[NCUC-DISCUSS] FW: Re: important information - deep concerns about this action

Wed Aug 10 22:04:57 CEST 2016

Dear Milton,

One note, two clarifications and a detailed response below.

Note: Tx you for clarifying that Rafik’s email did not concern his 
eligibility for NCSG membership or ask him to resign from NCSG. That was 
an issue of confusion, and thank you for clarifying.

Two clarifications:  a) Peter Green never asked me for help.Like others 
on the list, I am responding to Rafik's email to NCUC.  b) Of course, 
Network Solutions, Inc. and other companies wanted to join the NCUC in 
its early days. They pointed out to me that they had foundations and 
other forms of non-profit organizations, and would seek to enter NCUC if 
they could. (We were sometimes in different parts of the room :-) ). We 
wrote the rules to block this type of conduct, and we succeeded well.

Response:

Two things you point out in your response are very important: 1) that 
the issue before us is “whether Peter violates NCUC’s membership 
eligibility rules.” Agreed. And 2) that we must evaluate this issues 
based on the /current/ NCUC Bylaws. Also agreed. As you note, I did not 
play a role in the revision or expansion of the NCUC Bylaws to include 
individual members. I can only read them like everyone else.

So let’s read them together. Peter Green is listed as an Individual 
Member of the NCUC. Therefore, he is bound by Section III.H of the NCUC 
Bylaws for “Eligible Individuals.” Eligible individuals are those who 
“agree to advocate for a noncommercial public – interest position within 
the Constituency” and who fall within 1 of 3 categories. One of those 
categories is “An individuals who has registered domain name(s) for 
personal, family or noncommercial use. (I note that this section is 
written as an “Or” not an “And” – and therefore a member only has to 
match one of the three categories.)

I would respectfully submit that Peter Green HAS met his qualifications 
for membership. He is advocating for noncommercial public-interest 
positions in the NCUC, and we have seen him working on behalf of 
individuals and issues, and he has a domain name for personal, family or 
noncommercial use. He appears to meet the criteria set out by III.H.i.

Fairness

I took your email seriously, Milton, and went out to research last 
night. I checked the RySG membership Roster of the gTLD Registries 
Stakeholder Group. According to this membership roster, you are right 
that CONAC, the China Organizational Name Administration Center, is a 
member. I note that neither its Principal representative or Alternate 
representative is Peter Green. But you are correct that CONAC is a member.

Afilias is there too, and I note that our dear friend, amazing 
colleague, and Individual Member of the NCUC, Desiree Miloshevic, is a 
longtime employee of Afilias.

As I shared in my earlier email, New gTLDs create a new set of 
questions, concerns, issues and overlaps. I understand that NCUC EC is 
preparing a bylaws revision. I look forward to working with you to 
address the unique challenges of these special times!

But in the meantime, I respectfully submit that Peter has met the rules 
for Individual Membership in the NCUC.

Best regards, Kathy

On 8/9/2016 12:34 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
> Kathy,
> I think you are distracting us from the only relevant issue. The issue is whether Peter violates NCUC's membership eligibility rules. If he does - and there is little doubt about that - he should resign from the EC.
> As the EC letter made clear, we aren't criticizing his character, we are saying there is a clear conflict of interest in this case and the EC needed to act on it.
>
> Please read the responses below:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> Peter Green is a valued member of our SG who has served us well.
>> He jumped in to run for the Executive Committee, to represent the interests
>> of a huge continent too little represented in our work (Asia),
> Peter doesn’t represent the Asian continent, he represents CONAC, a Chinese government domain name registry. That is who pays his salary and sends him to ICANN meetings for the past 3-4 years. The EC has in its letter documented the extensive work he has done representing his employer in the Registry SG. Further, by running for the EC position he crowded out two other candidates from the Asia Pacific region, both of whom were associated with legitimate and eligible nonprofit organizations. He won that election by one vote, by the way.
>
>> I know the conflict provisions of the NCUC Bylaws well because, frankly,
>> I drafted them into the NCUC charter years ago.
> Kathy. WE drafted them, together. Sorry to be written out of your version of history, but that's a fact. Further, when they were modified to include individual members (you did not play a role in that process) we were careful to include the same safeguards, knowing that individual membership might also be exploited by other interest groups to invade our constituency.
>
>> What happened then is that individuals and companies,
>> including the then-giant Network Solutions, Inc., wanted to
>> join every constituency.
> Network Solutions never tried to join our constituency. Who did try to join were ccTLD registries and registrars that were organized as non-profits.
> The situation was EXACTLY the same as Peter Green's now. You had domain name industry organizations which could be fully represented in the GNSO inside their own Registry or Registrar constituency, trying to double dip by obtaining a position in our constituency. Not surprisingly, those same organizations told us that we were not eligible to join their constituency because we were not registries or registrars. Do you understand the unfair power dynamics there? We rejected it back then in 1999; the rationale is exactly the same now.
>
>> We created a rule then that you can only vote in one constituency.
> No, read the rule. It says that you cannot be a MEMBER of another constituency. It says (H.ii) "an individual internet user who is primarily concerned with the public interest aspects of domain name policy, and is not represented in ICANN through membership in another Supporting Organization or GNSO Stakeholder Group.  The idea is clear: no double-dipping in representation. It discourages attempts by other interest groups to dilute or take over ours. It is not just the voting representative.
>
>> But no one created a rule that you cannot attend the meetings of another constituency
> This is not about meeting attendance, this is about holding an elected office. Peter is welcome to continue attending our open public meetings.
>
>> Plus, the world has changed with New gTLDs:
>> ...With the introduction of the New gTLDs, with overlapping ownership of registries and
>> registrars, the following happened: registrars became registries, and registries became registrars.
>> Further, many leading members of the Commercial Stakeholder Group went from commercial
>> users to both commercial users AND registries  - such as Amazon and Google.
>> Now everything is confused and people wear many hats!
> No, everything is not confused. The principle remains the same as it was before: no double-dipping in GNSO representation. If you are working for a registry and representing registries or registrars or other commercial interests, you are not eligible be a member of the NCUC, and you certainly should not be on our Executive Committee. I am disappointed that you seem to have abandoned your commitment to the integrity of NCUC, which is one of the reasons why it has become so successful within ICANN.
>
>> His employer is indeed CONAC, which calls itself the ".ORG of China."
>> Indeed, CONAC handles the registration of thousands (tens of thousands) of
>> noncommercial groups in China at the second level in .CN.
> CONAC represents government agencies in China. It is more like .GOV than .ORG. Please don't romanticize the situation in China. CONAC is not .ORG, if you think it is I invite you to attempt to form an independent civil society organization devoted to free expression in China and then try to get a domain name from CONAC.
>
> But that doesn't really matter. Even if it was the equivalent of .ORG, despite all the support we have received from Public Interest Registry we would not allow PIR to join our constituency and elect one of its employees to our leadership position, would we? Indeed PIR has never attempted to do that. PIR has the integrity not to even attempt to do that.
>
>> Accordingly, it would have been almost impossible for Peter,
>> who speaks English as second (or maybe as a third or fourth)
>> language to understand the nuances of the standard you have held him to.
> If Peter is unable to understand our basic eligibility rules and unable to speak for himself, then I am afraid you are not making a very good case for his continuation on the Executive Committee.
> I really think it should be Peter responding to the EC's message, not you.
>
> As for this question:
>
>> Was Peter consulted in the NCUC Executive Committee review and given a chance to respond to your concerns?
> Yes, he was sent the email privately and asked to respond. Instead of responding to the EC he privately went to his patrons/backers (like you) who then made an issue of the procedure used rather than his eligibility. This shell game continues. I would ask you to stop that game and allow Peter respond to the EC's request, on his own. Either he is ineligible or not, and resigns or not.
>
> Dr. Milton L. Mueller
> Professor, School of Public Policy
> Georgia Institute of Technology
>
>
>
>
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