While staff can't be reporting to the community,  they can certainly be accountable to the community -- directly or indirectly. A 360 degree review of staff (especially community-facing or -visible staff) including the staff in that circumference wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

Geg

On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 1:49 AM, Jordan Carter <jordan@internetnz.net.nz> wrote:

hi all,

On 3 March 2015 at 14:31, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

While I agree on the monopolistic analysis, I will just like to note that ICANN is not the only organisation in such situation; RIRs for instance is another example and they are ran by board.

The RIRs are membership organisations. Their boards are elected by their members and the members essentially own the organisations - and so there is a powerful direct accountability mechanism already in place to deal with problems - a mechanism that ICANN lacks. 

I think it will be dangerous OR at least not advisable to subject staff to direct accountability to the community. The best that could be done is to get the board to do it's job and I think the ultimate ability to remove a board member would be enough incentive for any board to deliver on it's mandate.

I agree we can't have staff reporting to the community, but do think Jeff's posts give us food for thought.

Jordan

 

Regards
sent from Google nexus 4
kindly excuse brevity and typos.

On 3 Mar 2015 05:30, "Jeff Neuman" <jeff.neuman@comlaude.com> wrote:

In a non-monopolistic environment, I would completely agree that a corporation’s board (whether for profit or not for profit) would adequately address the situation, since customers (in the case of for-profit) or members (in the case of non-profit) would either cease purchasing the company’s products/services or cancel membership in a non-profit organization (as examples).  For example, if I am not happy with a company that has proven it cannot keep my information confidential, I can simply take my shopping elsewhere.  If I am not happy with a non-profit because it is not serving my needs, I can go to other non-profits (or even form my own).

 

But here, in the monopolistic environment where contracted parties have no choice but to deal with ICANN, leaving these types of issues to the Board without other meaningful redress is not enough accountability.  After all, it is not as if the contracted parties could go elsewhere if dissatisfied with the operations of ICANN (or in this case the lack of security measures to protect information).  Thus, we have a true accountability problem.

 

To summarize, in a monopolistic environment where demand for services are inelastic, relying on a board to hold staff accountable for these types of failures in my opinion is not enough.  Without the potential for losing customers or community participation because of such failures, there is little incentive for the board to act.

 

These are just my personal opinions.

 

 

 

Jeffrey J. Neuman

Senior Vice President |Valideus USA | Com Laude USA

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From: Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz]
Sent: Monday, March 2, 2015 8:33 PM
To: Jeff Neuman
Cc: accountability-cross-community@icann.org
Subject: Re: [CCWG-ACCT] Other forms of Accountability?

 

Thanks Jeff for sharing this. I think the practical work going on in the Working Parties is dealing with many broader items than just the ICANN Board.

 

Your example posits an interesting question: is "accountability" focused on the governance level, or on operations?

 

That is, is a staff level execution failure something the community or customers has accountability tools to deal with, beyond ensuring the Board holds CE to account?

 

One way of looking at this example is that it's up to the Board to hold its Chief Executive responsible for delivering secure services and that that's where it lies. If the Board fails to do so, some of the mechanisms under debate would help deal with that. Review and redress options would also provide some relief to those damaged.

 

Thoughts?

 

Jordan

 

On 3 March 2015 at 07:01, Jeff Neuman <jeff.neuman@comlaude.com> wrote:

Removing Board Directors, while taking up most of the discussion for the last few weeks does not address most of the accountability issues we have with ICANN. 

Not sure if you saw this article:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/02/icann_suffers_another_security_breach/

 

Which accountability measures do we have to safeguard us from this?

Thanks.

 

Jeffrey J. Neuman

Senior Vice President |Valideus USA | Com Laude USA

1751 Pinnacle Drive, Suite 600

Mclean, VA 22102, United States

E: jeff.neuman@valideus.com or jeff.neuman@comlaude.com

T: +1.703.635.7514

M: +1.202.549.5079

@Jintlaw

 

 

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