Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] ALAC statement on the GAC scorecard

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alain,

ICANN is not the average not-for-profit corporation incorporated in 
California and found qualified by the IRS to 501(c)(3) status. It is 
(and here is a deep spot where one can arrive at delegated rule making 
authority [1][2], or simply observe "no statutory authority" [3], or 
recite a "multi-stakeholder" credo [4], or other snakepits [5]) 
"charged with" something to do with several things, but most relevant 
to the question of how it is funded, transforming a series of monopoly 
contracts, valued at $21bn in 2000, when Network Solutions was 
acquired by Verisign.
I view ICANN's adoption of the "cost recovery" framework for the 201x 
round of new gTLDs as a brilliant success by Verisign's team, as the 
incumbent monopolist pays nothing to create competition, and 
incidentally, is allowed to "compete" with new market entrants on 
"equal terms".
Having been intimately involved with the process prior from the SRI 
contract period to the present, with 2005-2006 spent ignoring ICANN 
until contacted by the NomCom of 2007, I view Verisign as still 
holding a monopoly, and successful in channeling the creation of its 
"competition" to commercially negligible fringe activity.
I'm not saying that a development campaign shouldn't closely resemble 
development campaigns to achieve specific ends, and financial 
assistance (don't forget regulatory (or contractual, depending on what 
side of the deep spot, above, you favor) relief, as well as technical 
and other forms of assistance) should not be granted as PRIs. What I 
am saying is that ICANN is not disinterested, and it has a complex, 
monitized, relationship with Verisign.
So some intellectual distance vis a vis the rationals offered by it 
for its budgets are consistent with participation seeking to identify 
and advance one or more public interests.
Eric

[1] See "WRONG TURN IN CYBERSPACE: USING ICANN TO ROUTE AROUND THE APA 
AND THE CONSTITUTION", Michael Froomkin, 50 Duke L. J. 17 (2000).
[2] See "A RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR FROOMKIN: WHY ICANN DOES NOT VIOLATE 
THE APA OR THE CONSTITUTION", Joe Sims and Cynthia Bauely, 6 J. Small 
& Emerging Bus. L. 65 (2002).
[3] Verbatim comments of Anna Gomez, Deputy Assistant Secretary for 
Communications and Information, and Deputy National Telecommunications 
and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator, at M. Cade's 
"meet the industry" function, February, 2009.
[4] See any ICANN staffer, and most contracted parties satisfying the 
property noted in the Affirmation of Committments (AoC) of membership 
in “a group of participants that engage in ICANN's processes to a 
greater extent than Internet users generally”.
[5] The usual ICANN-is-teh-evil cabalists.