[NCUC-DISCUSS] Reuters reports new cooperative formed to take over management of .ORG

Mon Jan 20 19:14:56 CET 2020

And that’s is my question, in that agreement, do they have the right to do what they are doing? Can they sell PIR? Because regardless of justice and ethics, we need to win this fight in reality, and if this goes to court, the agreement will be the law, and we would have to prove a lot of bad faith allegations to sustain that the renewal was not valid, that was done under false expectations created solely by ISOC, or that Ethos, in any and all scenarios, will never be a reasonable fit to manage .org. Is not an easy trial to win, I think we would lose it. And I am willing to say ICANN legal, ISOC and Ethos lawyers see it that way too. 

So, unless we can oppose with success, we need to know what are the rules that our conflict will be ruled by. As I see, or best shot is to use the leverage we have to “reasonable oppose” to ask for modification in the agreement with ethos, so we make sure .org stays for the community. In the end, I don’t see ICAN legal going to court against ISOC, Ethos and PIR in a million dollar conflict, jeopardising the .org stability and the ripples it would cause.

So is not that I want Ethos to succeed, I want us to succeed, and we can only do that using actual possibilities ahead of us. Let’s navigate that. What is our real scenario of possibilities here? As far as I see, but I can always be convinced otherwise, ICANN will not, and legally cannot, just oppose forever to ISOC transferring the operation to a third party without clear, fact based reasonable concerns (concerns that PIR can address and solve, and that would unlock our opposition). And that is the question a Judge will do, what is reasonable ? That’s all our leverage. That's where we have room to put more provisions in the agreement so that Ethos or anyone else coming in the future do good to .org community.

If we are going to re open .org and terminate ISOC, then we should do an open round, no hand picking. And we should put all our concerns in the agreement. 

Martín

> On 20 Jan 2020, at 14:16, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at DNRC.TECH> wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> I'm a little shocked by the discussion. ISOC took on .ORG 15 years ago with obligations of stewardship to the .ORG community. We remember those obligations. When I worked at PIR, in 2010+, I lived and breathed those obligations. We worked and cared about the .ORG community. It was part of the fabric of ISOC (then located down the hall) that we build and foster the .ORG community.
> 
> ICANN has decided -- without public input or agreement and without Multistakeholder processes -- that New gTLDs can do anything to compete against legacy gTLDs, including that they can buy and sell intellectual property protections and content censorship that we never agreed to as a Community. Registries can raise and lower prices; they can take down domain names at will; frankly, new gTLDs can abuse their registrants.
> 
> Which is why most registrants stay in the legacy gTLDs, .com, .org, and .net.  Because Verisign has an ongoing obligations - via the US Government - to fair pricing and content neutrality. ISOC, via .ORG, has stewardship obligations to care for and foster the .ORG community and noncommercial, nonprofits, and NGOs around the world (as well as educational, research and hobby groups).  The founding documents of ICANN are very clear that the Internet is not private property, but valued and shared resources, particularly the DNS.
> 
> A few things to remember:
> **We** (ICANN Community) did not agree to the massive changes to the .ORG contract that took place over the summer. That was ICANN Org's drafting and ICANN Org's decision to weigh the comment of the IPC (Intellectual Property Constituency) in favor of the changes **against 3200 comment opposing the changes.** There was no Multistakeholder agreement here.
> 
> **We** (.ORG Community) did not know about or agree to the sale of .ORG on terms that ensure absolutely no protection for the .ORG registrants (the community our NCUC constituency represents).  If you want to see how bad policies will significantly damage the traditional .ORG community, please read the very eloquent concerns that EFF is writing.  NOTE: not a single public process/comment has taken place on this sale.  GAC has taken the lead in asking for public processes -- NCUC should be asking for public processes too! 
> 
> ---------------
> 
> The Internet was always a shared system -- like the airwaves.  If you license a radio station almost this work -- because the rules we wrote protected communities we cared about and a broad array of speech. Ditto for telephone systems.  Ditto for the global Domain Name System. It's why many of us have devoted so many years to trying to write good, fair and balanced policies for the DNS.  
> 
> Now, increasingly, ICANN Org has no use for registrants or the Multistakeholder Model. Staff re-writes any consensus policy they want; Staff writes contract allowing content control (censorship) beyond the scope and limits of ICANN's own Bylaws. Our obsession for years at ICANN has been the rights of registries -- and we have forgotten about Registrants.  
> 
> But we're the NCUC and it is our job to remind ICANN that that promises, protections, and good stewardship were obligations made by ISOC when it took on .ORG.  Andrew Sullivan and Vint Cerf may no longer consider DNS "cool," but the Public Interest Registry which runs .ORG is a legal "child corporation" of ISOC, both are non-profits and both made obligations to .ORG registrants -- our NCUC members (and the larger community we represent of .ORG registrants).
> 
> Milton may have a personal vendetta with Esther Dyson, but that's beside the point:  WikiMedia gets more hits daily than almost any other .ORG domai name; it has every right (indeed the obligation) to protect the massive amount of information it supports -- the treasure trove of research, facts and analysis written by the public. WikiMedia is also a founding member of CCOR.  And let's not forget the diversity of groups that flock to .ORG as registrants-- including noncommercial, research, educational, personal, political, religious, ethnic, gender (how many hundreds of times have we in NCUC, NPOC and NCSG written these words?).  They all deserve the protection that we, NCUC, have fought for on their behalf for two decades. 
> 
> Having worked at .ORG, under ISOC, I believe ISOC's obligations and commitments of stewardship for .ORG are binding. For the lawyers on the list, please remember the enforcement mechanisms that exist for contracts and representations. We all relied on them in building our treasured web presences under our .ORG domain names. 
> 
> If ISOC is ready to relinquish an asset for which it paid not a single cent, I think there should be an opportunity for organizations to step forward who will honor the obligations of ISOC to .ORG and protect the .ORG community.  CCOR is starting that discussion and that is a good thing! 
> 
> 
> Best, Kathy
> 
> Kathy Kleiman, AU WCL, Former Director of Policy for .ORG, co-founder NCUC.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/20/2020 11:08 AM, Martin Pablo Silva Valent wrote:
>> “What matters is the Registry Agreement, as I've said all along. “ Exactly, I don’t know why we go around the bush. This agreement gives PIR and ICANN right and obligation. Unless we wanna breach it, and pay the consequences, which no one wants to, we have to play by the rules we wrote as an organisation. Let’s talk that, let’s talk how we are gonna play that chess, because there is no other, any debate outside it is irrelevant and distractive.
>> 
>> On the other hand, I agree that CCOR in no way gives me any trust or insurance, much less ICANN hand picking registrars. Our insurance, our warrants, is the Agreement. If we want a different .org operation we don’t need to look further than the agreement we own, and that in later renewals we can change, we can negotiate to change it with the current holders, etc.
>> 
>> Let’s talk about the agreement, how we can use it, and what channels do we have to work it. Don’t loose the focus.
>> 
>> Martín
>> 
>> 
>>> On 13 Jan 2020, at 17:33, Mueller, Milton L <milton at GATECH.EDU <mailto:milton at GATECH.EDU>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Alan
>>> 
>>> In your discussion of At Large elections, you fail to note that Mike Roberts, Esther Dyson, Andrew McLaughlin and the entire initial board and legal staff of ICANN were adamantly opposed to having elections and membership at all. Not opinion, fact. They delayed the elections as much as they could. And when we had them, elections were limited them to 5 board seats instead of the entire board. And then after the members elected dissidents to the board that the staff and board didn't like, they abolished them and created the current dysfunctional RALO/ALAC structure. 
>>> 
>>> So you seem to have a rather distorted perspective on ICANN's early history and the role of these characters in it. No one in the early days of NCUC/NCSG viewed Dyson or Roberts as friendly and supportive of our community.
>>> 
>>> As for the claim that CCOR is "way better" than Ethos/PIR, three responses. First, there is no indication that ICANN is in any position to simply re-bid the entire ORG delegation to anyone who pops up, and if it does rebid it should be via an open call, not an insider deal such as is proposed by CCOR. Second, CCOR would have a lot more credibility with the community if it was not based on a cabal of old ICANN insiders. I mean Esther Dyson? Really? Third, as a cooperative they claim that ORG would be run by its "members" by which they mean ORG registrants. Since the _majority_ of ORG registrants could very well be defensive registrations and domainers, it is not clear to me that this is a win for us. 
>>> 
>>> As for Wikimedia, they are the lipstick on the pig. Nice people, great mission, but CCOR is just another claimant for a $1,135 billion asset, no different in principle from ISOC or Ethos. Whatever they are proposing is nothing more than a promise at this point, just like Ethos. What matters is the Registry Agreement, as I've said all along. 
>>> 
>>> MM
>>> From: Alan Levin <alan at afridns.org <mailto:alan at afridns.org>>
>>> Sent: Monday, January 13, 2020 3:33 AM
>>> To: Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu <mailto:milton at gatech.edu>>
>>> Cc: Wisdom Donkor <wisdom.dk at gmail.com <mailto:wisdom.dk at gmail.com>>; NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>>
>>> Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Reuters reports new cooperative formed to take over management of .ORG
>>>  
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> Milton, I am surprised by this.... it's pure opinion, and I must point it out to others... :(  comments inline... 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 7:41 PM Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu <mailto:milton at gatech.edu>> wrote:
>>> Oh, this is such hypocrisy. So Andrew McLaughlin, Mike Roberts and Esther Dyson (who totally dissed the noncommercial constituency when they held positions of power in ICANN are now coming to the rescue of the noncommercial community by altruistically offering to take over an asset worth $1 billion.
>>> 
>>> Well actually at that time there was a MUCH stronger focus on At Large and we had a global election! Things were way better from the point of end users, we even had an accountable diverse board.  Some 20 years down the line there are still major issues here... 
>>> 
>>>  Those people are _not_ our friends.
>>> 
>>> Well, speak for yourself.  As far as I can see they are way better than the organisational ISOC/Ethos deal, from the .org perspective. 
>>> 
>>> This is an example of why we need to be careful how we react to this proposed sale. This is just turning into a land grab, by which certain interests (e.g. Wikimedia Foundation) are seeking to exploit the controversy to take over ORG for themselves.
>>> 
>>> So are you also pointing to the wikimedia foundation as exploitative?? 
>>> 
>>> I have been involved passionately in ISOC for 25 years... after Salt Lake City it was never the same. The Internet Society of South Africa had to split and create Internet South Africa. ISOC has institutional control and is in the Ethos deal. 
>>> 
>>> Sincerely
>>> 
>>> Alan
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  From: Ncuc-discuss <ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org <mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org>> On Behalf Of Wisdom Donkor
>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 8, 2020 5:28 AM
>>> To: NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>>
>>> Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Reuters reports new cooperative formed to take over management of .ORG
>>>  
>>> In this 7 January 2020 article <https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/reuters-america-internet-nonprofit-leaders-fight-deal-to-sell-control-of-org-domain.html?__source=sharebar%7Ctwitter&par=sharebar> we learn that, "prominent internet executives told Reuters they have created a nonprofit cooperative they are offering as an alternative owner of .org."
>>>  
>>> This would appear to me to pose an existential threat to ISOC, as this nonprofit cooperative - whose membership appears to me to have more political muscle than ISOC has - is not proposing to buy PIR from ISOC, but to instead have the .ORG Registry Agreement assigned to it by ICANN.
>>>  
>>> The full article is here, and I have extracted some relevant quotes below: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/reuters-america-internet-nonprofit-leaders-fight-deal-to-sell-control-of-org-domain.html?__source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar <https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/reuters-america-internet-nonprofit-leaders-fight-deal-to-sell-control-of-org-domain.html?__source=sharebar%7Ctwitter&par=sharebar>
>>>  
>>> “What offended me about the Ethos Capital deal and the way it unfolded is that it seems to have completely betrayed this concept of stewardship,” said Andrew McLaughlin, who oversaw the transfer of internet governance from the U.S. Commerce Department to ICANN, completed in 2016.
>>>  
>>> Maher and others said the idea of the new cooperative is not to offer a competing financial bid for .org, which brings in roughly $100 million in revenue from domain sales. Instead, they hope that the unusual new entity, formally a California Consumer Cooperative Corporation, can manage the domain for security and stability and make sure it does not become a tool for censorship.
>>>  
>>> ... The initial seven directors of the cooperative include former founding ICANN President Michael Roberts, MacArthur Foundation philanthropist Jeff Ubois and Bill Woodcock, whose Packet Clearing House now runs the technical aspects of the .org system under contract.
>>>  
>>> The new group has briefed members of the U.S. Congress and hopes to prompt the Internet Society to reconsider the sale. But its best shot at stopping the pending sale lies with ICANN, which can veto any change in ownership out of concern for the security, reliability or stability of the .org domain.
>>>  
>>> Best wishes,
>>>  
>>> WISDOM DONKOR
>>> President & CEO
>>> Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation
>>> P.O. Box CT 2439, Cantonments, Accra | www.aodirf.org <http://www.aodirf.org/>  / www.afrigeocon.org <http://www.afrigeocon.org/> 
>>> Tel: +233 20 812 8851
>>> Skype: wisdom_dk | Facebook: kwasi wisdom |  Twitter: @wisdom_dk 
>>> __________________________________________________
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>>> E-government Network Infrastructure and E-application, Internet Governance,  Open Data policies platforms & Community Development, Cyber Security,  Domain Name Systems, Software Engineering, Event Planning & Management, 
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>> 
>> 
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> -- 
> Kathy Kleiman
> President, Domain Name Rights Coalition
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