[Advisors] A report (sort of) about attending ICANN50

[michael gurstein]

Thanks for this Garth and so far I've only skimmed the "report" but I'll try
to do a more thorough reading and if I have comments I'll send those along
at that time.

However, in the meantime I have a more general/global question.

The question is, if ICANN were suddenly to lose it's budget and instead of
operating on a global Internet tax base annually of what--$100 mill? as
currently, plus the benefits of its very hefty fees for expanding the number
of TLD's, and it was required to operate on say $2 mill a year or even
$500,000 a year:
	1. what would the net loss be to global well-being
	2. what would the net loss be to the overall well-being and on-going
health of the internet
	3. how much interest would there be in ICANN affairs outside of the
rarified atmosphere of copyright lawyers and techies from various global
infrastructure suppliers

My overall impression particularly on the civil society--not for profit
side--is that ICANN is a huge machine for self-perpetuation including
through making work for itself and those who are part of the gravy train.
That because it has this very significant and completely unaccountable
capacity to tax the Internet more or less at source it needs to find ways of
spending its money and making sure that enough of those who might be
significantly critical are taken within the funding tent (travel and per dia
perks, contracts, honoraria etc.) to ensure that there isn't much of a
constituency interested in "blowing the whistle"--pointing out that the
Emperor really doesn't have any clothes (i.e. activities of much interest
beyond an endless elaboration on more or less trivial technical matters).

The overall effect of this seems to be that while the formal mandate of
ICANN remains the more or less narrow technical management and
reconciliation/updating of a set of drop down directories (something that
Jon Postel evidently did quite well off the back of his desk and as a one
person part-time volunteer activity), the aspirations of ICANN and its
ever-growing coterie is to incorporate ever larger elements of the Internet
eco-system under the umbrella of its capacious travel allotments regime to
what end, beyond self-aggrandizement isn't clear, at least to me.

It is noteworthy that when some calls have come from various quarters that
ICANN might spend some of its largesse (estimates are that it will get in
the range of $350 mill from the current round of TLD expansion) on something
other than expanding its global shadow and providing travel allotments to
the Digital 1% this was met with astonishment, derision and incomprehension.

And just to show that I'm not alone in my dyspepsia...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/01/icann-future-of-the-intern
et

But maybe we are wrong.

M

Ps.  From my first casual reading I seem to glean from your report the
notion that non-ICANN insider Internet users have no real voice in ICANN's
processes--could we then make the argument "no taxation without
representation"... I'm not sure to whom one would make the argument but if
it worked once who knows, maybe it would work again :).

-----Original Message-----
From: advisors-bounces at tc.ca [mailto:advisors-bounces at tc.ca] On Behalf Of
Garth Graham
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2014 6:32 PM
To: advisors advisors
Subject: [Advisors] A report (sort of) about attending ICANN50

You will find that the attached essay doesn't exactly read as a report to TC
from its ALAC contact person.  It is however a fairly accurate summary of
where my involvement in Internet governance issues, including ICANN, is
taking me.  If anybody has any ideas where this might take TC, please do
comment, because it's not yet clear to me!

GG