ICANN Structural Conflict of Interest

["gbruen@xxxxxxxxxx" <gbruen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear colleagues and community,

Comments below address the question: Do you agree that the 
CCWG-Accountability proposal enhances ICANN's accountability?
The proposal is incomplete. In order to truly enhances ICANN's 
accountability a serious conflict of interest needs to be addressed and 
removed ahead of any transition. ICANN’s commercial operations must be 
completely separated from its multi-stakeholder policy development 
functions. In particular the community must be guarded against undue 
influence of the Global Domains Division (GDD) in policy matters 
especially contactual compliance. Organizational and budget documents 
appear to show that ICANN compliance reports to the GDD president and 
only indirectly to the CEO.
ICANN needs to (1) publicly clarify the current and historical role of 
the GDD president in compliance affairs, (2) remove any oversight from 
the commercial side in compliance matters, and (3) adhere to the earlier 
ATRT2 Recommendations to specifically have the compliance department 
“report directly and solely to a sub-committee of the ICANN Board.”
It is only by creating a “firewall” between the domain business and 
policy enforcement. The relationship and direction has been too cosy for 
too long. As long as GDD has an interest in compliance functions there 
will be a structural conflict of interest at ICANN.

Thank you, Garth Bruen

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Garth Bruen
gbruen@xxxxxxxxxx