NCDNHC - organizational conflict of interests. (Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN Board Solicits Input from

[Milton Mueller]

Thomas:

>>> Thomas Roessler <roessler at does-not-exist.org> 07/09/02 05:06PM >>>
> - To what extent would member organizations of the NCDNHC profit  
>   from the suggestions in the individual proposals? (Besides  
>   "non-profits" profting generically from the proposal, of course.)

Harold made it clear that any member organization associated 
with a bid will not be part of the evaluation team. 

Keep in mind that all NCDNHC is being asked to do is provide 
its own assessment to the Board. The Board apparently recognizes 
that we are in a much better position to ferret out bogus non-
commercial support and to assess real support, than, e.g.,
a consulting firm that has no history or background in this
process, or another constituency, which would have much, much
greater potential for interest conflict than us.

But the Board will make the decision, not us. And 
there are far more serious COI issues associated with
the Board's role than with our NCDNHC evaluation 
assistance process.

> - To what extend woult the NCDNHC as a whole profit from the 
>   suggestions in the individual proposals?

The established DNSO policy has made it clear that support for
noncommercial participants in ICANN processes is desirable.
To quote the DNSO consensus policy statement: 
"Applicants are encouraged to propose methods of supporting 
and assisting non-commercial participants in the ICANN process." 

Who is in a better position to assess the merit of 
various forms of support and assistance than us?

Whether the travel assistance proposed by GNR is "better"
or "worse" as a form of support than what is proposed by
other applicants is quite an open question. The idea that we
cannot evaluate that proposal makes absolutely no sense.

The whole point of the Board asking us for 
assistance is to obtain from noncommercial representatives
a comprehensive and uniform comparison of all the proposals
using similar criteria.

--MM