Improved transparency through public mailing list archives, budgets and membership lists

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this important matter.

In order to maximize transparency, renewals of each GNSO constituency should be 
conditional upon:

1) public mailing list archives
2) public postings of constituency budgets
3) public list of all members of a constituency

Many (if not all) of the constituencies fail to meet either some or all of the 
above standards.

Currently, only the NCUC and ISP constituencies have public mailing lists. The 
registrar constituency used to have a public mailing list, but has since gone 
private.

Public posting of budgets ensures that constituencies are prudent in their 
spending, and allows the public to compare costs across all constituencies to 
ensure equal playing fields.

Some constituencies fail to list all their member individuals/organizations 
(and keep the list up-to-date), which is an important part of transparency, and 
prevents capture by certain organizations, a danger that ICANN is certainly 
aware of, and to detect conflicts of interest.

By setting the above standards across all existing and future constituencies 
equally, ICANN can be said to be ensuring that constituencies "shall operate to 
the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent 
with procedures designed to ensure fairness" as per the Charter.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
President
Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc.
http://www.leap.com/

(a member of the Business Constituency, but our comments are submitted solely 
on our own behalf)