[discuss] discuss Digest, Vol 4, Issue 145

[Keith Davidson]

On 22/03/2014 3:42 a.m., Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
> Keith, Wolfgang, all,
>
> only partly true. I'll skip details and go to the consequences: as
> ccTLDs and RIRs contribute only marginally to ICANN's funding, the
> majority of ICANN's funds stem from the gTLD space.

Only partly true Alejandro. ICANNs inability to provide meaningful 
financial information regarding the costs it incurs re ccTLDs was the 
main reason for limited contribution from ccTLDs. Furthermore the 
greatest costs for ICANN are policy development programmes, compliance 
projects etc relating to the gTLDs. ccTLDs are not bound to ICANN 
policies, registry agreements etc. But anyway, within weeks of ICANN 
finally producing meaningful costings for the support of ccTLDs, the 
ccNSO approved a formula that could result in ccTLDs paying their share 
of ICANN costs.

> A paradox ensues in which the same parties that do not contribute funds
> complain about ICANN being overly dependent on a single source of funding.

Many of the participative, developed ccTLDs have been contributing 
voluntarily to ICANN for many years. But you are painting a single 
picture that is not a reflection of reality Alejandro. There are many 
ccLTDs who support the ICANN model, financially and philisophically. 
There are huge amounts of historic costs picked up by ccTLDs outside of 
the ICANN financial records - for example, until recently, ccTLDs were 
nearly always the local host for ICANN meetings, and the costs to local 
hosts tended to range from $300,000 to $500,000 per meeting.

> Given that Wolfgang brings up the "T-bone" nickname (not extensively
> used) another piece of folklore could have arisen and didn't, "pony up
> or shut up", to use some deep USian vernacular for the principle of
> corresponsibility. Water under the river now.

Yes, sadly a claim made by the misinformed. All the ccTLDs sought from 
ICANN was accountability and transparency of the finances, before 
committing to its own funding. Now truly resolved for this topic.

The reason for discussing the original topics on this thread was to 
remind folks (or provide information to folks who weren't around in 
those days) that the ICANN staff and board can take unpalatable 
decisions and drive ICANN down undesirable paths, or can alienate some 
stakeholders to satisfy others - showing the extremely delicate path of 
achieving consensus in the multistakeholder environment. The risk going 
forward is that a couple of key changes of people in a couple of key 
positions can start to move ICANN away from its core principles. So what 
we develop for the future structures should insulate us from ICANN going 
rogue. Having all eggs in one basket is a recipe for greater problems 
rather than lesser problems, imho.

Cheers

Keith