News Review: ICANN Chairman and ICANN Accountability & Transparency

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-07-16):
Features •  1) Holding ICANN Accountable: IRS Form 990 and ICANN Accountability & Transparency--Disclosure of compensation paid to ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker and/or his personal corporation Shinkuro, Inc.  2)Other ICANN news, 3) ICYMI: Fragmented ‘Splinternet’, 4) Investing: Q2 2017 Earnings Webcasts, Rightside $NAME Class Action, 5) Most Read Posts.

1) Holding ICANN Accountable: IRS Form 990 and ICANN Accountability & Transparency--Disclosure of compensation paid to ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker and/or his personal corporation Shinkuro, Inc.

ICANN filed its Form 990 (pdf, 5.54 MB) for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2016 (FY16) with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on 12 May 2017:

Above: excerpts from ICANN's FY16 IRS Form 990

Excerpt from Domain Mondo's post of May 21, 2017 (highlighting added):

My email to ICANN (pdf) on May 28, 2017, and the initial response from ICANN is here (pdf). The substantive response from ICANN (pdf), dated July 13, 2017, received this past week is embedded in full below following this excerpt:

"The ICANN Chairman’s Corporation, Shinkuro, Inc. was paid a total of $114,203.24 in the fiscal year 2016. The total amount comprised of $75,000.00 for compensation and $39,203.24 for office rent ... ICANN will be publishing a revision to the FY16 Annual Report of Expense Reimbursement and Other Payments to or on behalf of ICANN Board members, with the objective to clarify all the amounts that have been paid to Shinkuro, Inc., and/or Steve Crocker in relation to Steve Crocker’s role as Chair of the Board (or as Board member, prior to his appointment as Chair)."--Xavier Calvez, ICANN CFO, letter to John Poole, Editor of Domain Mondo, July 13, 2017, embed below (highlighting added). 

While I will leave to others, including the IRS, to judge ICANN's interpretation of relevant tax provisions, including ICANN's treatment and classification of funds paid to individuals and their "personal corporations," unfortunately, Mr. Calvez did not address the following questions (highlighted below) in my email of May 28, 2017 (pdf), which will require a follow-up email this coming week to Mr. Calvez (w/ copy to the ICANN Ombudsman):

2) Other ICANN news

a. Reader's comment (received via email) to last week's News Review: ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing:

".brand raised $123M for ICANN to pay for the lucrative salaries and conferences."  (Editor's note: $185,000 application fee x 664 .BRAND TLD applications= $122.84M.) 

For a glimpse of the future 'global DNS nightmare' ICANN is foolishly creating for itself and the global internet community (via a new gTLDs program and policies driven by greed, incompetence, cronyism, and conflicts of interest), read Could the next new gTLD round last 25 years? Or 70 years? | DomainIncite.com: "Will the next new gTLD round see 25,000 applications? If so, how long will it take for them all to go live?"

Perhaps the answer is to build a new internet (and new internet root zone) coordinated by an entity other than ICANN which is proving itself too inept or corrupt to fulfill its purported mission.

b. Post-ICANN59 Policy Report | ICANN.org (pdf)

c. ICANN Data Protection and Privacy Issues | ICANN.org: a current listing of ongoing projects at the ICANN organization related to data protection and privacy matters including (a) GNSO Policy Development Processes and Implementation, (b) WHOIS Conflicts Procedure, and (c) European Union General Data Protection Regulation.


3) ICYMI Internet Domain News

• The World May Be Headed for a Fragmented ‘Splinternet’ | WIRED.com: "... The trend of courts applying country-specific social media laws worldwide could radically change what is allowed to be on the internet, setting a troubling precedent. What happens to the global internet when countries with different cultures have sharply diverging definitions of what is acceptable online speech? What happens when one country's idea of acceptable speech clashes with another's idea of hate speech? ..."

• China Tells Carriers to Block Access to Personal VPNs by February | Bloomberg.com: 2018 deadline to stop individuals from accessing global web, tightening controls come amid Xi’s goal of "cyber-sovereignty."

• Anton Nossik, 'godfather' of Russian internet, dies at 51 | BBC.com

• Last nail in coffin of Russian Internet freedom | YubaNet.com

• The Europe-wide assault on internet freedom | spiked-online.com

• Knesset panel clears bill allowing court to censor internet | haaretz.com

• Saudis block Israeli Arab website for coverage of 'normalization' with Israel - Arab-Israeli Conflict | jpost.com

• Kenya: This Is Internet Censorship Through the Back Door | allAfrica.com

• Venezuela: Citizens know the 'news' "isn’t matching the reality they are living."--CSMonitor.com

4) Investing

•  Notable Q2 2017 earnings webcast dates already announced:

• T-Mobile $TMUS July 19 4:30pm EDT 
• Qualcomm $QCOM July 19 4:45pm EDT
• Alphabet $GOOG $GOOGL July 24 5pm EDT
• Facebook $FB July 26 5pm EDT
• Twitter NYSE: $TWTR July 27 7am EDT
• Verisign $VRSN July 27 4:30pm EDT 
• Amazon $AMZN July 27 5:30pm EDT
• Apple $AAPL Aug 1 5pm EDT
• GoDaddy $GDDY Aug 8 5pm EDT

•  Rightside $NAME & Donuts: A class action lawsuit has been filed  in United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against Rightside Group, Ltd. (NASDAQ: NAME) for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty in connection with the proposed sale of the company to Donuts Inc.--Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman Class Action | bgandg.com: "The complaint alleges that on June 13, 2017, Rightside’s Board of Directors (the “Board” or “Individual Defendants”) caused Rightside to enter into an agreement and plan of merger (the “Merger Agreement”). Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, Donuts commenced a tender offer, set to expire on July 26, 2017, and stockholders of Rightside will receive $10.60 per share in cash. On June 27, 2017, defendants filed a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the Proposed Transaction. The Complaint alleges the Solicitation Statement omits material information about the Proposed Transaction."

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

1. News Review: ICANN's Extortionate .BRAND Scam Failing

2. Evolution of Starbucks $SBUX & Coffee (video)

3. a16z VC Marc Andreessen On Tech Valuations and More (podcast)

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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News Review: A Red Flag in ICANN Financial Disclosures? | NR 2017-05-21

Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-04-30):

Features •  1) A Red Flag in ICANN Financial Disclosures? 2) Other ICANN news--New gTLDs a Legal Racket or Consumer Scam? 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: .AFRICA, 4) ICYMI: Trump's NTIA Administrator, 5) Q1 2017 Earnings Season, 6) Most Popular.

1)  A Red Flag in ICANN Financial Disclosures?
ICANN filed its Form 990 [PDF, 5.54 MB] for its FY16 fiscal year (ending 30 June 2016), with the Internal Revenue Service on 12 May 2017 in compliance with the extended due date of 15 May 2017. Form 990 is ICANN's annual disclosure (a year after) of who's been a "domain hog"-- the highest paid contractors and employees at ICANN as well as directors' compensation -- no real surprises except one potential "red flag." How much was paid by ICANN to the ICANN Chairman's corporation Shinkuro, Inc.? That amount appears to be completely missing and unreported. For example, unless you read the entire Form 990 closely (reproduced below), one would think ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker was not taking any compensation or remuneration as a Director:

Not reportable? Is Shinkuro Inc., also a contractor for ICANN? How much has Shinkuro been paid each fiscal year since Crocker joined the ICANN Board in 2008?

"No part of the net earnings of the Corporation shall inure to the benefit of or be distributable to its directors, trustees, officers, or other private persons, except that the Corporation shall be authorized and empowered to pay reasonable compensation for services rendered and to make payments and distributions in furtherance of the purposes set forth in Article II hereof."--ICANN Articles of Incorporation 2. IV. d.

Is this setting a bad precedent for a corporation (ICANN) that claims to be transparent and accountable? What if every ICANN director decided to have their ICANN compensation paid to their personal corporation--would that also become unreportable? Is Shinkuro only being paid $75,000 (ICANN Chair's authorized compensation), something less, something more?  ICANN needs to disclose.

2) Other ICANN news

a. New gTLDs a Legal Racket or Consumer Scam? (see page 6 of my comment below)--CCT-RT: Comments closed Friday on Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team Draft Report of Recommendations for New gTLDs. I submitted a comment which you can read here (pdf) or embed below. All the other comments may be be read here. I tried to give honest feedback, incorporating quotes and links from many sources, even many of the recent prolific tweets by @DomainKing:

b.  Oops! -- 16 May 2017 Letter from Christine Willett to Shaul Jolles [Published 17 May 2017] excerpt:

c.  Clarifying the Roles of the ICANN Complaints Office and Ombudsman | ICANN.org: "we have noticed some confusion about the difference between the scope of the Complaints Office and the Office of the Ombudsman"--

d.  ICANN Registration System Email Validation | ICANN.org: "As part of an ongoing process to improve the security of our web applications, the ICANN Registration website will now require that all potential meeting participants verify their email address to complete the registration process ..."

e. CCWG-Accountability-WS2 Request to Chartering Organizations for an Extension of Its Work for All of FY18: ccwg-acct-ws2-chartering-org-fy18-extension-request-18may17-en.pdf (pdf) 18 May 2017.

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks

• Why .AFRICA will succeed where others [new gTLDs] have failed | Inventa.com: "It is increasingly becoming clear that many of the newTLD’s launched since 2013 are not viable as a business. While there are some notable exceptions such as .xyz, most have struggled to report positive numbers and are currently operating at a loss. A staggering 70% of all these domains don’t have any content whatsoever, which helps to explain why renewal rates for these domains also seem to be lower than the industry average. However, I am confident that .africa will succeed ..." (emphasis added)

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued its decision in Elliott v. Google, Inc., No. 15-15809 (9th Cir. May 16, 2017), affirming the District of Arizona’s ruling granting Google’s motion for summary judgment that its GOOGLE trademark is not subject to cancellation as generic.

• Balancing Rights: Mark Owners, Emergent Businesses, and Investors | IPLegalCorner.com

• Registered Your DMCA Contact Address Yet? | circleid.com

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News Quick Takes 

• NTIA Administrator: President Trump will nominate David Redl to be the next administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) ... He currently serves as the chief counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce and is the principal legal adviser to Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Republicans on the committee regarding communications and technology matters.--TheHill.com

• FCC Proposes Ending Utility-Style Regulation of the Internet | Federal Communications Commission | fcc.gov and How One Little Cable Company Exposed Telecom’s Achilles’ Heel | backchannel.com.

• How to Opt Out of Twitter's New Privacy Settings | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org

• WHOIS and Free Speech, Privacy & Anonymity: "Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind." Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60, 64 (1960) ... an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible ... the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry ..."--Comment #2 | circleid.com  

• Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia | Vox.com: "... a fake news bubble for liberals, something I’ve dubbed the Russiasphere. The mirror image of Breitbart and InfoWars on the right, it focuses nearly exclusively on real and imagined connections between Trump and Russia. The tone is breathless: full of unnamed intelligence sources, certainty that Trump will soon be imprisoned, and fever dream factual assertions that no reputable media outlet has managed to confirm ..."

5) Q1 2017 Earnings Season

•  The Q1 2017 Earnings Season concluded this week on DomainMondo.com with Alibaba Group $BABA FY17 Results LIVE Webcast May 18.

•  GoDaddy Inc.  (NYSE: GDDY) To Present At The 45th Annual JP Morgan Technology Media And Telecom Conference: Scott Wagner, Chief Operating Officer, and Ray Winborne, Chief Financial Officer, will present at the 45 [th] Annual J.P Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. EDT. A live audio webcast of the event will be available on GoDaddy's investor relations website at https://investors.godaddy.net. Following the presentation an audio replay will be available on the investor relations website.

•  Rightside Group, Ltd. (NASDAQ: NAME), announced that the Company's CEO, Taryn Naidu, and CFO, Tracy Knox, are scheduled to present at the 18th Annual B. Riley Co. Investor Conference at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, Santa Monica, CA on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. PDT. Rightside management will also be conducting one-on-one institutional investor meetings at the conference. The presentation will be available through a live audio webcast accessible from the Investors section of Rightside's website at investors.rightside.co. An archived replay of the webcast will also be available for 90 days following the live presentation.

6) Most popular post (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: ICANN New gTLDs' Domain Name Registrations Implode | NR 2017-05-14.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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