerland | ICANN.org: Below are the main ICANN sessions at the IGF 2017 (Date Time Title):

• 17 December 15:00–16:30 How Digital activists are shaping the evolution of the Internet: the voice of civil society in ICANN

• 17 December 16:30–18:00 The DNS and Emerging Identifiers (including DOA)

• 19 December 09:00–10:30 [3am-4:30am ET] Multistakeholder governance of the Domain Name System, lessons learned for other IG issues (WS76) – CCWG IG Session.

• 19 December 16:10–17:10 [10:10-11:10 ET] ICANN Open Forum “ICANN – Looking ahead: - Challenges and Opportunities” (OF50): "This Open and Interactive Session will consider a range of areas ICANN is addressing including ongoing accountability work; the work of the Community in preparing for a potential new application process for gTLDs; the on-going work with respect to emerging Data Protection (DP) and privacy developments including the implementation of new DP legislation in Europe (GDPR) ..." Scheduled speakers include ICANN President & CEO Goran Marby and the ICANN Board Chair Cherine Chalaby.

For background on IGF, read from Samantha G. Dickinson's LinguaSynaptica.com:

• Why I’m not going to the IGF this year (and not tweeting it, either)

• Funding woes, sadly, but inevitably, have a negative impact on IGF

• Why I still hold out hope for the IGF

• The ever-expanding universe of Internet events and initiatives: "... NETmundial Initiative ... funding dried up not too long after its initiator and main champion ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade, left ICANN. This is possibly the only initiative in the Internet governance space ever to have been allowed to die, with pretty much nobody mourning its loss ..." (emphasis and link added) 

[Editor's note: "nobody" except Fadi Chehade, who wasted much of his (and ICANN staff) time, and ICANN's money, on this out-of-scope, not-within-ICANN's-remit project that the inept ICANN Board of Directors should have never funded.]

2) ICANN news

a. VeriSign o.com proposal (pdf) cleared for auction:

For more information see Proposal 2017038 from Verisign on this "buried" ICANN.org webpage.

b. ICANN Board Members' Conflicts of Interest ICANN.org: ICANN Officers and Board Members Statements of Interest Summary relating to ICANN matters Dec 13, 2017. [Editor's note: for background read News Review Nov 26, 2017 | ICANN Board Executive Committee, Conflicts of Interest | DomainMondo.com]

c. Self-Serving: ICANN Organization Publishes Reports on the Review of the Community Priority Evaluation (CPE) Process | ICANN.org: "The findings will be considered by the Board Accountability Mechanisms Committee (BAMC) when the BAMC reviews the remaining pending Reconsideration Requests as part of the Reconsideration process."

d. Almost Totally Useless: ICANN Publishes Updated gTLD Marketplace Health Index | ICANN.org: "statistics and trends related to generic top-level domains (gTLDs)." [Editor's note: the word "robust" should be banned from use by anyone at ICANN.]

e. GDPR Data Protection & Privacy Update: ICANN org published info on how to submit a proposed model for providing registration directory services and meeting other data retention requirements while remaining compliant with EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

f. Overstaffed & Overpaid: ICANN Management Organization Chart | ICANN.org: 01 Dec 2017 management-org-01dec17-en.pdf (pdf 1.92MB)

g. ICANN.org announced that Kim Davies, Director of Technical Services, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), has been appointed to the position of Vice President, IANA Services and President, PTI.

h. is for holiday--ICANN Holiday Closure Schedule | ICANN.org--"... all ICANN offices will be closed as of 20:00 UTC on Friday 22 December, and will re-open on Tuesday, 02 January 2018. During this time, the processing of New gTLD Applications and service requests for gTLD Registries and Registrars will be suspended ..."

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

• Domain Names: 

"Always prefer .com, unless you are going for a country-specific site like selling products only in India (.in) ... So, if you cannot find .com and you are being offered a different extension .org, .in, .net, etc., then change the name and start the search again."--techfactslive.com.

• ccTLD .au: Review of Australia’s .au domain management | gov.au: consultation period ends December 18, 2017 17:00 AEDT.

• GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY): Capital International Investors disclosed on December 8, 2017 a 10.9% stake in the world's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy.

• China Watch: Impact Of Amended Anti-Unfair Competition Law On Advertising And Marketing In China | Mondaq.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 

• Censorship, Internet Freedom:

• As Cook [Apple] and Pichai [Google] leave China, [Silicon] Valley confronts rising internet tyranny in world’s second largest market | TechCrunch.com.

• How Silicon Valley Kowtows To China | FastCompany.com.

• Facebook, Google, Twitter's 'Censorship of Christian, Conservative Speech' Tackled in NRB Initiative | christianpost.com.

• Dozens of Activists, Including British Journalist, Deported Ahead of WTO meet in Argentina | NewsClick.in: "Sally Burch, involved with JustNet Coalition, has been actively working on WTO, digital monopolies, Internet freedom, and autonomous weapons."

• Net Neutrality:

• News Review | FCC Votes To Kill U.S. Internet Net Neutrality, Video Replay, in a 3-2 vote, negating Title II net neutrality rules.
•  FCC, FTC announce partnership to police internet after net neutrality repeal | TheHill.com

• New York AG to sue FCC over net neutrality repeal | TheHill.com

• This is the future if net neutrality is repealed; the creeping, costly death of media freedom | TechCrunch.com

• The Net Neutrality Debate Hinges on Defining the Internet | IEEE Spectrum | ieee.org: telecommunications service OR information service

• New web browsing security tool arrives: DNS over TLS | ZDNet.com: "Tenta DNS, an open-source DNS over TLS resolver, will help preserve users' privacy after the fall of net neutrality."

5) Five Most Read Posts this past week (page views Sun-Sat) on DomainMondo.com: 

1. Bitcoin Futures $XBT Start Trading Sunday, 6pm ET, on Cboe's CFE (video)

2. News Review | FCC Votes To Kill U.S. Internet Net Neutrality, Video Replay

3. Tech Review | Bitcoin Futures Start Trading On CME Globex Monday Dec 18

4. Numerai: A Hedge Fund Built By Data Scientists & Artificial Intelligence 

5. Federal Reserve FOMC Interest Rates Announcement & Press Conference

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

News Review: ICANN57, Hyderabad, India, Meeting Preview

Domain Mondo's weekly review of internet domain news [pdf]:

Feature •  ICANN57: In less than three weeks, ICANN will be holding its AGM or Annual General Meeting (3rd meeting in the 3 meeting annual cycle), ICANN57, in Hyderabad, India, 3-9 Nov 2016 (Thursday-Wednesday). It is only the second time in the 18-year history of ICANN, that one of its three annual meetings has been held in India (New Delhi was the site for ICANN31 in 2008). According to a 2015 UN report (pdf):

"China (1.4 billion) and India (1.3 billion) remain the two largest countries of the world, both with more than 1 billion people, representing 19 and 18 per cent of the world’s population, respectively .... within seven years, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China. Currently, the population of China is approximately 1.38 billion compared with 1.31 billion in India. By 2022, both countries are expected to have approximately 1.4 billion people. Thereafter, India’s population is projected to continue growing for several decades to 1.5 billion in 2030 and 1.7 billion in 2050, while the population of China is expected to remain fairly constant until the 2030s, after which it is expected to slightly decrease."

ICANN57 will have 7 days of sessions, with the aim of showcasing the ICANN community’s work to a broader global audience, while also having days dedicated for Supporting Organization (SO) and Advisory Committee (AC) work. The complete schedule was posted this week here. Domain Mondo has temporarily renamed its CALENDAR and LINKS page to "ICANN57" with information and links about the meeting.

In accordance with the New ICANN Meeting Strategy, there will be two Public Forums during ICANN57.  Public Forum 1 is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, and will provide an opportunity for each SO/AC to update the community on their efforts, followed by time for the community to share their topics of interest. Public Forum 2 will focus on solely community comment and Board response, and is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 8, following the Annual General ICANN Board of Directors Meeting.

More important than the content of the meeting, will be the opportunity for non-Indian ICANN stakeholders to experience India itself. For a good overview, I recommend looking at the CIA Factbook, from which you will learn India is predominantly Hindu (79.8%), and has a variety of languages:

English enjoys the status of subsidiary official language but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the most widely spoken language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language (2001 census).

India has the largest English-speaking (native + non-native) population of any country in the world. It also has very vibrant technology and startup sectors, here's a recent episode of Bloomberg TV India's e-Inc. about one entrepreneur in India rebuilding Housing.com:

Rebuilding Housing.com:

Video above: Housing.com has finally moved away from all the controversies post Rahul Yadav’s exit. Under the new CEO, Jason Kothari, Housing has heavily restructured operations, worked on building blocks and is already on track for $10MM revenue in less than a year. Speaking to Abha Bakaya of Bloomberg TV India, he tells about how he’s preparing Housing.com to take full advantage of the pickup in India’s real estate market. Video above published July 27, 2016.

But India is different to most Westerners, see, e.g., Why the Vast Majority of Women in India Will Never Own a Smartphone | WSJ.com: "Technology, promoted as a social equalizer, is having the opposite effect in one of the world’s largest markets, where millions go without the information and tools transforming the lives of men."  See also https://meetings.icann.org/en/hyderabad57/safety.

Also note that ICANN is certainly no stranger to a growing group of stakeholders inside India who have voiced concerns about the California corporation. Below is a sampling from one such group, The Centre for Internet and Society:

•   Why didn't ICANN ever come clean about its complete spending on NETmundial Initiative?--most likely it would have been too embarrassing for former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade's inept administration, enabled by an equally inept ICANN Board of Directors--but some people in India want to know, see DIDP Request #9 - Exactly how involved is ICANN in the NETmundial Initiative? | The Centre for Internet and Society | cis-india.org: "The importance and relevance of knowing ICANN’s involvement in the NETmundial Initiative cannot be overstated."  For more, see:

IANA Transition: a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes? | The Centre for Internet and Society | cis-india.org: "ICANN prides itself on being transparent and accountable, but in reality it is not. The most often used exception to avoid answering DIDP requests has been “Confidential business information and/or internal policies and procedures,” which in itself is a testament to ICANN’s opacity. Another condition for non-disclosure allows ICANN to reject answering “Information requests: (i) which are not reasonable; (ii) which are excessive or overly burdensome; (iii) complying with which is not feasible; or (iv) are made with an abusive or vexatious purpose or by a vexatious or querulous individual.”. These exemptions are not only vague, they are also extremely subjective: again, demonstrative of the need for enhanced accountability and transparency within ICANN. Key issues have not been addressed even at the time that the transition is formally underway. The grounds for denying DIDP requests are still vague and wide, effectively giving ICANN the discretion to decline answering difficult questions, which is unacceptable from an entity that is at the center of the multi-billion dollar domain name industry."

See also: Internet democratisation: IANA transition leaves much to be desired | The Centre for Internet and Society | cis-india.org: "... Another critical issue that the [IANA] transition does not address is that of ICANN accountability. Post-transition, ICANN’s board will continue to be the ultimate decision-making authority, thus controlling the organisation’s functioning, and ICANN staff will be accountable to the board alone. To put things in perspective, look at the board’s track record in the recent past. In August, an Independent Review Panel (IRP) found that ICANN’s board had violated ICANN’s own bylaws and had failed to discharge its transparency obligations when it failed to look into staff misbehaviour .... At best, the transition is symbolic of Washington’s oversight over ICANN coming to an end. It is also symbolic of the empowerment of the global multistakeholder community. In reality, it fails to do either meaningfully" (emphasis added).

Other internet domain news:

•  Council of Arab Ministers of Communication & Information conclude Abu Dhabi meeting with key strategic decisions | Zawya.com: "The meeting proceeded with reports on the current developments concerning the UAE registration of the .ARAB domain name in collaboration with the Arab League. The Council has instructed the UAE and the General Secretariat to pursue the plan and submit the application requirements before the end of the first quarter of 2017, including the notification to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), international private non-profit entity responsible for the registration of internet domain names. The Council meeting also approved for the UAE to head the Arab committee responsible for the preparations for the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 which will take place in Argentina. The event is one of the biggest conferences in ICT development organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)."

•  US average broadband speeds increase 42% YoY to 54.97 Mbps, exceeding 50 Mbps for first time ever, uploads up 51% YoY to 18.88 Mbps; Mobile internet speed gains, improve by more than 30% since 2015 with an average download speed of 19.27 Mbps in the first six months of 2016. The 4 major mobile carriers--Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint--"are in a tight race for fastest download speeds. All four are also aggressively competing on price to attract new subscribers."--Speedtest Market Report | Speedtest.net

•  China's scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works--ChicagoTribune.com: "The Internet is as much a tool for control, surveillance and commercial considerations as it is for empowerment."

•  New gTLDs in China report: The total number of domain name registrations for the top 10 new gTLDs (new generic top-level domains) continues to drop, indicating a weak new gTLD domain market in China reports coreile.com.

•  Here's how small the North Korea Internet is | thenextweb.com: "It turns out that there are just twenty eight domain names using the .KP top level domain (TLD). Twenty. Eight."

•  Iranians Are Cut Off from the Internet Economy, even with sanctions lifted: "Ensuring that Iranians have fair and open access to the internet is critical work for all parties. As the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank La Rue argued, “preventing the private sector from assisting or being complicit in human rights violations of States is essential to guarantee the right to freedom of expression.” Iran will be an important test and a precedent that will show the world how committed the tech sector and the international community are in expanding and defending human rights online."--Motherboard.vice.com

•  Are you paying attention ICANN? Yahoo’s surveillance program shows why internet companies shouldn’t be deputies of law enforcement. | NewRepublic.com: "It is the first known instance of a major U.S. internet company complying with a government search request of such scope."  Also: Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft agree to EU hate speech rules | The Verge: "... Europe's crackdown on hate speech has put tech companies in a difficult situation, as governments push them to assume more responsibility in policing illegal content, and there are concerns over free speech, and how the code of conduct was structured. European Digital Rights (EDRi), a Brussels-based advocacy group, criticized the code of conduct in a post ... saying that it delegates tasks to private companies that should be carried out by law enforcement.

•  Why VPN Access Is So Important & How It’s Helped Give A Voice To Millions | Collective Evolution | collective-evolution.com: "... the benefits of a VPN go far beyond content access, extending into such philosophical issues as human rights and freedom of speech and expression. VPN technology has given a voice to millions. Here’s how ..."

• CWG-Internet: Online Open Consultation (February- September 2016) | itu.int--an open consultation (online and physical) on the following topic: Building an enabling environment for access to the Internet. See Access Now response ITU Consultation: Building an enabling environment for access to the Internet (Word 2010 docx): "There have been more than 40 documented shutdowns in 2016, and dozens more over recent years on every continent. The problem has grown so dire that international institutions are pronouncing internet shutdowns a direct threat to human rights."

•  How to combat the risks of impersonation emails, imitative domains | Thompson Coburn LLP | JDSupra.com: "Amid the headlines and legitimate concern about massive data breaches, we too often overlook the danger of targeted fraudulent emails, and imitative domain names and websites."

• From Local to Global: Neighborhood Bookstore’s Unlikely Ally? The Internet--NYTimes.com

Most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com:

1. New gTLD Registry Service Providers, XYZ, CentralNic $CNIC & ICANN
2. Winners: Snapchat; Amazon; Google | Losers: Costco; Sam's Club; Fashion
3. News Review [9Oct]: Analyst BUY Rating on GoDaddy $GDDY, Price Target $41
4. MacroView: World's Central Bankers Doubling Down, Going For Broke?
5. TechReview | Digital Disruption: Next 10 Years, 40% of Businesses Vanish
6. Incompetent ICANN Struggles With Its Domain Names Marketplace Index

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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DISCLAIMER

ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade's Last Letter to Dilma Rousseff

UPDATE: Flashback--

"... And then there is dysfunctional ICANN mission drift--one would think with the on-going roll-out (and concurrent problems) of the largest expansion of the domain name system in history, as well as the multiple on-going processes concerning ICANN accountability and the IANA transition, that the ICANN CEO would have more than enough on his plate, but no, he has been spending his time (and hundreds of thousands of dollars from ICANN's budget) trying to "force" or "beg" the global internet community to join his ill-conceived, top-down, unwanted, unneeded idea for another global internet organization--the so-called NETmundial Initiative, not to be confused with the original NETmundial Conference held in Brazil--The Register: "ICANN has been criticized for its efforts to control conversations over internet governance while at the same time claiming to be open. The creation of the NetMundial conference earlier this year and its sister astroturf * organization, 1Net, was bankrolled by ICANN. It then used its clout to controversially change a key recommendation of the conference at the last minute. Some months after that conference, ICANN was again criticized when it announced out of the blue that it was partnering with the World Economic Forum to create the namesake "NetMundial Initiative"."). *“Astroturfing” is the practice of hiring a third­ party group to advocate for an issue, falsely giving the impression that the effort is a “grassroots,” bottom­up initiative ..." --17 December 2014 ICANN, Dysfunctional, Sick Organizational Culture, Warped Values | DomainMondo.com

No wonder ICANN refuses to disclose its spending outside the United States to influence governments, governmental officials, or others--corrupt or otherwise--see How ICANN and ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé Evade Accountability | DomainMondo.com.

[--end of UPDATE--]

Two Days ago, Domain Mondo published Brazil Insulted by ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade Farewell Letter, which incuded an excerpt from Fadi's Farewell Letter to the ICANN Board of Directors and the March 9th retort by the Brazilian Ambassador at ICANN55, in Marrakech, Morocco, together with Fadi's reply. Below is a March 12th letter from the (now) former ICANN President and CEO to the President of Brazil, subsequently published on the ICANN website (pdf), embedded below:



Unfortunately the "partnership" which Fadi says in his letter started on October 10, 2013--"a key turning point in digital geopolitics"--has taken a turn for the worse, see first link above, and NETmundial Initiative, WEF and ICANN Withdrawal, Consequences | DomainMondo.com.

And unfortunately for Presidenta Dilma Rousseff, apart from any issue involving ICANN or internet governance, things have deteriorated dramatically, see:

• Calls Mount for Brazil President Dilma Rousseff’s Exit - WSJ
• More than a million Brazilians protest against 'horror' government | The Guardian

Things look bad for Dilma Rousseff—will she cling to power? https://t.co/sxBEVyuhuT pic.twitter.com/tfg0LbM2ga

— The Economist (@EconAmericas) March 15, 2016

WATCH: More than 1,000,000 protesters have taken to Brazil's streets to demand Pres. Dilma Rousseff's resignation. https://t.co/YXZz43bd3K

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) March 15, 2016

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DISCLAIMER

News Review: ICANN Accountability, NETmundial Initiative, G20 & China

Another busy week!--here's the Domain Mondo news review of the past week--

1. The ICANN CCWG-Accountability Final Report (WS1)--part of the IANA Transition--was approved for publication and distribution to the CCWG Chartering Organizations for their review and approval. Read more further below*.

2. The NETmundial Initiative Coordination Council had its face-to-face meeting in Madrid. Current funding by the founding partners--ICANN, World Economic Forum (WEF), CGI.br--ends June 30, 2016. ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade announced his resignation from the Council effective March 13, 2016. Read more at: DomainMondo.com: NETmundial Initiative, WEF and ICANN Withdrawal, Consequences

3. The global economic situation continued its precarious 2016 start with more concerns being raised about China's debt problems, and global monetary policies. Read more on Domain Mondo at: Will the Chinese Yuan Lose 30% of its Value? Investing in China (video) and G20 Meeting in China, Mohamed El-Erian Interview, Twitter Feeds.

*IANA Transition--what's next?
The Final Proposal for Enhancing ICANN Accountability (WS1) was (finally!) approved by the ICANN Cross-Community Working Group (CCWG-Accountability) and distributed to Chartering Organizations for their approval by March 9th at ICANN55 in Marrakech, which would allow the ICANN Board at its meeting on March 10th, to approve and send the entire IANA Stewardship Transition Plan to NTIA for its review. What happens after the IANA Plan gets to Washington, D.C., is no slam dunk. The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's Communications and Technology Subcommittee has already scheduled an IANA Transition Hearing for March 17, 2016. See also on Domain Mondo:  Is ICANN's IANA Stewardship Transition Plan DOA Washington DC? (video) and US Congressman Tells ICANN CEO To 'Abandon' IANA Transition and US Senators Cruz, Lankford & Lee Demand Answers From ICANN CEO.

Before the IANA Plan even gets to Washington, there are a couple of caveats:

(a) Not everyone on the CCWG-Accountability is happy about the way things went down at its last meeting on February 23rd, and five minority (dissenting) reports have been filed, including one representing 16 governments. Read more at: GAC Members Minority Statement on ICANN Accountability WS1 Proposal (post includes all 5 minority reports); and at IANA Stewardship Transition, New ICANN CCWG Accountability Timeline.

(b) There's a chance a further glitch may occur at ICANN55. Here's what the CCWG charter says about this phase of the process:


There are several nightmare scenarios that could play out at ICANN55 in Marrakech. Keep an eye on the GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) deliberations at ICANN55.

Most popular articles on DomainMondo.com this past week (highest number of pageviews):

1. NETmundial Initiative, WEF and ICANN Withdrawal, Consequences
2. Verisign Form 10-K for 2015, Domain Name Industry 'Must Read'
3. News Review: ISIS at Marrakech, ICANN Plan Delayed, Verisign 10-K
4. ICANN Damaged a Competitive Domain Name Market With Its New gTLDs
5. US Senators Cruz, Lankford & Lee Demand Answers From ICANN CEO

Looking ahead to this coming week on Domain Mondo:

• Super Tuesday is March 1st, when several U.S. states hold their U.S. Presidential primary elections. Right now Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the front-runners to become the respective Democrat and Republican candidates for U.S President. More information on Domain Mondo's Election2016 page.
• ICANN55 in Marrakech will officially begin this coming Saturday, March 5th. Domain Mondo will post a page with ICANN55 info, links, and twitter feeds, prior to the start of ICANN55. Hot topics, as discussed above, will include IANA transition and ICANN accountability issues. It will also be the final meeting of current ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade.
• ICANN's selection of Meeting locations has been problematic in 2016. On February 5th, ICANN announced that due to the severity of the Zika Virus outbreak in the Latin America region, ICANN56 would be relocated from Panama (alternate location still TBD). ICANN55 has had to contend with security issues, see ICANN 55, Marrakech, Morocco: Travel Warnings, Threat of Terrorist Acts. If you are traveling to Marrakech, you may want to read An Informed Traveler Is a Safer Traveler - The New York Times.

Final Note: Don't miss Domain Mondo's earlier post this week Klarna [klarna.com]: Buy Things With Just Email and Zip Code (video).

Have a great week!

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo


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DISCLAIMER

NETmundial Initiative, WEF and ICANN Withdrawal, Consequences

UPDATE: Comments of Larry Strickling (US Department of Commerce, NTIA) at the NETmundial Initiative meeting in Madrid (as reported by Samantha Dickinson):

#NETmundial Initiative, L Strickling: some members of Coordination Council wanted this mtg closed. Some of us had to push to make it open.

— Samantha Dickinson (@sgdickinson) February 26, 2016

#NETmundial Initiative, L Strickling: the fact is that after 2 years, we don’t see many in the community who see a need for NMI.#netgov

— Samantha Dickinson (@sgdickinson) February 26, 2016

#NETmundial Initiative, L Strickling: if nobody wants NMI, then why do we persist?#netgov

— Samantha Dickinson (@sgdickinson) February 26, 2016

UPDATE: The NETmundial Initiative (NMI) meeting in Madrid has concluded, and a Communique issued which includes the following points:

• Funding by the founding 'partners' ICANN, World Economic Forum (WEF), and CGI.br ends June 30, 2016 [ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade announced at the meeting that the new ICANN CEO and the ICANN Board will determine at a later date whether to continue any funding beyond June 30th. Chehade also announced his resignation from the NMI Coordination Council effective March 13, 2016].
• The Council considered and accepted a proposal for CGI.br to provide an institutional home for the ongoing initiative, subject to approval by CGI.br’s Board.  
• The Council discussed the possibility of changing its current structure following a broad community consultation. 
• The current open request for nominations to the Coordination Council is withdrawn. Once the public consultation is complete, a new nomination process will begin.  
• Two activities were proposed for 2016, sponsorship for which has already been secured: (1) Document a set of good practices for national multistakeholder Internet governance structures and mechanisms; (2) Pilot the application of such practices in sub-Saharan Africa, including a conference to share learnings from pilot participants.
• A follow-up meeting of the Coordination Council will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 8 June 2016. 

[--end of UPDATE--]

NETmundial Initiative: "Council members are currently considering the future direction of the NETmundial Initiative, and will make decisions at the Council's face-to-face meeting in Madrid, Spain, on 26 February 2016. In the meanwhile the nomination process for a new Council announced previously is on hold pending the outcome of that meeting."

NETmundial Initiative Coordination Council, 2nd Face to Face Meeting, Madrid, Spain
Date: 26 Feb 2016 - Remote Participation: Adobe Connect Room.

AGENDA - times shown below are UTC:

08:00 - 08:30 Welcoming Remarks from Host, Co-Chairs Overview of Achievements.
Moderator: Eileen Donahoe

08:30 - 10:00 WEF [World Economic Forum] & ICANN Withdrawal: Financial & Political Consequences; Looking Forward - A quick reality check; value of NETmundial; order of magnitude of costs; potential new partners, etc. This session is meant to inform the next sessions.
Moderator: Jean-Jacques Subrenat
10:00 - 10:15 | Break

10:15 - 12:00 Moving Forward - Share and explore feasibility of ideas presented in the non-paper and subsequent CGI.br position paper; relationship with the IGF.
Moderator: Wolfgang Kleinwächter
12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch

Afternoon Agenda TBD - to be determined based on work of morning sessions
13:30 - 14:30
14:30 - 14:45 | Break
14:45 - 15:30
15:30 - 16:00 NMI Roadmap Post June 2016
Moderator: Marilia Maciel
16:00 - 16:15 | Approval of Communique

Background:
The NETmundial Initiative (NMI) was one of  ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehade's personal pet projects while on "ICANN's dime" (Fadi is Co-Chair, as is Jack Ma and others), reportedly funded (in part) by ICANN, though NMI has never received wide support from either the global internet community, nor the "ICANN community"--see NETmundial Initiative Lacks Backing, and ICANN Should Not Lead and other sources below. See also this ICANN Documentary Information Disclosure Policy Request (pdf) and Response (pdf).

See on Domain Mondo:

• NETmundial Initiative, Headwinds, Questions, Puzzlement 23 Feb 2015
• After Wuzhen, Should ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade Be Fired? 28 Dec 2015
• What To Do With ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade? ICANN Board Chair Knows 20 Jan 2016
• How ICANN and ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé Evade Accountability 9 Feb 2016

NetMundial Initiative (NMI) - (Wikipedia): "The NMI was launched in on 6 November 2014 in a
partnership between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Its Inaugural Coordination Council consisted of 23 members ... Leading up to and following the initial scoping meeting of NMI in Geneva, Switzerland in August 2014, several actors in the broader Internet governance ecosystem expressed concerns over NMI's proposed organization and activities. Concerns intensified following the official launch in November of that year. ISOC, the IAB and ICC BASIS published statements outlining their concerns ... According to Julia Pohle in the Global Policy Journal, there were three main controversial issues surrounding NMI raised by civil society and the technical community: permanent seats on the NMI Council, potential interference with the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and concern over disproportionate involvement in decision-making by economic and political elite. NMI retracted the notion of permanent seats on the Council, committed to supporting the efforts of the IGF and generated Internet Governance Process Principles to comprehensively address concerns regarding adherence to bottom-up, multistakeholder consensus-driven governance."

#netmundial

@AkramAtallah I tried to bring you with me to #WEF but Klaus was very firm on this point. Could you ensure #ICANN still funds #NETmundial ?

— Shit Fadi Says (@ShitFadiSays) January 22, 2016

Recruitment for next #NETmundial Initiative Coord Council not going well. Deadline quietly extended to day before #ICANN CEO quits.

— thereforeICANN (@thereforeICANN) January 22, 2016

#Wuzhen Initiative #netgov work said led by 31 member high-level advisory committee & secretariat. Interesting viz. #NETmundial Initiative

— William J. Drake (@wjdrake) December 18, 2015

#ICANN has spent half a million dollars on NYETMundial Initiative, including $200k for a "solutions map" https://t.co/OQgmEOmE3C

— Milton Mueller (@miltonmueller) February 26, 2016

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After Wuzhen, Should ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade Be Fired?

UPDATE 22 Jan 2016: Fadi "bags" another one "on ICANN's dime" to add to his "Portfolio"

UPDATE 20 Jan 2016: What To Do With ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade? ICANN Board Chair Knows

UPDATE 2 Jan 2016 from the ICANN CCWG-Accountability public mail list: Follow-up from the Word [sic] Internet Conference [World Internet Conference (WIC)] in China: ".... Xi is not Mao, so all can make their own judgment‎ on the current Chinese regime. But, as Prof. Mueller has written, WIC is undeniably a ‎CCP [Chinese Communist Party] project to challenge the prevailing MS IG [Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance] model established by US and other liberal democracies. By passively accepting the "incident" ICANN's Board has implicitly associated the organization [ICANN] with WIC. This is not some post-departure personal engagement by the CEO. Who thinks he would be Co-Chair if he was not the CEO and supplied WIC with a certain degree of cover? And the Advisory Committee has already met. Maybe associating ICANN with a CCP multilateral project before US Congress has removed the freeze on the IANA transition not the best idea? On other hand, not having transition completed might be viewed as a positive development by CCP.‎ The Chinese play Go, not Chess." (emphasis and link added)

UPDATE: ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade kept the ICANN Board "in the dark" about the "shenanigans" he had planned for Wuzhen:

Q: "... it appears that the Board was briefed by Fadi on his role as Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee after it was publicly announced that he had accepted the position, indicating that the Board was not advised in advance of his decision to accept the role. Is that a correct interpretation of the sequence of events?"

Answer from Bruce Tonkin, ICANN Board Member: "Yes."
(source: CCWG public mail list)

. @icann_president If it's in your personal capacity, you should find some other account to post from. #ICANN

— Andrew Sullivan (@anvilwalrusden) December 19, 2015

Above: Tweet of ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehade, and Reply Tweet from Andrew Sullivan (Sullivan tweeting from his personal twitter account). Sullivan is Chair of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and active in both IETF and ICANN.

Background: As reported on Domain Mondo and elsewhere, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé attended, at ICANN's expense, the second World Internet Conference (WIC), recently held in Wuzhen, China, where Chehade joined 'a high-level advisory committee', and also gave his 'personal' support and endorsement which he announced publicly via his verified ICANN President Twitter account (see above). The agenda of  China's government-sponsored World Iinternet Conference (WIC)--

High-level advisory committee established for World Internet Conference: "A high-level advisory committee for the World Internet Conference's (WIC) organizing committee secretariat was established on Wednesday, the organizing committee said Thursday. The advisory committee held its first meeting on the sidelines of the second WIC in Wuzhen of east China's Zhejiang Province. Jack Ma, founder of China's Internet giant Alibaba, and Fadi Chehade, President and CEO of ICANN, act as co-chairman of the advisory committee...." 

"Pursuant to discussions at the High-Level Advisory Council (HAC), the WIC Organizing Committee proposes the [Wuzhen] Initiative as follows: .... 5. Improving the global Internet governance ... and feature a multilateral [meaning intergovernmental], democratic and transparent global Internet governance system, with more valuable and inclusive involvement of governments ...." (source)

The negative reaction on Twitter and the ICANN CCWG-Accountability public mail list was almost immediate. Subsequently Chehade posted a response on the ICANN website in which he said the "first meeting" of the advisory committee "will take place in Summer 2016" which the official Chinese press report above contradicts.

Beyond the embarrassment and distracting spectacle that Fadi Chehade has brought upon ICANN at a critical juncture in its IANA transition planning, there are 2 aspects of Chehade's Wuzhen fiasco at play here which should be of concern to the ICANN Board and the "ICANN community"--

1. That Fadi Chehade continuing as ICANN CEO, even for a few weeks until March 12, 2016, puts at risk the entire IANA transition process, from CCWG-Accountability and its Chartering Organizations, to alarmed Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C.

2. That Fadi Chehade knowingly made what he probably thought was a shrewd career move in Wuzhen, aware his days as ICANN CEO are soon ending:

• exploiting his soon-expiring credentials as ICANN President and CEO by lending his "personal," and by implication as President and CEO, ICANN's support to China's Wuzhen Initiative to reform global internet governance into a government-led multilateral vision of national sovereignty as envisioned by Beijing and others; accepting China's agenda for internet governance reform, promoting China's WIC as the global internet community forum to discuss and plan for these changes, all of which implies that multistakeholderism as practiced by ICANN doesn't work, and eventually will be replaced anyway by a multilateral solution after the US government loses control and gives up its "oversight" of ICANN; and/or
• Chehade felt obligated to repay Alibaba's Jack Ma for joining Chehade's top-down, ICANN-funded project known as the "NETmundial Initiative" after most of the global internet community had rejected Chehade's leadership and vision for that "initiative" which isn't going anywhere and most likely will be defunded by ICANN after Chehade is no longer CEO. Note that Jack Ma and Chehade are also Co-Chairs of the NETmundial Initiative.

One point needs to be clear here: neither China, nor Jack Ma, nor anyone else (other than ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade), did anything wrong or questionable at Wuzhen. Many, and not just in places like China and Russia, question whether ICANN, with its own peculiar form of multistakeholderism, is truly up to the task of "coordinating the global DNS" in the "global public interest" without government oversight (U.S., intergovernmental, or otherwise). ICANN's own founding Chair, Esther Dyson:

".... a financial conflict of interest that continues to this day: ICANN subsists on the very industry it purports to govern. [Esther] Dyson says she “lost any faith, over time,” in ICANN’s ability to regulate the domain-name business." source: ICANN's Boondoggle | MIT Technology Review, August 21, 2012

Anybody who believes Chehade's after-the-fact stated rationale for his actions and words in Wuzhen --that he will somehow be able to successfully advocate multistakeholderism, which would require a complete sea-change in Beijing's worldview of internet governance and the already stated objectives of the Wuzhen Initiative-- must be naive or gullible. But that's too often the way of ICANN or at least its current CEO: spin the narrative and hope no one is able or willing to see and speak the truth.

Unfortunately for Chehade, more than just a few people are now seeing and speaking--here are just 2 of the comments on the public CCWG mail list (emphasis added)--

Comment #1:

"This is not just a matter of judgment, but a matter of cross-cultural judgment. The [ICANN] CEO gets paid to get this right. And I REALLY expected better from Mr Chehade' in that department. Actually, I would not have expected this kind of behaviour from recent previous CEOs. Certainly not from Paul [Twomey]. In fact not even from Rod [Beckstrom], who despite his public persona and irritating Hollywood rockstar ways was, in many ways, quite sensitive to non-US cultures! In China, relationships matter. Appearance matters. A lot. Both of those things can be as important, if not more important than the 'letter of the law' as to whose dime he was on when carrying on the discussion with the relevant actors inside China. The American way (and the British, to a lesser extent) is based on a literal interpretation of the rules (with a seasoning of 'wiggle-room' for peccadilloes). So while it's understandable to hear from some of you that you don't see the problem, some of us really, really see a big issue here.

"I'm not going to complain loudly about the ethics side, although I personally find it curious that Fadi was there on ICANN's dime, yet once again making announcements 'in his personal capacity'. A CEO can never be in his personal capacity, in my view until he gets his cardboard box. (It was strange how the reporters describe him as ICANN's CEO, though. Oh yes, that's because he IS. Even yet.) The issue is that the head of ICANN, voluntarily handed in his resignation, choosing to leave early, before transition was complete, and in another revolving-door shocker joined an organisation with an apparently completely different world view, and chose Wuzhen to make supportive statements of them and their backers.

"Once again, 'it's not what they say, its what others hear'. UK public servants have a purdah period before moving to organisations that operate in the same sphere. Why, in the name of accountability, does ICANN still not? (Have we forgotten and already discounted the terrible optics of Dengate-Thrushgate?). A mere six months would not be onerous. Please don't dissect Fadi's actual words. They don't count. Hardly at all. It's the nature of 'who', 'where', and 'when' that counts much more than 'what', or even 'why'." 

Comment #2:

"... Where I come from [U.S.], any public official (and let's not kid ourselves -- that is what Fadi is) who did what Fadi did would be subject to discipline if not removal. While acting in a public role, the official has no private capacity -- none at all. At least in the world I inhabit that prohibition is so stringent that it applies even to actions that would be (under any reasonable test) so clearly distinct that the likelihood of confusing the public role with the private role was virtually non-existent. For a particularly telling recent example of this, consider this story: Meet the author of ‘The Revenant’ — except you can’t because of his federal job - The Washington Post .... But as I said, here we [U.S.] are so cautious about even the appearance of impropriety that the author is not doing any public relations for his movie. As others have pointed out for Fadi the possibility of confusion is clearly much higher -- the press and the public will (and have) [*see below] linked his new "personal capacity" job to his current status as CEO of ICANN -- which is of course exactly why he was hired and exactly what the Chinese wanted. Frankly, as ... said, I find his behavior troubling and remarkably tone deaf. I should add that the purpose of the restriction on trading on your public position works both ways. We worry not only about the new "private" connection currying favor with public official, we also worry that the official may make decisions in his public capacity that are now to benefit his future private actions rather than the public interest. It isn't the connection and the cooperation that is troubling (as ... notes) -- it is the promise of future employment with unknown benefits that was made while the public official was still working for the public that raises the questions."

*Anonymous Hacks .... | Softpedia: "... Quite recently, China's President, Xi Jinping, held a speech at the second World Internet Conference, where he invoked his country's right to censor the Internet inside its borders, a right that every other country should exert as well. Even worse, at the same conference, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization that is in charge of managing domain names, has also pledged their support for a new plan for running the Internet, where Chinese figures have a more powerful word in the decisions taken by the organization. Since next year, ICANN will take over more IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) functions from the US government, this would give the Chinese government more power in how the global Internet is managed ...." (emphasis added)

You can read about "Dengate-Thrushgate" involving a prior ICANN Board Chairman here. ICANN has quite a history of conflicts of interest, lack of accountability and transparency, secrecy, rewarding insiders including ICANN officers even after resigning due to "conflicts of interest". None of this comes as a surprise since Chehade's tenure as ICANN CEO has the worst record on conflicts of interest, appearances of impropriety, and "cronyism" in the history of ICANN--see Domain Mondo's RPMs comment (pdf). Complicating all of this is the ICANN Board's apparent dysfunction and failures in competent corporate governance, including its inability to have "in place" and "enforce" an effective code of conduct for all ICANN officers and staff. The Board appears to be in a constant "reactive" mode trapped between stakeholders (mostly "lobbyists") and ICANN officers/staff. CCWG-Accountability should have concentrated on core competencies including the selection, orientation, training and continuing education of ICANN Board members, ICANN officers and staff, as well as stakeholders. Anyone involved in ICANN needs to have at least a rudimentary understanding of California non-profit corporate law, ethics in the public non-profit corporate sphere, applicable U.S. law, and the common law system. Jurisdiction matters.

A good joint project for ICANN legal, Jones Day, and CCWG's independent legal counsel, post-transition, would be to develop and publish an orientation and training program accessible to all online, which should be required of all ICANN directors, officers, and staff, as well as anyone choosing to stand for election or appointment to the ICANN Board. Good corporate governance is hard work and not easy--witness the scandals at organizations as diverse as FIFA and the American Red Cross.

If the CCWG-Accountability is able to propose anything which will ameliorate this morass of self-interest, greed, and narcissistic, inflated egos (from ICANN CEOs to ICANN directors, officers, staff, and stakeholders), it will have accomplished more to remediate a dysfunctional, corruptible ICANN, than any person or group in ICANN's 17-year history.

See also on Domain Mondo:

• US Senators Cruz, Lankford & Lee Demand Answers From ICANN CEO
• What ICANN CEO Chehade Has Been Up To: WSIS, Wuzhen Initiative
• What Domain Mondo Will Be Watching For in 2016
• Best ICANN CEO Quote of 2015: "My Neck Will Be Cut Tomorrow Morning"
• China Proposes Multilateral International Internet Governance, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade Agrees | 24 November 2014 (Video)
• Caveat ICANN: FIFA Bans Blatter and Platini For Conflict of Interest (video)
• ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade's Last Day at ICANN: March 12, 2016 (video)
• Why Did ICANN Become a Member of Trademark Lobbyist Group INTA?
• ICANN 54 Public Forum Video, Q&A, ICANN, INTA, IANA, Lobbyists
• ICANN Lobbying, Conflicts, Ethics, Transparency, Accountability, Disclosure
• ICANN, Kurt Pritz, Conflict of Interest, new gTLD domain names program
• What Caused ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé To Quit?

Note: this post originally published under the title: After Wuzhen, Should ICANN President CEO Fadi Chehade Be Forced Out?


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