[ncdnhc-discuss] taking politics out of the .org delegation

[James Love]

To those working on the .org, issue, I would like to expand upon comments we
have offered in off-line discussions and in some written comments we have
made in various fora, including on the .us redelegation, as it relates to
how one addresses the potential windfall when someone suddenly is given the
right to run an existing TLD registry that has potentially a signficant
economic value.

One approach would be to award the contact to the low bidder, subject to
constraints such as not letting Verisign bid, to promote competition
objectives.  But if people were not comfortable with awarding a contract to
the low bidder, fearing some unsustainable lowballing strategy that would
fail and end up in renegotiation, one might set a maximum registry price
(the current ICANN practice), and then award the registry bid to the company
that offered the highest bid (probably best in cash, but perhaps something
else, such as a royalty from future revenues, maybe capped at some $$$
number the firm bids).

The competitive market would then set the market clearing price of the
opportunity to run the TLD, and there would not be a ton of politics in
terms of who gets it.

Next, you would have to deal with the surplus.    Rather than have some
board of insiders use this as a slushfund for good (and not so good) causes,
I would propose a system of voting to give away the money for good works.
I would give everyone with a .org registration a vote (one vote for each
domain).  This is a well defined group of people, making voter fraud
difficult, and voter registration cheap.

The system would work like this:

1.    Put the money in a fund for good works.

2.   Let anyone who wants the money apply for funding, for anything they
like, and seek .org domain holders endorsements.

3.    Everyone who meets the threshold of endorsements would be put on a
ballot.

4.   Every .org domain name holder could vote, in a ranking system like the
at large election.  Except it would be an easy and cheap election to run
because the voter list would be the domain name holders.

5.   The proposals with the most votes would get funded, possibly with the
amounts depending upon the share of the vote.

  This would allow a real bottom up and democratic way to spend the surplus,
and give the .org holders a way to finance various causes that generated
real grass roots support.  Being an ICANN insider would pay zero dividends.
Being popular at the grass roots would be everthing.

   The system would be fair, and free from politics.

   Jamie

PS.  Alternatively we could make some well connected ICANN insiders rich by
setting the maximum price high enough, and let the registry operator pocket
the surplus.

--------------------
James Love, mailto:james.love at cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org
voice +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040, fax +1.202.234.5176