Interesting indeed. I would stress, however, that it might have much to do with our brand (as the sympathetic voice of end users) as it did with our content. Persistence of Perspective! From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Maureen Hilyard <maureen.hilyard@gmail.com> Date: Friday, April 17, 2020 at 10:53 PM To: Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com> Cc: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> Subject: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR Interesting that it was our almost two pages of practical advice from the ALAC that gained the attention of the AG to use as a lash on ICANN than the letters to the Board from the ASO and NCSG. M On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 4:43 PM Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com<mailto:devtee@gmail.com>> wrote: Indeed, interesting and noteworthy to point out that ALAC statements do have impact. Its a pity because the PDF of the ALAC statement is on the wiki, the link is https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC... Dev Anand On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 9:44 PM Marita Moll <mmoll@ca.inter.net<mailto:mmoll@ca.inter.net>> wrote: Wow, quite a slap down by the AG of California. ALAC advice re: this issue referenced as reasons for concern. Marita _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

Well said Jonathan!   Have a nice day! Best, M.   _________________________ Ing. Mag. Matthias M. Hudobnik HYPERLINK "mailto:matthias@hudobnik.at"matthias@hudobnik.at HYPERLINK "http://www.hudobnik.at/"http://www.hudobnik.at   Von: CPWG [mailto:cpwg-bounces@icann.org] Im Auftrag von Jonathan Zuck Gesendet: Samstag, 18. April 2020 09:49 An: Maureen Hilyard; Dev Anand Teelucksingh Cc: CPWG Betreff: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR   Interesting indeed.  I would stress, however, that it might have much to do with our brand (as the sympathetic voice of end users) as it did with our content. Persistence of Perspective!   From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Maureen Hilyard <maureen.hilyard@gmail.com> Date: Friday, April 17, 2020 at 10:53 PM To: Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com> Cc: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> Subject: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR   Interesting that it was our almost two pages of practical advice from the ALAC that gained the attention of the AG to use as a lash on ICANN than the letters to the Board from the ASO and NCSG.   M   On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 4:43 PM Dev Anand Teelucksingh <HYPERLINK "mailto:devtee@gmail.com"devtee@gmail.com> wrote: Indeed, interesting and noteworthy to point out that ALAC statements do have impact. Its a pity because the PDF of the ALAC statement is on the wiki, the link is https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC...   Dev Anand             On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 9:44 PM Marita Moll <HYPERLINK "mailto:mmoll@ca.inter.net"mmoll@ca.inter.net> wrote: Wow, quite a slap down by the AG of California.  ALAC advice re: this issue referenced as reasons for concern. Marita _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list HYPERLINK "mailto:CPWG@icann.org"CPWG@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list HYPERLINK "mailto:CPWG@icann.org"CPWG@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

Is there actually "mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders" outside those who orchestrated the campaign to pump those 3000 (largely duplicative, uninformed and non-substantive) comments into the public comment system when the .org agreement was up for renewal? I have not seen evidence of that. Indeed, I would say that ICANN Org and Board are largely more responsive to the needs of stakeholders now than they have been at many times since I've been involved in ICANN matters. Of course, the very idea that "the needs of stakeholders" are aligned in a single viewpoint or set of needs is false much more often than not. In many cases, the needs of some stakeholders may even be diametrically opposed to those of others. In this case, neither the needs or the views of stakeholders were monolithic or even meaningfully aligned. I expect that Becerra's views were greatly influenced by the same folks who brought you that blizzard of cut-and-paste comments. There are many ways in which the AG's letter is not particularly well-informed. However, that's not necessarily Becerra's fault, Regrettably, I would lay the blame for that largely at the feet of Ethos and, to a lesser extent, PIR and ISOC and their respective Boards. It is clear from Becerra's letter that he felt that the charges raised by certain opponents of the sale were not rebutted, and that requests for information, for clarity and for explanations were largely unsatisfied. In the absence of robust explanations, counter-argument and data, and transparency into Ethos, its plans, its financial plan, and its methods for moving forward post-closing, etc., etc., etc., the AG probably felt he had to go with what he had -- particularly given the timing of the ICANN Board vote. Ethos and its advisors grossly underestimated the strength and persuasiveness of the opposition, in part because they failed to understand the larger ICANN ecosystem and they varying concerns of stakeholders. Instead of transparency, Ethos (and PIR and ISOC) responded with highly-couched, mealy-mouthed, heavily-vetted, corporate-speak -- and with plans that seemed more committed to maintaining Ethos's flexibility than to meeting the concerns that had been raised. In the end, they never quieted the concerns of skeptics -- or of the ICANN Board. They may have thought that this battle was a sideshow, and that they could essentially step over these concerns on the way to closing the deal. Instead, this battle took the deal down. Ethos, ISOC and PIR were never going to convince the hard-core opponents that this was a good deal. But that's really beside the point. Rather, it was the failure to win over (or at least move over) the skeptics -- including At-Large, the ISOC Chapter Advisory Committee and, apparently, the ICANN Board -- that sunk the deal. There were fundamental concerns raised by the transaction and maybe some concerns never would have been dispelled. But other concerns (e.g., how "PIR LLC" and Ethos would have serviced the debt, how Ethos was structured, whether Ethos's lack of experience as a registry operator was important given that PIR was continuing in that role, etc.) could have and should have been responded to and dealt with much more definitively. Ethos, in many ways, stuck to the M&A playbook in trying to get the deal done. But it was the wrong playbook, or at least, the wrong chapter. Perhaps the chapter devoted to getting a deal approved by the antitrust regulators (FTC and DOJ) would have been better inspiration -- both in dealing with ICANN and in dealing with the issues raised by opponents. Instead, they seemed to be reading from the chapter about how to deal with disgruntled minority shareholders -- even (to a great extent) in their dealings with ICANN. Of course, the efforts of Ethos et al. weren't all bad -- but the result will tell you how good they were. Perhaps we'll never know whether and how Becerra's letter influenced the ICANN Board. It's possible it even made ICANN's job harder, because it would look like ICANN was bending to political pressure if they came to the same conclusions -- even if the Becerra letter was irrelevant to that process (and given its timing, it probably was). The "optics" would have been better if ICANN came to the conclusion free from the appearance of political/governmental pressure. But that's not the reality of the situation. Coming back to the question I raised at the beginning -- no, I don't think there is mounting concern among most ICANN stakeholders that ICANN Board and Org are no longer responsive to the needs of stakeholders. On the primary point of evidence -- those 3000 comments -- I think many ICANN stakeholders thought ICANN did the right thing in heavily discounting their influence. I think it's a leap to say that this set of circumstances supports an "I told you so" moment or exposes a need to critique the At-Large consensus process (though we should of course always be critiquing our processes). I don't believe the issue during our discussions was whether the "dissent voices" had merit or not. Rather the question, within At Large, was whether these viewpoints met the burden of persuasion such that they gained sufficient traction to move the consensus view, and they did not (which is not the same as being "dismissed"). It's arguable (at best) that the Becerra letter more resembled the dissent than the ALAC view. Of course, if this is not the case, the argument fails at the gate. Even if the Becerra letter is closer to the dissent, this is largely because these views had their origins in many of the same sources. I would not take the Becerra letter as validation of these views; rather, I would take the divergence as an indication that At-Large engaged in a better-informed and more nuanced review of these views than the AG did. Again, this is not Becerra's fault; I doubt he had much (if any) independent knowledge of ICANN, ISOC, .org, etc. -- much less the collective decades (even centuries) of experience represented in this group. In the end, I believe the deal failed for reasons more closely aligned with the ALAC statement than the more strained aspects of the Becerra letter. Where both align is in the failure of those involved in the transaction to dispel the numerous continuing concerns about the deal. In other words, the parties to the deal also failed to meet the burden of persuasion, the skeptics remained skeptical and the deal died due to lack of support. Put another way, the skeptics and the opponents within At-Large (and elsewhere) ended up on the same side of the result -- even if not for exactly the same reasons. Best regards, Greg On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 3:35 PM David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com> wrote:

It's hard to see the words "There is mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders." as being positive for ICANN without thoughtful reflection.

It also seems that the position of the California Attorney General aligns better with the dissent voiced in the At-Large CPWG email thread discussions, rather than the advice that was eventually given to the board.

The final .ORG decision may over, but I hope there's opportunity for a discussion on how to improve the At-Large consensus process.

It appears the dissent voices raised in this email group did, in fact, have merit and were not easily dismissed outside the At-Large community as being merely "passionate".

It might be a good idea to see how we as a community can better encapsulate dissent and non-consensus into our process.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 8:45 AM Matthias M. Hudobnik <matthias@hudobnik.at> wrote:

...

Well said Jonathan!

Have a nice day!

Best,

M.

_________________________

Ing. Mag. Matthias M. Hudobnik

matthias@hudobnik.at

http://www.hudobnik.at

*Von:* CPWG [mailto:cpwg-bounces@icann.org] *Im Auftrag von *Jonathan Zuck *Gesendet:* Samstag, 18. April 2020 09:49 *An:* Maureen Hilyard; Dev Anand Teelucksingh *Cc:* CPWG *Betreff:* Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR

Interesting indeed. I would stress, however, that it might have much to do with our brand (as the sympathetic voice of end users) as it did with our content. Persistence of Perspective!

*From: *CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Maureen Hilyard < maureen.hilyard@gmail.com> *Date: *Friday, April 17, 2020 at 10:53 PM *To: *Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com> *Cc: *CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> *Subject: *Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR

Interesting that it was our almost two pages of practical advice from the ALAC that gained the attention of the AG to use as a lash on ICANN than the letters to the Board from the ASO and NCSG.

M

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 4:43 PM Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com> wrote:

Indeed, interesting and noteworthy to point out that ALAC statements do have impact.

Its a pity because the PDF of the ALAC statement is on the wiki, the link is

https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC...

Dev Anand

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 9:44 PM Marita Moll <mmoll@ca.inter.net> wrote:

Wow, quite a slap down by the AG of California. ALAC advice re: this issue referenced as reasons for concern.

Marita

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I mostly agree with Greg here - since younger age I have learned never to argue strongly with people with a bigger horn :-). However, I have a couple of comments. First of all - and maybe I have to admit that I might be biased - I am puzzled by the approach of putting Ethos, PIR and ISOC in the same basket. Ethos and ISOC had both the interest in the transaction - for reasons that we have discussed at length - and the full power to conduct it, regardless what PIR could or would do. Anybody who has witnessed those change of hands of a subsidiary would understand what I am talking about. Moreover, unless things in PIR (the company) have dramatically changed since I left less than a year ago, staff was by and large very proud of working for something that they felt as the public good, serving the non profits worldwide, being part of a community, and even happy that the profits were given to ISOC - although the disillusion about ISOC’s behaviour might have changed this bit for them as well. I am sure that everybody understands that you can quickly change a lot of things in a company, but not its culture - this requires years and thorough work. Why am I saying this? Simply because the direct responsibility of the management of .org still stays with PIR and this is the part of the whole picture that we, as Internet user community, should concentrate on. And it does not help to mix the roles and responsibilities in this affaire. A second comment is about the difference between ALAC’s position and the CA-AG. The first thing that strikes me is that while ALAC reaches its position bringing together views of the whole user community worldwide the CA-AG only cares about California - or maybe the US. Is there anybody that can claim in good faith that the CA-AG will consider opinions, positions, needs, and what else, of the population outside the US unless, of course, it could serve the domestic interest? I do not mean to be polemic, I find that this is absolutely the way it is supposed to be, it would be the same for any country, when people take office they have to be loyal and serve the interest of their country. If that matches the rest of the world, so much the better, if it does not, too bad. On the wider issue, that is whether ICANN is doing its job, whether the multi-stakeholder model works or not, we have discussed this so many times that I am actually tired of repeating the same things time and again - so I would prefer to concentrate on the two points above. Cheers, Roberto On 04.05.2020, at 06:08, Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org<mailto:greg@isoc-ny.org>> wrote: Is there actually "mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders" outside those who orchestrated the campaign to pump those 3000 (largely duplicative, uninformed and non-substantive) comments into the public comment system when the .org agreement was up for renewal? I have not seen evidence of that. Indeed, I would say that ICANN Org and Board are largely more responsive to the needs of stakeholders now than they have been at many times since I've been involved in ICANN matters. Of course, the very idea that "the needs of stakeholders" are aligned in a single viewpoint or set of needs is false much more often than not. In many cases, the needs of some stakeholders may even be diametrically opposed to those of others. In this case, neither the needs or the views of stakeholders were monolithic or even meaningfully aligned. I expect that Becerra's views were greatly influenced by the same folks who brought you that blizzard of cut-and-paste comments. There are many ways in which the AG's letter is not particularly well-informed. However, that's not necessarily Becerra's fault, Regrettably, I would lay the blame for that largely at the feet of Ethos and, to a lesser extent, PIR and ISOC and their respective Boards. It is clear from Becerra's letter that he felt that the charges raised by certain opponents of the sale were not rebutted, and that requests for information, for clarity and for explanations were largely unsatisfied. In the absence of robust explanations, counter-argument and data, and transparency into Ethos, its plans, its financial plan, and its methods for moving forward post-closing, etc., etc., etc., the AG probably felt he had to go with what he had -- particularly given the timing of the ICANN Board vote. Ethos and its advisors grossly underestimated the strength and persuasiveness of the opposition, in part because they failed to understand the larger ICANN ecosystem and they varying concerns of stakeholders. Instead of transparency, Ethos (and PIR and ISOC) responded with highly-couched, mealy-mouthed, heavily-vetted, corporate-speak -- and with plans that seemed more committed to maintaining Ethos's flexibility than to meeting the concerns that had been raised. In the end, they never quieted the concerns of skeptics -- or of the ICANN Board. They may have thought that this battle was a sideshow, and that they could essentially step over these concerns on the way to closing the deal. Instead, this battle took the deal down. Ethos, ISOC and PIR were never going to convince the hard-core opponents that this was a good deal. But that's really beside the point. Rather, it was the failure to win over (or at least move over) the skeptics -- including At-Large, the ISOC Chapter Advisory Committee and, apparently, the ICANN Board -- that sunk the deal. There were fundamental concerns raised by the transaction and maybe some concerns never would have been dispelled. But other concerns (e.g., how "PIR LLC" and Ethos would have serviced the debt, how Ethos was structured, whether Ethos's lack of experience as a registry operator was important given that PIR was continuing in that role, etc.) could have and should have been responded to and dealt with much more definitively. Ethos, in many ways, stuck to the M&A playbook in trying to get the deal done. But it was the wrong playbook, or at least, the wrong chapter. Perhaps the chapter devoted to getting a deal approved by the antitrust regulators (FTC and DOJ) would have been better inspiration -- both in dealing with ICANN and in dealing with the issues raised by opponents. Instead, they seemed to be reading from the chapter about how to deal with disgruntled minority shareholders -- even (to a great extent) in their dealings with ICANN. Of course, the efforts of Ethos et al. weren't all bad -- but the result will tell you how good they were. Perhaps we'll never know whether and how Becerra's letter influenced the ICANN Board. It's possible it even made ICANN's job harder, because it would look like ICANN was bending to political pressure if they came to the same conclusions -- even if the Becerra letter was irrelevant to that process (and given its timing, it probably was). The "optics" would have been better if ICANN came to the conclusion free from the appearance of political/governmental pressure. But that's not the reality of the situation. Coming back to the question I raised at the beginning -- no, I don't think there is mounting concern among most ICANN stakeholders that ICANN Board and Org are no longer responsive to the needs of stakeholders. On the primary point of evidence -- those 3000 comments -- I think many ICANN stakeholders thought ICANN did the right thing in heavily discounting their influence. I think it's a leap to say that this set of circumstances supports an "I told you so" moment or exposes a need to critique the At-Large consensus process (though we should of course always be critiquing our processes). I don't believe the issue during our discussions was whether the "dissent voices" had merit or not. Rather the question, within At Large, was whether these viewpoints met the burden of persuasion such that they gained sufficient traction to move the consensus view, and they did not (which is not the same as being "dismissed"). It's arguable (at best) that the Becerra letter more resembled the dissent than the ALAC view. Of course, if this is not the case, the argument fails at the gate. Even if the Becerra letter is closer to the dissent, this is largely because these views had their origins in many of the same sources. I would not take the Becerra letter as validation of these views; rather, I would take the divergence as an indication that At-Large engaged in a better-informed and more nuanced review of these views than the AG did. Again, this is not Becerra's fault; I doubt he had much (if any) independent knowledge of ICANN, ISOC, .org, etc. -- much less the collective decades (even centuries) of experience represented in this group. In the end, I believe the deal failed for reasons more closely aligned with the ALAC statement than the more strained aspects of the Becerra letter. Where both align is in the failure of those involved in the transaction to dispel the numerous continuing concerns about the deal. In other words, the parties to the deal also failed to meet the burden of persuasion, the skeptics remained skeptical and the deal died due to lack of support. Put another way, the skeptics and the opponents within At-Large (and elsewhere) ended up on the same side of the result -- even if not for exactly the same reasons. Best regards, Greg On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 3:35 PM David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com<mailto:mackey361@gmail.com>> wrote: It's hard to see the words "There is mounting concern that ICANN is no longer responsive to the needs of its stakeholders." as being positive for ICANN without thoughtful reflection. It also seems that the position of the California Attorney General aligns better with the dissent voiced in the At-Large CPWG email thread discussions, rather than the advice that was eventually given to the board. The final .ORG decision may over, but I hope there's opportunity for a discussion on how to improve the At-Large consensus process. It appears the dissent voices raised in this email group did, in fact, have merit and were not easily dismissed outside the At-Large community as being merely "passionate". It might be a good idea to see how we as a community can better encapsulate dissent and non-consensus into our process. On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 8:45 AM Matthias M. Hudobnik <matthias@hudobnik.at<mailto:matthias@hudobnik.at>> wrote: Well said Jonathan! Have a nice day! Best, M. _________________________ Ing. Mag. Matthias M. Hudobnik matthias@hudobnik.at<mailto:matthias@hudobnik.at> http://www.hudobnik.at<http://www.hudobnik.at/> Von: CPWG [mailto:cpwg-bounces@icann.org<mailto:cpwg-bounces@icann.org>] Im Auftrag von Jonathan Zuck Gesendet: Samstag, 18. April 2020 09:49 An: Maureen Hilyard; Dev Anand Teelucksingh Cc: CPWG Betreff: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR Interesting indeed. I would stress, however, that it might have much to do with our brand (as the sympathetic voice of end users) as it did with our content. Persistence of Perspective! From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org<mailto:cpwg-bounces@icann.org>> on behalf of Maureen Hilyard <maureen.hilyard@gmail.com<mailto:maureen.hilyard@gmail.com>> Date: Friday, April 17, 2020 at 10:53 PM To: Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com<mailto:devtee@gmail.com>> Cc: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org<mailto:cpwg@icann.org>> Subject: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR Interesting that it was our almost two pages of practical advice from the ALAC that gained the attention of the AG to use as a lash on ICANN than the letters to the Board from the ASO and NCSG. M On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 4:43 PM Dev Anand Teelucksingh <devtee@gmail.com<mailto:devtee@gmail.com>> wrote: Indeed, interesting and noteworthy to point out that ALAC statements do have impact. Its a pity because the PDF of the ALAC statement is on the wiki, the link is https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC... Dev Anand On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 9:44 PM Marita Moll <mmoll@ca.inter.net<mailto:mmoll@ca.inter.net>> wrote: Wow, quite a slap down by the AG of California. ALAC advice re: this issue referenced as reasons for concern. Marita _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 20:39, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

Setting substance aside, the idea that the involvement of the AG is some kind of an indication that the multi-stakeholder model wasn’t working is a bit of a stretch.

That's it. I've had enough. Now it's personal. I just offered -- in far too much detail -- WHY the AG's intervention indicates a failure -- the many failures -- of ICANN to incorporate the public interest into its decision making. And it was either blown off and/or dismissed as "a stretch". Similarly, Greg dismisses the thousands of opponents of the Ethos sale as mindless, uneducated bots.* I was one of those bots.* If I didn't know you guys and like and respect you personally I would have said some very bad words by now. But having calmed down, it has become crystal clear to me you guys -- and the mindset you bring to the debate -- are Part Of The Problem. You haven't just drunk the ICANN koolaid, you've bathed in it. Loyalty to this poor mutation of multistakeholderism -- that shuts out the most important stakeholder -- prevails. And if ALAC can't be the agent of change that ICANN needs to help it understand the needs of the world outside the bubble, nobody else will, at least internally. Enter the CA AG, and soon others. I expect this level of dismissal and derision from GNSO constituencies who have always treated ALAC with the attitude of "so why are you still here?" But I don't expect it from within the only community explicitly charged with representing to ICANN those who are not part of the buyer-seller-consultant food chain. My how this place has changed from 2013. It's truly sad. Even sadder is that when the change does inevitably happen, you'll never see it coming because you were oblivious all along. At least I can say that I tried. It's telling that all the positive response I've received to my comments yesterday were not posted here. Some came by private email, and some came on social media. Are they too intimidated to speak here, or have they just given up on being able to change ICANN from within? Don't know, don't care, same result. I’ll be curious what those who were opposed to this deal do when the AG

gets involved on the other side from them in the future. When the IPC shows up and lobbies the AG to protect CA companies from GDPR , or. To get the AG involved in better copyright protection by registrars, or something similar it could get dicey. We’ll see.

Bring it on. And it will be brought on, if the wilful oblivion continues. Your ongoing fearmongering continues to not advance your case; California's approach to privacy is almost lock-step with the GDPR <https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/californias-new-privacy-law-its-almost-gdpr...>. I could easily counter-fearmonger if pressed, but it's a tactic of desperation. What I do know is that the AG *might* make bad decisions, but ICANN already *has*, so the quality of decisions can't get much worse. In any case, even should I disagree with the AG's involvement in the future, I right now have infinitely more trust in its ability to weigh various interests than I have in ICANN's. I am not alone, And without trust or treaty, what is ICANN? - Evan

I understand your response Greg, and I'm glad to know I'm not one of the bots. ;-) I'm indeed being sensitive to dismissals of the public interest in this group, and on rereading your mail see where the miscommunications happened. Agreed to wrt devolving. Looking forward to a constructive debate on how ALAC can rise to this significant task -- changing ICANN's core culture to integrate the public interest into its activities, so that others are not enticed to do the job in its absence. - Evan On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 03:55, Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org> wrote:

Evan,

Before you wrote this latest thing, I was going to respond to your response to me and say that I actually agreed with nearly everything you said in that prior response. I’ll still say that.

Rather than responding to the personal attacks here, I’ll just say that you grossly misunderstand my views if you think our views are so opposed. I’ll assume that your remarks here are are based on errors or failures to communicate.

With regard to the “bots” (your word not mine) comment that seemed to have inflamed you: I was referring specifically to the comments in opposition to the .org registry agreement that came from people sending prewritten comments through online forms or following scripts written for them by certain organizers of the opposition. You are clearly not one of those “bots,”!but that doesn’t mean these people didn’t exist or weren’t manipulated.

I never said or implied that all opponents were bots. Clearly there were rational, well-informed and thoughtful reasons to oppose this sale and to criticize the behavior of all the actors in this drama. And there were rational, well-informed and thoughtful people expressing those views. I always thought you were in this category— and I think it still, in spite of your “confession” that you were a mindless bot.

Frankly, the stupid, easily disproven, lurid and manipulative claims made by some factions made it harder to discuss the more nuanced but in many ways more fundamental problems in the deal and the process.

(Out of an excess of caution, Evan, I will explain that the “factions” referred to in the previous paragraph Absolutely and specifically does not refer to you.)

Let’s not let this devolve.

Greg

On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:08 AM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

...

On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 20:39, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

...

Setting substance aside, the idea that the involvement of the AG is some kind of an indication that the multi-stakeholder model wasn’t working is a bit of a stretch.

That's it. I've had enough. Now it's personal.

I just offered -- in far too much detail -- WHY the AG's intervention indicates a failure -- the many failures -- of ICANN to incorporate the public interest into its decision making.

And it was either blown off and/or dismissed as "a stretch".

Similarly, Greg dismisses the thousands of opponents of the Ethos sale as mindless, uneducated bots.* I was one of those bots.*

If I didn't know you guys and like and respect you personally I would have said some very bad words by now. But having calmed down, it has become crystal clear to me you guys -- and the mindset you bring to the debate -- are Part Of The Problem. You haven't just drunk the ICANN koolaid, you've bathed in it. Loyalty to this poor mutation of multistakeholderism -- that shuts out the most important stakeholder -- prevails. And if ALAC can't be the agent of change that ICANN needs to help it understand the needs of the world outside the bubble, nobody else will, at least internally. Enter the CA AG, and soon others.

I expect this level of dismissal and derision from GNSO constituencies who have always treated ALAC with the attitude of "so why are you still here?" But I don't expect it from within the only community explicitly charged with representing to ICANN those who are not part of the buyer-seller-consultant food chain. My how this place has changed from 2013. It's truly sad. Even sadder is that when the change does inevitably happen, you'll never see it coming because you were oblivious all along. At least I can say that I tried.

It's telling that all the positive response I've received to my comments yesterday were not posted here. Some came by private email, and some came on social media. Are they too intimidated to speak here, or have they just given up on being able to change ICANN from within? Don't know, don't care, same result.

I’ll be curious what those who were opposed to this deal do when the AG

...

gets involved on the other side from them in the future. When the IPC shows up and lobbies the AG to protect CA companies from GDPR , or. To get the AG involved in better copyright protection by registrars, or something similar it could get dicey. We’ll see.

Bring it on. And it will be brought on, if the wilful oblivion continues. Your ongoing fearmongering continues to not advance your case; California's approach to privacy is almost lock-step with the GDPR <https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/californias-new-privacy-law-its-almost-gdpr...>. I could easily counter-fearmonger if pressed, but it's a tactic of desperation. What I do know is that the AG *might* make bad decisions, but ICANN already *has*, so the quality of decisions can't get much worse. In any case, even should I disagree with the AG's involvement in the future, I right now have infinitely more trust in its ability to weigh various interests than I have in ICANN's. I am not alone, And without trust or treaty, what is ICANN?

- Evan

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-- *********************************** Greg Shatan President, ISOC-NY “The Internet is for Everyone” _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg

_______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

-- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56

Well, you did NOT misunderstand me Evan so I’ll take on your criticism. The only fear I’m mongering is the fear I feel. Members of the community who have not gotten their way inside the ICANN processes have, with great frequency, gone to DC to get what they could not from a PDP or whatever. The fact that a particular part of the community is displeased does not, in and of itself, represent a failure of the organization, nor an advancement of the “public interest.” AGs are even MORE political than the politicians in DC because they crave the visibility necessary to run for the next office up. I’ve seen it happen, tine an time again. All I’m saying is that the mere intervention of the AG doesn’t mean ANYTHING, except to identify where decisions are made about ICANN policy. I too agree with your frustrations about ICANN and the public interest and have fought hard to improve that situation and will continue to do so. That said, NO DECISION HAD BEEN MADE here. We might rightly believe that the board would have made the wrong decision because they have made many wrong decisions but, as a matter of process, I would have preferred to have seen their unvarnished decision first. Yes, I have bathed in the Kool-Aid because I spent two years of my life working on this “poor mutation” of the multi-stakeholder model that is the Accountability Framework. We always envisioned that the AG would be the ultimate point of accountability and backstop for the community but did NOT envision him intervening before there was even a decision. ALL I’m saying is that even if the organization had a perfect reputation for upholding the public interest, the AG could easily have been convinced otherwise, prodded to weigh in and sent a letter written by a lobbyist. That’s all that happened. It wasn’t some careful study of ICANN’s history that led the AG to act. You give him FAR too much credit, that’s all. I TOO am excited about the roll that the At-Large can play in reforming the organization and, as you know, I am in the trenches to make that happen. Even so, the At-Large community itself was not unified on the idea of blocking the sale but, instead, resolved to condition the sale. So, even here, our language was used to justify an outcome that even we were not sure we wanted. I’m sorry if my language was dismissive. It was not meant to be and I appreciated nearly everything you said about the public interest and our need to be its proponent. The only notion on which we disagree is whether the mere fact of the AGs intervention was, in and of itself, meaningful and what that meaning might be. On THAT point, we continue to disagree but time will tell. In the meantime, we continue to fight the good fight. Jonathan From: CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 1:44 AM To: Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org> Cc: CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> Subject: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR I understand your response Greg, and I'm glad to know I'm not one of the bots. ;-) I'm indeed being sensitive to dismissals of the public interest in this group, and on rereading your mail see where the miscommunications happened. Agreed to wrt devolving. Looking forward to a constructive debate on how ALAC can rise to this significant task -- changing ICANN's core culture to integrate the public interest into its activities, so that others are not enticed to do the job in its absence. - Evan On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 03:55, Greg Shatan <greg@isoc-ny.org<mailto:greg@isoc-ny.org>> wrote: Evan, Before you wrote this latest thing, I was going to respond to your response to me and say that I actually agreed with nearly everything you said in that prior response. I’ll still say that. Rather than responding to the personal attacks here, I’ll just say that you grossly misunderstand my views if you think our views are so opposed. I’ll assume that your remarks here are are based on errors or failures to communicate. With regard to the “bots” (your word not mine) comment that seemed to have inflamed you: I was referring specifically to the comments in opposition to the .org registry agreement that came from people sending prewritten comments through online forms or following scripts written for them by certain organizers of the opposition. You are clearly not one of those “bots,”!but that doesn’t mean these people didn’t exist or weren’t manipulated. I never said or implied that all opponents were bots. Clearly there were rational, well-informed and thoughtful reasons to oppose this sale and to criticize the behavior of all the actors in this drama. And there were rational, well-informed and thoughtful people expressing those views. I always thought you were in this category— and I think it still, in spite of your “confession” that you were a mindless bot. Frankly, the stupid, easily disproven, lurid and manipulative claims made by some factions made it harder to discuss the more nuanced but in many ways more fundamental problems in the deal and the process. (Out of an excess of caution, Evan, I will explain that the “factions” referred to in the previous paragraph Absolutely and specifically does not refer to you.) Let’s not let this devolve. Greg On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:08 AM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org<mailto:evan@telly.org>> wrote: On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 20:39, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org<mailto:JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org>> wrote: Setting substance aside, the idea that the involvement of the AG is some kind of an indication that the multi-stakeholder model wasn’t working is a bit of a stretch. That's it. I've had enough. Now it's personal. I just offered -- in far too much detail -- WHY the AG's intervention indicates a failure -- the many failures -- of ICANN to incorporate the public interest into its decision making. And it was either blown off and/or dismissed as "a stretch". Similarly, Greg dismisses the thousands of opponents of the Ethos sale as mindless, uneducated bots. I was one of those bots. If I didn't know you guys and like and respect you personally I would have said some very bad words by now. But having calmed down, it has become crystal clear to me you guys -- and the mindset you bring to the debate -- are Part Of The Problem. You haven't just drunk the ICANN koolaid, you've bathed in it. Loyalty to this poor mutation of multistakeholderism -- that shuts out the most important stakeholder -- prevails. And if ALAC can't be the agent of change that ICANN needs to help it understand the needs of the world outside the bubble, nobody else will, at least internally. Enter the CA AG, and soon others. I expect this level of dismissal and derision from GNSO constituencies who have always treated ALAC with the attitude of "so why are you still here?" But I don't expect it from within the only community explicitly charged with representing to ICANN those who are not part of the buyer-seller-consultant food chain. My how this place has changed from 2013. It's truly sad. Even sadder is that when the change does inevitably happen, you'll never see it coming because you were oblivious all along. At least I can say that I tried. It's telling that all the positive response I've received to my comments yesterday were not posted here. Some came by private email, and some came on social media. Are they too intimidated to speak here, or have they just given up on being able to change ICANN from within? Don't know, don't care, same result. I’ll be curious what those who were opposed to this deal do when the AG gets involved on the other side from them in the future. When the IPC shows up and lobbies the AG to protect CA companies from GDPR , or. To get the AG involved in better copyright protection by registrars, or something similar it could get dicey. We’ll see. Bring it on. And it will be brought on, if the wilful oblivion continues. Your ongoing fearmongering continues to not advance your case; California's approach to privacy is almost lock-step with the GDPR<https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/californias-new-privacy-law-its-almost-gdpr...>. I could easily counter-fearmonger if pressed, but it's a tactic of desperation. What I do know is that the AG *might* make bad decisions, but ICANN already *has*, so the quality of decisions can't get much worse. In any case, even should I disagree with the AG's involvement in the future, I right now have infinitely more trust in its ability to weigh various interests than I have in ICANN's. I am not alone, And without trust or treaty, what is ICANN? - Evan _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. -- *********************************** Greg Shatan President, ISOC-NY “The Internet is for Everyone” _______________________________________________ CPWG mailing list CPWG@icann.org<mailto:CPWG@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on. -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56

Evan, Johnathon, Greg, Looking back at the path for how this issue worked itself out, are any of you able to identify specific opportunities for improvement in the At-Large consensus and policy development process, or it do you think it worked as it should be expected? Others are welcome to answer too, of course. I just thought Evan's, Jonathan's and Greg's opinions might be interesting, because of their consistent engagement in the policy discussion. Cheers! David On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:03 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

I'm happy to read that we're generally agreed, which is why I'm going to push back on places where I still see dismissal and disenfranchisement. I will assume in good faith that it's unintentional so I hope that pointing it out will help correct.

You wrote:

The fact that a particular part of the community is displeased does not,

...

in and of itself, represent a failure of the organization, nor an advancement of the “public interest.”

This is a problematic statement to me.

That "*particular part of the community*" just happens to be OUR community, the only one ICANN At-Large is bylaw-mandated to be speaking for. The world out there. No other community should matter to us, the rest have plenty of their own mouthpieces and mercenaries. And on the ISOC/Ethis issue there was absolutely no question that this community -- OURS -- was well beyond consensus in opposing the sale. That we did not reflect that overwhelming opposition in our dealings with ICANN is an indictment of ALAC's fitness for purpose.

We are not here to filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues. We are here to discover, understand, articulate and advance it. ICANN is chock-full of constituencies eager to belittle and lobby against the public interest. In the face of this ALAC needs to be the advocate for the outside worldview, not its first obstacle.

If this "particular part of the community" is displeased with a DNS, we *must* too be displeased because we are their voice -- their ONLY voice -- within ICANN. If that voice is silenced or overlooked it is absolutely a failure of ICANN's governance design, including its design of At-Large.

I have never said that the AG -- any AG or government overseer -- is without a political agenda of its own, and it would be foolish to deny that this agenda can shift with the wind. What I am saying is that, right now, I trust the AG's closed, hyper-political ability to weigh the various interests on major DNS issues infinitely more than I trust ICANN's vaunted MSM, which is truly pathetic.

I too agree with your frustrations about ICANN and the public interest and

...

have fought hard to improve that situation and will continue to do so. That said, NO DECISION HAD BEEN MADE here.

So if no decision were made, we would have sat back and let ICANN make a decision without being made aware of the massive public outcry against the sale. That would essentially render ALAC impotent in the face of one of ICANN's most important decisions in a decade. You've just made the case for the AG intervention in our absence.

We might rightly *believe* that the board would have made the wrong

...

decision because they have made many wrong decisions but, as a matter of process, I would have preferred to have seen their unvarnished decision first.

This is where you and I disagree, and see past each other, the most. You have this (IMO vastly overrated) faith in reviews and appeals. I, OTOH, see these as being too little too late (and you KNOW ICANN would have been unable to roll back the Ethos sale once approved).

Spending so much effort on damage control rather than damage prevention is to me a clear indication that things are very wrong. It's as if you too don't trust the decision process either, because of all the effort spent on after-the-fact cleanup. Cheering on a bad decision in order to test the appeal process is just incomprehensible to me, especially when the option exists to avoid the bad decision at the outset. What, thankfully, is what happened.

...

ALL I’m saying is that even if the organization had a perfect reputation for upholding the public interest, the AG could easily have been convinced otherwise, prodded to weigh in and sent a letter written by a lobbyist.

And if the Queen had testicles she's be King¹

"Perfect reputation"? ICANN has so much ground to gain just to upgrade to "poor". Heaven knows there have been many previous opportunities for the AG to intervene. Ages ago the AG should have blocked ICANN's elimination of direct Board elections and the sham of its Nominating Committee process. But it didn't, so to my mind the AG has been even more hands-off than it should have been. There are many other jurisdictions, including Canada and Switzerland, where such shenanigans absolutely would have been voided by the public trustee.

What happened here was that the AG intervened on behalf of a community -- the general public -- that was otherwise unheard within ICANN. That *should* have been ALAC's job but the AG did it because we couldn't or wouldn't. As I said before ALAC totally missed the point of the public objection, playing with PICs and other minutiae rather than the fundamental badness of turning a non-profit.

...

That’s all that happened. It wasn’t some careful study of ICANN’s history that led the AG to act. You give him FAR too much credit, that’s all.

On the contrary, I give the AG no credit at all except that it's currently being more trustworthy than ICANN -- and more effective than ALAC -- in considering and advancing the public interest. Sure, the AG can shift for the worst, but then so can ICANN.

- Evan ¹ - Sorry if that offended but it just seemed so appropriate. My family used that saying a lot when presented with fanciful conditionals.

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Hi Evan, Thank you for the summary. Do you have any suggestions on how our process could be improved to produce outcomes which better "filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues" and help us "discover, understand, articulate and advance it" better too? Cheers! On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:24 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

Hi David,

I hope that I'd given my response to your question in my post of 10 minutes ago, which I would summarize with these two sentences from it:

- We are not here to filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues. We are here to discover, understand, articulate and advance it. - That we did not reflect the overwhelming [public] opposition [to the Ethos sale] in our dealings with ICANN is an indictment of ALAC's fitness for purpose.

- Evan

On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 13:14, David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Evan, Johnathon, Greg,

Looking back at the path for how this issue worked itself out, are any of you able to identify specific opportunities for improvement in the At-Large consensus and policy development process, or it do you think it worked as it should be expected?

Others are welcome to answer too, of course. I just thought Evan's, Jonathan's and Greg's opinions might be interesting, because of their consistent engagement in the policy discussion.

Cheers! David

On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:03 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:

...

I'm happy to read that we're generally agreed, which is why I'm going to push back on places where I still see dismissal and disenfranchisement. I will assume in good faith that it's unintentional so I hope that pointing it out will help correct.

You wrote:

The fact that a particular part of the community is displeased does

...

not, in and of itself, represent a failure of the organization, nor an advancement of the “public interest.”

This is a problematic statement to me.

That "*particular part of the community*" just happens to be OUR community, the only one ICANN At-Large is bylaw-mandated to be speaking for. The world out there. No other community should matter to us, the rest have plenty of their own mouthpieces and mercenaries. And on the ISOC/Ethis issue there was absolutely no question that this community -- OURS -- was well beyond consensus in opposing the sale. That we did not reflect that overwhelming opposition in our dealings with ICANN is an indictment of ALAC's fitness for purpose.

We are not here to filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues. We are here to discover, understand, articulate and advance it. ICANN is chock-full of constituencies eager to belittle and lobby against the public interest. In the face of this ALAC needs to be the advocate for the outside worldview, not its first obstacle.

If this "particular part of the community" is displeased with a DNS, we *must* too be displeased because we are their voice -- their ONLY voice -- within ICANN. If that voice is silenced or overlooked it is absolutely a failure of ICANN's governance design, including its design of At-Large.

I have never said that the AG -- any AG or government overseer -- is without a political agenda of its own, and it would be foolish to deny that this agenda can shift with the wind. What I am saying is that, right now, I trust the AG's closed, hyper-political ability to weigh the various interests on major DNS issues infinitely more than I trust ICANN's vaunted MSM, which is truly pathetic.

I too agree with your frustrations about ICANN and the public interest

...

and have fought hard to improve that situation and will continue to do so. That said, NO DECISION HAD BEEN MADE here.

So if no decision were made, we would have sat back and let ICANN make a decision without being made aware of the massive public outcry against the sale. That would essentially render ALAC impotent in the face of one of ICANN's most important decisions in a decade. You've just made the case for the AG intervention in our absence.

We might rightly *believe* that the board would have made the wrong

...

decision because they have made many wrong decisions but, as a matter of process, I would have preferred to have seen their unvarnished decision first.

This is where you and I disagree, and see past each other, the most. You have this (IMO vastly overrated) faith in reviews and appeals. I, OTOH, see these as being too little too late (and you KNOW ICANN would have been unable to roll back the Ethos sale once approved).

Spending so much effort on damage control rather than damage prevention is to me a clear indication that things are very wrong. It's as if you too don't trust the decision process either, because of all the effort spent on after-the-fact cleanup. Cheering on a bad decision in order to test the appeal process is just incomprehensible to me, especially when the option exists to avoid the bad decision at the outset. What, thankfully, is what happened.

...

ALL I’m saying is that even if the organization had a perfect reputation for upholding the public interest, the AG could easily have been convinced otherwise, prodded to weigh in and sent a letter written by a lobbyist.

And if the Queen had testicles she's be King¹

"Perfect reputation"? ICANN has so much ground to gain just to upgrade to "poor". Heaven knows there have been many previous opportunities for the AG to intervene. Ages ago the AG should have blocked ICANN's elimination of direct Board elections and the sham of its Nominating Committee process. But it didn't, so to my mind the AG has been even more hands-off than it should have been. There are many other jurisdictions, including Canada and Switzerland, where such shenanigans absolutely would have been voided by the public trustee.

What happened here was that the AG intervened on behalf of a community -- the general public -- that was otherwise unheard within ICANN. That *should* have been ALAC's job but the AG did it because we couldn't or wouldn't. As I said before ALAC totally missed the point of the public objection, playing with PICs and other minutiae rather than the fundamental badness of turning a non-profit.

...

That’s all that happened. It wasn’t some careful study of ICANN’s history that led the AG to act. You give him FAR too much credit, that’s all.

On the contrary, I give the AG no credit at all except that it's currently being more trustworthy than ICANN -- and more effective than ALAC -- in considering and advancing the public interest. Sure, the AG can shift for the worst, but then so can ICANN.

- Evan ¹ - Sorry if that offended but it just seemed so appropriate. My family used that saying a lot when presented with fanciful conditionals.

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-- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch or @el56

On May 8, 2020, at 11:16 AM, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote: If we took the time to GREP (or more likely Amazon Comprehend) the listserv archives they would reveal fewer than 5 people (nearly if not ALL new to the list)...

Is it your position that stakeholders should not join the list when it strays into matters of real-world import, but that the list should be reserved for full-time lobbyists even then? -Bill

On Fri, 8 May 2020 at 10:50, Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com> wrote:

The second point is that I was a strong supporter - actually, I think that I was even the proposer, but I may be wrong - of the option of not opposing the sale but asking for some safeguards. The reason why I took this position is explained at length in the archives, but can be summarised in the belief that we would not have the strength to force the ICANN Board to deny the transaction, also in consideration of the fact that I was assuming that such denial would have brought a huge lawsuit to ICANN. I remain still convinced that, without the intervention of the CA-AG, who basically has shielded ICANN against a lawsuit, the Board would have decided differently.

You may well be correct. By I find the rationale truly puzzling. To propose an inferior solution because you don't think the superior one would be adopted? Is our role to tell ICANN what end-users want/need, or to tell ICANN what we think it wants to hear? But how do you know what ICANN wants to hear? I have heard otherwise, that the Board may well have rejected the sale even without the California AG; having ALAC supporting rejection might have pushed it over the top. We'll never know. What we DO know is the the CA AG stepped in to assert the public interest, at least in part because ALAC would not. More detail in a followup email - Evan

Hello all, as the other co-Chair of the CPWG I need to say that I agree with all the points that Jonathan is making. I should just add that whilst a significant number of ISOC Chapters are indeed ALSes, it is worth noting that a majority of Chapters did not approve of the sale, as evidenced by the results of the vote of the ISOC Chapter Advisory Council. 1. Advice 2020.04.17-01 :: Second Advice on PIR Sales to Ethos Capital <https://isoc.box.com/s/w2iaod4kb738thlm1a0ollli00saze8q>  * *Advice*: /"We reiterate that the sale of PIR to Ethos Capital should not proceed until, unless proscribed by law, the following conditions are met, and the ISOC Board has taken into account the comments received after the information requested below is made public"/ * Text link: (isoc.box.com/s/w2iaod4kb738thlm1a0ollli00saze8q) <https://isoc.box.com/s/w2iaod4kb738thlm1a0ollli00saze8q)> * Approved by 68% of the 73 chapters that participated Maintaining that At-Large is influenced by lobbyists is frivolous to say the least and borders on the preposterous. Kindest regards, Olivier (own point of view) On 08/05/2020 11:16, Jonathan Zuck wrote:

The fact is there was no real consensus among the At-Large about the acquisition of PIR. There were essentially 4 proposals on the table:

 

1. Approve the sale 2. Approve the sale with conditions (which is what both the ALAC and NCSG settled upon) 3. Deny the sale (essentially what happened) 4. Take .ORG away from PIR and move it to a new entity

 

There WAS a strong consensus, led primarily by Roberto Gaetano, NOT to let the sale go through without concessions so the group was motivated to identify the appropriate concessions and perhaps bake them into the .ORG contract so they would. Survive changes of ownership.

 

If we took the time to GREP (or more likely Amazon Comprehend) the listserv archives they would reveal fewer than 5 people (nearly if not ALL new to the list), a few more expressing a preference for option 3 and the huge majority (though still not a LOT of people total) supporting everything Roberto  proposed.

 

Now we can argue that many in the At-Large had a relationship to ISOC which may have convoluted this discussion but there were also serious issues with the public comments that arrived in volume and form the primary indication of “public” dissatisfaction with the deal.

 

We also need to set aside the fact that while many in the At-Large work for non-profits, we are not the voice of non-profits at ICANN. The NPOC are and they, together with the rest of the NCSG, chose a similar direction to the ALAC. There were, of course, dissenters in the NCSG as well, such as Kathy Kleinman, who believed that PICs were inherently evil and a product of a top down decision making process under Fadi.

 

I say this all to say that I’m not sure WHAT would have made a better consensus “process” as David has been discussing. The only body with actual decision making ability is the ALAC and all the rest are just advising the ALAC and they certainly received no clear recommendation to oppose the sale from the CPWG or the At-Large generally.

 

Now Evan, you might think that means they are not “fit for “purpose” because of your belief in what represented the public interest but I find it difficult to believe that the At-Large is somehow corrupt and purposefully subverted that public interest.  I’m sure there might have been some bias towards ISOC (as well as some disappointment in them), some measure of defeatism believing they should take what they could get and some measure of belief that a for profit registry might NOT, in fact, be the end of the world.

 

David, I know that you asked me about how to better take the temperature of the listserv, since we really only took the temperature of an 80 person CPWG call. I remain flummoxed about how best to do that given the openness of the CPWG and At-Large lists. You don’t need to even be a member of the At-Large to be on the CPWG list,  for example.  This list has always been a freeform discussion in  which board members and even contracted parties have joined in. Polling a  group like that is problematic but I remained committed to finding a way to make better use of the list because the calls are overwhelmed.

 

I don’t know if any of this helps but I thought I would put it out there.

Jonathan

 

 

*From: *CPWG <cpwg-bounces@icann.org> on behalf of David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com> *Date: *Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 3:09 PM *To: *Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> *Cc: *CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> *Subject: *Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR

 

Hi Evan, 

 

Thank you for the summary. 

 

Do you have any suggestions on how our process could be improved to produce outcomes which better "filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues" and help us "discover, understand, articulate and advance it" better too?

Cheers!

 

On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:24 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org <mailto:evan@telly.org>> wrote:

Hi David,

 

I hope that I'd given my response to your question in my post of 10 minutes ago, which I would summarize with these two sentences from it:

* We are not here to filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues. We are here to discover, understand, articulate and advance it. * That we did not reflect the overwhelming [public] opposition [to the Ethos sale] in our dealings with ICANN is an indictment of ALAC's fitness for purpose.

- Evan

 

 

On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 13:14, David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com <mailto:mackey361@gmail.com>> wrote:

Evan, Johnathon, Greg,

 

Looking back at the path for how this issue worked itself out, are any of you able to identify specific opportunities for improvement in the At-Large consensus and policy development process, or it do you think it worked as it should be expected?

 

Others are welcome to answer too, of course. I just thought Evan's, Jonathan's and Greg's opinions might be interesting, because of their consistent engagement in the policy discussion. 

 

Cheers!

David

 

On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 1:03 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org <mailto:evan@telly.org>> wrote:

I'm happy to read that we're generally agreed, which is why I'm going to push back on places where I still see dismissal and disenfranchisement. I will assume in good faith that it's unintentional so I hope that pointing it out will help correct.

 

You wrote:

 

The fact that a particular part of the community is displeased does not, in and of itself, represent a failure of the organization, nor an advancement of the “public interest.”

 

This is a problematic statement to me.

 

That "/particular part of the community/" just happens to be OUR community, the only one ICANN At-Large is bylaw-mandated to be speaking for. The world out there. No other community should matter to us, the rest have plenty of their own mouthpieces and mercenaries. And on the ISOC/Ethis issue there was absolutely no question that this community -- OURS -- was well beyond consensus in opposing the sale. That we did not reflect that overwhelming opposition in our dealings with ICANN is an indictment of ALAC's fitness for purpose.

 

We are not here to filter, judge, vet or micromanage the global end user response to DNS-related issues. We are here to discover, understand, articulate and advance it. ICANN is chock-full of constituencies eager to belittle and lobby against the public interest. In the face of this ALAC needs to be the advocate for the outside worldview, not its first obstacle.

 

If this "particular part of the community" is displeased with a DNS, we *must* too be displeased because we are their voice -- their ONLY voice -- within ICANN. If that voice is silenced or overlooked it is absolutely a failure of ICANN's governance design, including its design of At-Large.

 

I have never said that the AG -- any AG or government overseer -- is without a political agenda of its own, and it would be foolish to deny that this agenda can shift with the wind. What I am saying is that, right now, I trust the AG's closed, hyper-political ability to weigh the various interests on major DNS issues infinitely more than I trust ICANN's vaunted MSM, which is truly pathetic.

 

I too agree with your frustrations about ICANN and the public interest and have fought hard to improve that situation and will continue to do so. That said, NO DECISION HAD BEEN MADE here.

 

So if no decision were made, we would have sat back and let ICANN make a decision without being made aware of the massive public outcry against the sale. That would essentially render ALAC impotent in the face of one of ICANN's most important decisions in a decade. You've just made the case for the AG intervention in our absence.

 

We might rightly /believe/ that the board would have made the wrong decision because they have made many wrong decisions but, as a matter of process, I would have preferred to have seen their unvarnished decision first.

 

This is where you and I disagree, and see past each other, the most. You have this (IMO vastly overrated) faith in reviews and appeals. I, OTOH, see these as being too little too late (and you KNOW ICANN would have been unable to roll back the Ethos sale once approved).

 

Spending so much effort on damage control rather than damage prevention is to me a clear indication that things are very wrong. It's as if you too don't trust the decision process either, because of all the effort spent on after-the-fact cleanup. Cheering on a bad decision in order to test the appeal process is just incomprehensible to me, especially  when the option exists to avoid the bad decision at the outset. What, thankfully, is what happened.

 

ALL I’m saying is that even if the organization had a perfect reputation for upholding the public interest, the AG could easily have been convinced otherwise, prodded to weigh in and sent a letter written by a lobbyist.

 

And if the Queen had testicles she's be King¹

 

"Perfect reputation"? ICANN has so much ground to gain just to upgrade to "poor". Heaven knows there have been many previous opportunities for the AG to intervene.  Ages ago the AG should have blocked ICANN's elimination of direct Board elections and the sham of its Nominating Committee process. But it didn't, so to my mind the AG has been even more hands-off than it should have been. There are many other jurisdictions, including Canada and Switzerland, where such shenanigans absolutely would have been voided by the public trustee.

 

What happened here was that the AG intervened on behalf of a community -- the general public -- that was otherwise unheard within ICANN. That *should* have been ALAC's job but the AG did it because we couldn't or wouldn't. As I said before ALAC totally missed the point of the public objection, playing with PICs and other minutiae rather than the fundamental badness of turning a non-profit.

 

That’s all that happened. It wasn’t some careful study of ICANN’s history that led the AG to act. You give him FAR too much credit, that’s all.

 

On the contrary, I give the AG no credit at all except that it's currently being more trustworthy than ICANN -- and more effective than ALAC -- in considering and advancing the public interest. Sure, the AG can shift for the worst, but then so can ICANN.

 

- Evan

¹ - Sorry if that offended but it just seemed so appropriate. My family used that saying a lot when presented with fanciful conditionals.

 

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--

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada

@evanleibovitch or @el56

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-- Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

Evan, I’m certainly trying to take this all on and, if the consensus we reached was somehow a product of my mismanagement, I’m certainly sorry. Part of the issue was that it seemed rushed with short deadlines for comments while information was still coming out. At the time, only one, or perhaps two, ISOC chapters had come out against the sale and all that about loans and such was not yet out either. As for due diligence, you know quite well that I DID contact several commenters/organizers to see how we might work together to achieve consensus and the vitriol began very early. I ALSO know, as you do, that the whole movement was begun by the domainers and carried their imprimatur for quite some time. There was a HUGE campaign to get non-profits involved but it didn’t start there. It began with Chicken Little emails about the end of the world, coming from the only community that REALLY has price sensitivity. In fact, you were one of the proponents of lifting the price caps when that issue came up because you hoped it might serve to limit speculation. I have ZERO intention to be elitist here. I confess, my radar was tuned in on the domainers’ role, perhaps for too long. We were in a time crunch, with limited information, most of the public comments had been form generated and our “leader” on this Roberto seemed to know a reasonable path forward. All that said, taking whatever responsibility I must bear, I still believe that you are being naïve to suggest that the AG made some careful study of any of this and felt compelled to save the day. Perhaps that’s just a narrative you are trying to establish to get people into a reform mindset (I agree with most of your suggestions about polling and trying to figure out what the informed public wants!) but we all know that he was lobbied and saw a political opportunity here and took it, something that also gives me pause, as you know. I’m not sure I’ve said anything new and we might just be repeating things back to each other at this point. Perhaps the best path forward is to explore ways to better reflect the will of end users and, for that, I’m 100% on board. Jonathan From: Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Date: Friday, May 8, 2020 at 10:06 AM To: Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> Cc: David Mackey <mackey361@gmail.com>, CPWG <cpwg@icann.org> Subject: Re: [CPWG] Calif. AG mentions ALAC advice in note to ICANN re: PIR On Fri, 8 May 2020 at 05:17, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org<mailto:JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org>> wrote: The fact is there was no real consensus among the At-Large about the acquisition of PIR. There were essentially 4 proposals on the table: 1. Approve the sale 2. Approve the sale with conditions (which is what both the ALAC and NCSG settled upon) 3. Deny the sale (essentially what happened) 4. Take .ORG away from PIR and move it to a new entity As I said, you got that wrong. Totally wrong. You fully missed the core issue which was not "will Ethos screw registrants" but "did ISOC violate the letter and spirit of the terms under which ISOC was delegated .org in the first place". And, as history has now shown, you (and ICANN) needed the CA AG to save the day. There WAS a strong consensus, led primarily by Roberto Gaetano, NOT to let the sale go through without concessions so the group was motivated to identify the appropriate concessions and perhaps bake them into the .ORG contract so they would. Survive changes of ownership. The issue was never about concessions. It was about stewardship of .org as a registry that was just a little different from the others, and whether it could be treated like as a chattel the way other domains are. The consensus appears to be that if Ethos jumped through just a few more hoops, made just a few more garbage PICs and a better advisory board, the sale would have been OK. That was not the view of ISOC chapters. It was not the view of EFF. It was not the view of the American Red Cross or the Girl Guides. It was not the view of the thousands of charities and nonprofits that signed onto petitions. It is not the view of financial analysts who discovered that the new registry would be saddled in debt and inevitably forced to raise prices beyond the norm. It was not the view of people who were around during the original delegation of the domain to ISOC. It was not the view of a single .org registrants who expressed an opinion. It was not the view of human rights organizations. But the CPWG and ALAC knew better than all of them!! You should be embarrassed to have led that dereliction of duty. ICANN does not seek independent wisdom from ALAC, it is seeking a reflection of the public mood. The voice on the street, if you would, distilled maybe but without judgment or second-guessing. And if ALAC could get something so important so massively wrong that ICANN's government oversight had to step in to fix, it's impossible to have any confidence that it will get any of the minor opinions right. Now we can argue that many in the At-Large had a relationship to ISOC which may have convoluted this discussion Considering that the overwhelming consensus of ISOC Chapters and the official stance of the ISOC Chapter Advisory Council was to oppose the sale, clearly there were no signs of undue influence this way. Nobody is arguing this so I wonder why you raise it. but there were also serious issues with the public comments that arrived in volume and form the primary indication of “public” dissatisfaction with the deal. Such as? Did you do any due diligence and contact any of the commenters before summarily deeming their opinions inferior to yours? That you use quotes on the word public in the above context is -- I don't have a better word for it -- disgusting. The height of dismissive elitism. We also need to set aside the fact that while many in the At-Large work for non-profits, we are not the voice of non-profits at ICANN. Let's be really clear here. In this role you are not the voice of anything. ALAC's role is to CHANNEL what end-users want from ICANN and advise based on that, not pull opinions from scratch out of your collective behinds. In this extraordinary case, evidence of sentiment outside the bubble was plentiful. Any outside research at all would have inevitably led to the correct conclusion on this issue, instead you chose to ignore and "denigrate" it. This corporate oblivion to the real public sentiment is clearly what drove the CA AG to intervene. So you could have foregone that dreaded government intervention simply by ensuring that ICANN knew the public mood rather than making one up. While I was in ALAC the "who the hell are you to claim to speak for the billions?" retort from the domain industry always bothered me. On reflection I realize that it was a perfectly valid criticism and holds true today as much -- maybe more -- than ever. ALAC lacks any credibility that it listens to the outside world. It guesses, based on its own biases and framed by ICANN staff, and as such represents the view of no more than the 15 ALAC reps and a handful of other self-appointed "experts" -- present company included. There is zero effort made to take the pulse of the public mood on issues, a flaw that was exposed to the world this time. Indeed ... who the hell is ALAC to claim to speak for the billions? That question now needs to be asked from within At-Large too. The original theory in At-Large's design was that ALSs were supposed to offer a kind of broad-based audience that could be used to discuss issues of import within a broader population and bring their opinions back, through RALOs, to ALAC. Not billions, but much better than a few dozen and guaranteed to be geographically diverse. For a ton of reasons well beyond the scope of this thread, the ALS theory has proven a complete failure. It can't work, ALAC never allocates the time and process to enable ALS consultation to take place. And ALAC gets so involved with trivial and irrelevant ICANN issues that could easily overwhelm broad grassroots consultations. There were, of course, dissenters in the NCSG as well, such as Kathy Kleinman, who believed that PICs were inherently evil and a product of a top down decision making process under Fadi For the record, and consistent since the day PICs were invented, I agree with Kathy. So should ALAC. Now Evan, you might think that means they are not “fit for “purpose” because of your belief in what represented the public interest but I find it difficult to believe that the At-Large is somehow corrupt and purposefully subverted that public interest. Oh hell no. I'm not accusing anyone of corruption. Complacency, egotism and maybe even cowardice, but not corruption. - Evan

Maureen, If I were you I would not be so quick to remind. That not a single ALAC member expressed disapproval of advice that was against the overwhelming opinion of the public, and eventually on the wrong side of history, ought not be casually brought out as a source of pride. As far as I'm concerned this vote is the all-time low point in ALAC's service to ICANN and the community it claims to serve. It will probably be used in the future as part of a reasoned challenge to ALAC's legitimacy. For the January 2020 ALAC Advice on ISOC/PIR Issue

<https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC...>, unanimously in favor: *15Y, 0N, 0A*

For the March 2020 ALAC submission to PIR public comment <https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ALAC...>, unanimously in favor: *15Y, 0N, 0A*

- Evan

Dear Greg, thank you for taking the time to spell this out. I should add that the California Attorney General makes a direct reference to the ALAC's Advice as well as the ISOC Chapter Advisory Council letter, the letter signed by 824 non-profits etc. So how could the California Attorney General refer to the ALAC's advice that's allegedly "against the overwhelming opinion of the public"? Many long time observers of ALAC advice will see that it often is more mitigated than correspondence from other more focussed communities that act in unison. That is a direct consequence of the variety we have in our communities, both geographical and cultural - and I like to see it this way. Democracies encourage all kinds of views and elections are usually pretty balanced. Only in totalitarian regimes are policies supported with a 99% support. At times in the past, I have thought that a piece of ALAC Advice would get support from 99% of our members - and guess what, there were more dissenting voices than I had expected, and sometimes the dissent I heard reminded me that many of the topics we have to grapple with are not straight yes/no, true/false, good/bad, binary problems with binary solutions. I am glad this community is mature enough to avoid falling into crowd lynching. Kindest regards, Olivier On 10/05/2020 07:01, Greg Shatan wrote:

Evan,

Have you actually gone back and read the ALAC Advice to the Board?  I just did.  I simply cannot square the claims you are making about that Advice with the Advice itself.  

Some quotes: "the At-Large generally, and the ALAC specifically, join with others in expressing our frustration with the manner with which the proposed transaction came to light, the complexity and opacity of the transaction and the optics inherent in both the timing and individuals involved." 

"Approval of the transaction, by the ICANN board, must be conditioned on amendments to the .ORG contract designed to capture, as much as possible, the intentions of the original RFP which awarded the contract to ISOC in the first place and encourage the predominant makeup of the .ORG space to remain the most trusted TLD for non-profit entities and individuals" 

"the Board should be prepared to block the transfer of ownership of the registry on the basis of the public interest, absent significant changes to the .ORG contract"

/"The ICANN Board has a “reasonable” basis to withhold approval of the sale. /The original RFP provides explicit expectations about the intended characteristics of a .ORG registry and a requirement to serve the nonprofit community."

"the board should be prepared, however reluctantly, to block the sale of PIR to Ethos Capital, absent substantial changes to the Registry Agreement under which Ethos, or any future entity, must manage the domain.'

How is this "against the overwhelming opinion of the public, and eventually on the wrong side of history," much less an "all-time low point" or the basis of"a reasoned challenge to ALAC's legitimacy"?

This advice is in line with the Board's rejection of the transaction. The concerns ALAC raised were not resolved by the parties to the transaction.  The recommendations ALAC made about how the deal might pass muster were largely not taken up. Reading this Advice and considering what was ultimately before the Board, it can only support the conclusion that Board came to -- reject the transaction.  An approval of the transaction would have constituted rejection of this Advice.  it was and is very much on the right side of history.

Certainly, on the spectrum of opinions, there were those who opposed the transaction absolutely, or who criticized specific aspects more strongly, or cited concerns that did not gain traction within At Large.  Nonetheless, the ALAC Advice is far closer to those views on the spectrum than it is to those who supported the deal as presented, as revised or otherwise criticized it but wanted it to work.  Yet, after reading your comments, I questioned my recollection and expected to find something essentially supportive of the transaction (which would seem to be "the wrong side of history"). Of course, that is not at all what I found.  

Given all this, your reaction seems, at the least, very disproportionate to the difference in viewpoints -- in the strength of your expression, in the fallout you predict, in the extent to which your critique strayed into /ad personam/ territory and in the bruises that such an approach may well leave.  I just can't understand this reaction when the underlying difference seems to be one of degree - that ALAC did not take a hard enough line or adopt enough of the hardline arguments.

The only sense I can make of this is that your criticism really is more about the process and even the people than it is about the result.

Greg

On Sat, May 9, 2020 at 5:43 PM Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org <mailto:evan@telly.org>> wrote:

Maureen,

If I were you I would not be so quick to remind. That not a single ALAC member expressed disapproval of advice that was against the overwhelming opinion of the public, and eventually on the wrong side of history, ought not be casually brought out as a source of pride. As far as I'm concerned this vote is the all-time low point in ALAC's service to ICANN and the community it claims to serve. It will probably be used in the future as part of a reasoned challenge to ALAC's legitimacy.

For the January 2020 ALAC Advice on ISOC/PIR Issue <https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ISOC...>, unanimously in favor: *15Y, 0N, 0A*

For the March 2020 ALAC submission to PIR public comment <https://community.icann.org/display/alacpolicydev/At-Large+Workspace%3A+ALAC...>, unanimously in favor: *15Y, 0N, 0A*

- Evan

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On 08/05/2020 20:26, Jonathan Zuck wrote:

As for due diligence, you know quite well that I DID contact several commenters/organizers to see how we might work together to achieve consensus and the vitriol began very early. I ALSO know, as you do, that the whole movement was begun by the domainers and carried their imprimatur for quite some time. There was a HUGE campaign to get

Really? With only 2.4% of .ORG on auction/sale sites it was those nasty domainers who mobilised everyone against the deal? To put this in perspective, domainers concentrate on .COM because that's where the main money is and the main demand. The .ORG is not a big market for most domainers but they do form a convenient scapegoat. Some of the true believers consider that domainers are keeping all the good domain names for themselves in the gTLDs when the reality is that most of the domain names are not used and the registrars park them on PPC landing pages to monetise them. Those domain names may be used for e-mail or brand protection. The reality is that someone else registered the domain name first.

non-profits involved but it didn’t start there. It began with Chicken Little emails about the end of the world, coming from the only community that REALLY has price sensitivity. In fact, you were one of the

And it turned out that part of the deal involved lumbering PIR with hundreds of millions of Dollars of debt so that Ethos and co could take over the registry. As for "price sensitivity", every registrant in .ORG would end up paying more for the honour of having Ethos take over .ORG. Those hundreds of millions of Dollars of debt would have had to have been paid and the the people who would pay it would be the registrants. Not the lobbyists or the ICANN bubble dwellers to whom such matters are largely theoretical but the non-profits and the people who built websites about their kid's soccer or baseball team on .ORG because it wasn't like .COM. Those people trying to raise money for a good cause would have some of that money scalped to pay back those hundreds of millions of Dollars of debt. And some domainers might have to pay a little bit more for their registrations. Outside the USA, the .ORG has recognition but it is a non-core TLD in that it does not have a major part of any country's domain name market. With most countries with an well run ccTLD, the bulk of new registrations are in the ccTLD. Most of the rest are in .COM. The .NET/ORG/BIZ/INFO new registrations are quite low. In terms of domain name footprints, the .ccTLD/.COM share of many country level markets is around 80%. The .ORG is stuck in that 20% competing with the other non-core gTLD (the other legacy gTLDs), the new gTLDs and adjacent market ccTLDs. The optics on the Ethos deal were bad. No amount of turd polishing was going to make them seem good. There was an inevitablility about the CA AG's intervention and ICANN and Ethos have nobody but themselves to blame for this. It doesn't matter how many people on the list defended the deal or how many opposed the deal. Once the deal attracted the notice of US politicians in a presidential election year, it was dead. The new gTLDs have not fared well and some of those gTLDs have been taken over without any objections. They are different from .ORG in that many of them have failed meet the predictions of the astrologers in ICANN who expected over 30 million registrations in the first year of operation. Those purchases of new gTLDs are largely firesales and they avoid the new gTLD going into EBERO. But they are all different to the .ORG. They are unlikely to attract any governmental oversight. Ironically, the reputation of many of the new gTLDs amongst domainers is rather low. It might be a bit cynical to think that it would be better, in the future, to pay more attention to what domainers say as domainers actually put their money on the line and register domain names. They've got skin in the game and their opinion is just as valid, if not more so, than the lobbyists on both sides who talk a good game but never register domain names. Having high-minded opinions on a mailing list (or at ICANN meetings) about the interests of end-users is nice but someone else generally ends up paying for those opinions. Regards...jmcc -- ********************************************************** John McCormac * e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com MC2 * web: http://www.hosterstats.com/ 22 Viewmount * Domain Registrations Statistics Waterford * Domnomics - the business of domain names Ireland * https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO IE * Skype: hosterstats.com **********************************************************

On Fri, 8 May 2020 at 15:26, Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

Evan,

I’m certainly trying to take this all on and, if the consensus we reached was somehow a product of my mismanagement, I’m certainly sorry. Part of the issue was that it seemed rushed with short deadlines for comments while information was still coming out. At the time, only one, or perhaps two, ISOC chapters had come out against the sale and all that about loans and such was not yet out either.

So the position could have been updated. I maintain that the wrong advice was given even based on information available at the outset, and that depending on bandaids like PICs to make the deal acceptable was always a fool's game. As for due diligence, you know quite well that I DID contact several

commenters / organizers to see how we might work together to achieve consensus and the vitriol began very early.

Due diligence was reporting on the existing consensus outside the bobble. That's not what you did, which trying to reconcile the overwhelming consensus outside the bubble with the BS (and by Roberto's admission, inferior) position invented inside the CPWG. They were thousands, you were less than a dozen. Insisting that the massive existing consensus negotiate with your fabricated and inferior position would naturally produce a very understandable hostility. I ALSO know, as you do, that the whole movement was begun by the domainers

and carried their imprimatur for quite some time.

I can respond without hesitation that you are completely full of shit on this one. As I have told you before. Asserting a falsehood multiple times does not render it true. Opposition was NOT begun by the domainers. I was there at the beginning inside the ISOC mailing lists where there was horror expressed within minutes of the deal being announced. The original outrage came from within the ISOC community -- from Chapters and members and NTEN speaking for nonprofit registrants -- long before the domainers got involved. Your exposure to the opposition may have been constrained, because not every opinion about domains surfaces as an article on CircleID. I have been as much of an opponent of domain speculation as anyone in At-Large, and I have no problem with domainers having common cause with the original opponents (even though the price-increase fear was not among my own personal reasons to object). Your painting of the opposition to the sale -- including the EFF, Elizabeth Warren, NTEN and me -- as puppets of domainers is incorrect, personally insulting, and may well be at the core of how ALAC blew this issue so badly.. All that said, taking whatever responsibility I must bear, I still believe

that you are being naïve to suggest that the AG made some careful study of any of this and felt compelled to save the day.

I don't know the AG so I won't guess motives. I understand from the contents of its intervention -- which is written -- that the AG was intervening to assert the public interest. In the end it *did* at least partially save the day, as the AG intervention was referenced in the rationale of the ICANN decision to reject. You're welcome to speculate and theorize, while I will work with what exists as real evidence. I’m not sure I’ve said anything new and we might just be repeating things

back to each other at this point.

No, not except for the assertion that I and other opponents of the deal were merely being played by domainers. That was a cheap shot and not worthy of reasoned debate. So it elicited the appropriate response.

Perhaps the best path forward is to explore ways to better reflect the will of end users and, for that, I’m 100% on board.

A bit late for that. I really don't think the public gives a damn about how to do the gTLD expansion (beyond that doing it is a bad idea), EPDP Addendums, or most of the other things currently consuming ALAC these days. There are not many times at which ALAC is called upon on an issue that brings ICANN into the public spotlight like this did, and it utterly failed. - Evan

On May 5, 2020, at 7:07 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote: It's telling that all the positive response I've received to my comments yesterday were not posted here. Some came by private email, and some came on social media. Are they too intimidated to speak here, or have they just given up on being able to change ICANN from within?

Dude, you’re absolutely right, but you’re engaging with lobbyists, which are just paid trolls. They’re paid to disagree with you, so they disagree with you. If you say something that doesn’t interact with the messages they’re being paid to promote or suppress, they ignore you. It’s just their function. It’s the opposite of multistakeholderism, but engaging with them is just going to frustrate you. Engage with the folks who care about the future of the Internet, and are working to make it happen. That’s entirely outside of ICANN, unfortunately, but there it is. -Bill