Thank you Alan,
We mainly agree and I understand that the grant decision process will be "outside of ICANN" in the sense that in either A or C there will be no scope for interventions by any element of the ICANN community. I have suggested (just now in response to comments by Marilyn Cade) that a timeline be set for a review of lessons learned, and in the mean time if there are any subsequent auction proceeds, they be held back until after that review.
My one differing view is the hope that under Option C ICANN look to the existing not-for-profit granting organizations and seek a contractual collaboration for going forward, and that it not try to set up a brand new entity. The ICANN community has already worries about challenges of ramping up, then ramping down, a unit within ICANN. The challenges of recruiting proper expertise for a completely new entity with a finite life are equally challenging. Start up costs, in money and time, would be considerable, and recruiting proper personnel would be a challenge.
One strength we have within ICANN is that, even taking the private interests of some stakeholder groups into account, we tend to reach consensus and try to make the best of the policy decisions we decide on. :-) Maybe ICANN has a future, with a new line of business, consulting with national governments to help them move beyond confrontation and stalemate to consensus and some degree of actually policy making. :-)
Sam
On 7/29/2019 11:10 PM, Alan Greenberg wrote:
Sam, a few corrections.
You say:
Lastly, in addition to the issue of required independence and Option A, there is the challenge of amassing the appropriate expertise to properly and efficiently administer the granting process within a unit of ICANN itself. One has to weigh those costs against Option C, where for a management fee the administrative process is transferred to a competent entity.
The difference between A and C is that in A, the entity administering the entire project is within ICANN (subject to what it might choose to outsource) and in C, it is in a brand new entity that we will create - no existing expertise.
In both A and B, the actual application analysis and grant decision will be outside of ICANN.
Although in theory there might be future auction proceeds, one of the premises of our entire work is that this is a one-time bonanza that will not be rrepeated and we should expect the funds to be used up in some (finite) time.
Alan