[ncdnhc-discuss] Board conflict of interest on .org

[Dave Crocker]

Let us be clear about the nature and details of Milton's original posting:


At 04:10 PM 5/13/2002 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
>We were
>particularly amazed by how the Board, without any warning
>or any supporting public record, reversed position on
>giving .org to a non-profit organization,

Where is the basis for claiming the Board originally had a position?


>Now it is possible to understand better what happened.

If you think Milton was seeking "discussion" note that his language is 
definitive, rather than questioning.  Milton claims to have the answer.


>One of the companies that has been making it clear that
>they want to be involved with .org is Neulevel. Before Accra,
>they were making it known that four people were assigned to
>the .org bid full time.

Having participated in a Neustar bidding effort I can tell you 4 actually 
is a very small number.

One also wonders about the basis for Milton's assertion of the number.

More importantly, how can Neustar's staff allocation be at all relevant to 
the claimed goal of Milton's posting?


>According to the transcript, the Board member who pushed the
>Board away from non-profit was Robt. Blokzijl.

As Kent listed for us, the transcript shows quite clearly that Rob did no 
such thing!

Rob's total contribution to the question of the requirements for a registry 
were to make the technical observation that a registry with 3 million 
registrants is a large registry and that running a large registry is 
different from running one that is smaller.

Many ICANN participants who have the relevant experience have offered 
similar observations, over the years.


>And guess what? Mr. Blokzijl has a special relationship to
>Neulevel. His wife was hired by Neulevel a few months after
>they were married. Lynn Blokzijl is the Neulevel representative
>in the Netherlands.

Note that Milton did not bother to find out that Lynn is no longer 
affiliated with them.

Other postings have done a good job of making more claims about Lynn, her 
Neustar activities, and her history that were simply wrong.


>Maybe this is just a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Blokzijl's insistence
>that .org be given to a company with "demonstrated experience"

Nothing in Rob's language warrants the term "insistence".

And as noted, there is nothing remarkable about his observation that 
operational competence is important and that experience with operation of a 
large-scale administration operation is relatively rare.

What is far more significant is that anyone would so easily dismiss the 
reality that Rob cited.  In this constituency, operational concerns are 
treated as if they were trivial, and hence irrelevant to policy making.

In fact, operational concerns are primary and operating a large registry 
well is quite difficult.  Verisign/NSI has provided the community with 
amble evidence of the many problems that can occur.


>and the Board's subsequent vote to permit commercial applicants
>was unrelated to Neulevel's lobbying campaign. Maybe Neulevel's
>hiring of Mrs. Blokzijl had absolutely nothing to do
>with the fact that she was married to a Board member.

Maybe Milton's constant attacks on individuals is unrelated to his own 
tendency towards self-aggrandizement.  Maybe his latest attack is not 
merely one more effort to create a platform for himself.

(if you challenge my offering such questions, please ask yourself how they 
are materially different from the kind of "questions" that Milton raises.)


>Even if this is all "coincidence," it doesn't make ICANN look
>very good. Mr Blokzijl had better recuse himself from the .org
>redelegation discussion, decision and all other aspects of the
>process.

"Rescue himself"?

If you had any doubt about whether Milton was asking questions and seeking 
clarification, or whether Milton was once again making person attacks on 
someone's integrity, his closing paragraph eliminates that issue.

Perhaps there is a legitimate COI question to be answered.  Certainly 
Milton did not ask it nor has he pursued it.

In fact it is clear that Milton has claimed facts that do not exist and has 
grossly distorted the few that do.

If this constituency wants to be taken seriously, it must conduct itself 
seriously.  The record of this thread is one more example of the 
constituency failing to perform responsibly.


d/


----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dave at tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
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