By now I'm sure most of you are aware of the maxi-controversy regarding the proposed sale of PIR, the registry for dot-org, its proposed change from a nonprofit to a for-profit, and the resulting (and nearly universal condemnation) of the transaction by ISOC Chapters, the EFF, charities and nonprofits around the world... ... and now, the Attorney-General of the US State of California (AG). I am not here to re-debate the substance of the opposition, which at this point is well known. What has now changed the debate is the recent intervention of the AG, which has come down forcefully on demanding that ICANN reject the sale (in part referencing ALAC advice to do so). We now have a situation in which the ICANN Board may make a decision, not on the merits of the case, but based on its own instinct for self-preservation. While it was generally thought that ICANN would rubber-stamp the Ethos sale and weather the negative PR the way it has done with so many decisions in the past, this time it it different. ICANN may well throw Ethos under the bus, not for any public-service rationale but just in order to save itself. In a recent opinion piece in CircleID <http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200427-icann-attorney-generals-ends-means-an...>, CPWG Co-Chair Jonathan Zuck has expressed concern for these events and fear-mongers over "what next". *"Today, it's the .ORG sale. Tomorrow it could assert itself into ICANN's
privacy policies or compel changes to Internet standards that may unwittingly help foreign governments, including China."*
[Personal aside: Really, Jonathan? "*Including China*"? You really had to play THAT card? Just ... wow. Such pandering immediately suggests that a really weak argument is on its way. ] I for one am delighted to see the AG taking an active role, that finally SOMEONE is being proactive in upholding the public interest and providing some form of actual accountability. ICANN's Orwellian-named "empowered community" is finally held up as the *utter sham* that it is in its failure to protect the public interest or indeed any view from outside the bubble. ICANN hasn't really served the public interest since I've been involved with it, and that now goes back at least a dozen years. Is nobody else amused that the AG has explicitly quoted ALAC advice in its one position statement more than ICANN Board decisions have in the whole history of At-Large? In cutting ties with the US government and replacing it with stunningly bureaucratic "accountability" to its own internal community, ICANN significantly REDUCED its commitment to the public interest. Instead it doubled down on being driven by its insiders, technocrats and industry elites. But although it severed nearly all ties with governments (save for the GAC which is fragmented and powerless), this one thin but crucial tether remains -- ICANN's registration as a California nonprofit. At the time of its accountability-reducing "transition", ICANN had the choice to re-incorporate as an international NGO in a neutral country. Or it could have undertaken the harder but more-stable approach of a treaty-based organization. But it chose to remain a California corporation for reasons that have served it well .... until now. By ignoring all the protests against the Ethos sale and seeming intent to ratify it, ICANN woke its only real overseer, and its life may never be the same. Jonathan laments that this "opens a door where ICANN could succumb to pressure to revise its privacy policies for registrars and registries to comply with California law — or face scrutiny over its nonprofit status." To which I say -- as a non-American outside of the ICANN insider bubble -- it's *about damned time*. ICANN has had many opportunities over the years to pay more attention to its internal public-interest communities such as ALAC and NCUC and even GAC, and now it's paying the price for distracting us and over-processing us and under-resourcing us and ignoring us (and literally laughing at us, based on my experiences serving within ALAC leadership). Not only ICANN future decisions, but also past bad ones, may finally get the public-interest scrutiny denied for so long. It more than makes up for the second Board seat that ICANN didn't think the public deserved. ICANN is at a point of reckoning. It can clean up its act and take the public interest seriously internally, or expect more such *necessary* interventions in the future. Or it can whine at the nasty California interventions while the world outside the ICANN bubble cheers. Or maybe it can re-incorporate in Delaware. That would really piss off China which is what we ultimately want, right? This has been a long time coming, and I'm happy to have been around for it. The whole effort may yet fizzle, but it's welcome and a little gratifying to see a little squirming from those who have ignored us for so long. -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56