As a development economist with a particular concern for "underserved regions" I have a question about a possible link between ICANN funding for underserved regions and the practice, in the past gTLD round, of Private Auctions. In simple terms ICANN hands over a valuable property to a pre-screened group to engage in a win-win auction where the winner wins the gTLD, at a price, and the losers win by sharing in the proceeds of the Auction. ICANN received nothing from the process. I am most familiar with this process when the asset in question is some part of an inheritance, and where the beneficiaries use this process to decide who within the family gets the asset and others share in the proceeds. It also occurs when an asset is donated to a charity auction, where the proceeds are for a good cause. The ICANN private auctions look an awful lot like the reverse. A not-for-profit turns over a valuable asset to a private auction for private gain. I don't know about the rules governing ICANN's not-for-profit status but in a public company this would verge on board failure of fiduciary responsibility, and there would be hell to pay. Is there not some way that a new round of gTLD can re-jig the private auction process so that it feeds funding to efforts to support underserved regions, and be less like an asset hand off that could raise issues of fiduciary responsibility? This should certainly precede a suggestion that ICANN, or others, go hat-in-hand to other possible funding sources to assist underserved regions. . Charity (and maybe integrity) begins at home. Sam Lanfranco, Policy Committee Chair NPOC -- ------------------------------------------------ "It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured in an unjust state" -Confucius ------------------------------------------------ Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus & Senior Scholar) Econ, York U., Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3 email: Lanfran@Yorku.ca Skype: slanfranco blog: http://samlanfranco.blogspot.com Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852