Letter from Senators+ on .ORG Sale

Fri Jan 17 14:11:27 EET 2020

I do understand the angle you are coming from. But you and i no that this
deal was transacted in the dark.
We really leave in a complex community, a community where some times you
see darkness over shadowing light.
I sure between now and 31st January the deal would have been sealed with
all the hidden information.

*WISDOM DONKOR*
President & CEO
Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation
P.O. Box CT 2439, Cantonments, Accra | www.aodirf.org  / www.afrigeocon.org
Tel: +233 20 812 8851
Skype: wisdom_dk | Facebook: kwasi wisdom |  Twitter: @wisdom_dk
__________________________________________________
Specialization:
E-government Network Infrastructure and E-application, Internet
Governance,  Open Data policies platforms & Community Development, Cyber
Security,  Domain Name Systems, Software Engineering, Event Planning &
Management,

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 6:27 PM Martin Pablo Silva Valent <
mpsilvavalent at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wisdom,
>  Think it in terms of what you can or not enforce in this case. ISOC has
> the right to sell PIR, PIR has the right and obligation to operate .org,
> unless it wishes to terminate the agreement. ICANN has a very little say in
> case PIR changes it control, which is happening in this case. There ICANN
> can ask for info and only oppose for reasonable concerns.
> We need to define that and quick, because ICANN has a deadline to raise
> the concern. Concern that is not absolute, if PIR shows that has addressed
> reasonably the concerns then ICANN cannot oppose for eternity. So, we need
> to tell ICANN what we think a reasonable PIR has to look like under the new
> control. ICANN can negotiate those terms and the new PIR should continue
> serving with new limits.
> It is not desirable to have ISOC, against their will, retain and operate
> such a delicate thing like a registry. If they want out, and they find a
> way to go out that fulfils the .org community needs, we should let them go.
> Unluckily, the former director of ICANN don’t have a legal statue to not
> enter in this types of deals (I think there should be limits), and it is
> very suspicious on how ICANN took away the price caps just before the sale,
> but unless we are terminating their contract claiming the renewal is
> invalid, which is not, then those things cannot stop the .org transfer. So
> all we can do is open the debate toward more transparency and more limits
> to ex-icann staff going into business with info and relations that are, to
> say the leats unethical.
>
> TL;DR:
> 1- We cannot stop forever the sale, we can try to negotiate terms so our
> concerns on how .org is manage are actually addressed and we can live with
> it.
> 2- The lack of transparency and unethical behaviour are not legally enough
> to stop the deal, but are politically enough to force icann more
> transparency and more restrictions to ex-staff conflict of interest.
> 3- Like I said before, in NO case we can permit Congress or US, or
> anywhere, politics get into ICANN. We have a place, process ande scope for
> government speech and intervention, and there it should remain.
>
> Best,
> Martín
>
>
> On 17 Jan 2020, at 10:25, Wisdom Donkor <wisdom.dk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Martin,
> I dont think so, the issue at hand is with the deal, how transparent the
> deal is, and why a for profit organisation.
> Transparency is lacking in this whole deal.
>
> This is a sensitive issue i think ICANN itself need to take it time to
> deal with in order not to step on any toes.
>
>
>
>
>
> *WISDOM DONKOR*
> President & CEO
> Africa Open Data and Internet Research Foundation
> P.O. Box CT 2439, Cantonments, Accra | www.aodirf.org  /
> www.afrigeocon.org
> Tel: +233 20 812 8851
> Skype: wisdom_dk | Facebook: kwasi wisdom |  Twitter: @wisdom_dk
> __________________________________________________
> Specialization:
> E-government Network Infrastructure and E-application, Internet
> Governance,  Open Data policies platforms & Community Development, Cyber
> Security,  Domain Name Systems, Software Engineering, Event Planning &
> Management,
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 12:50 PM Martin Pablo Silva Valent <
> mpsilvavalent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We cannot force isoc to keep the operation is they don't want to. We can
>> demand they find a new operating company that reasonableness keeps things
>> stable, secure, etc. That's the only debate we can give.
>>
>> We should be asking icann how come they raised the price caps and half of
>> the management team is on the other side of this deal. How that is
>> unethical to put a word to it.
>>
>>
>> Best,
>> Martin
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 8:54 AM Scott Johnson <scott at gnuveau.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Sam,
>>>
>>> I would say that until this is a known quantity, it will be very
>>> difficult
>>> to get the parties to the transaction to concede to anything.  However,
>>> if
>>> this is a well defined list of safeguards, etc. to protect .org, then it
>>> is quite possible that the deal can be shaped to incorporate such
>>> safeguards.
>>>
>>> Scott
>>>
>>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2020, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
>>>
>>> > Scott,
>>> >
>>> > Good question. Some of us have tried to get a discussion going about
>>> the
>>> > exact nature of the entity that comes out of the Ethos Capital
>>> purchase of
>>> > PIR. Would it be a benefit corporation or a "Certified" B Corp LLC, or
>>> > what? Another question is around the actual powers of any Advisory
>>> > Committee, especially in light of the fact that PIR kept its Advisory
>>> > Committee in the dark with regard to the sale itself. A third question
>>> > (for the lawyers among us) is are there specific terms in the .org
>>> > registry contract that ICANN can insist on that improve the protection
>>> of
>>> > the public interest?
>>> >
>>> > To date, in the case of Ethos Capital there has been no clarification
>>> > about the benefit corporation/LLC/B Corp Certification area. There have
>>> > been only good will promises with regard to an Advisory Committee, and
>>> no
>>> > discussion about what ICANN could, or could not, put in the .org
>>> registry
>>> > contract.
>>> >
>>> > To put it bluntly, Ethos Capital has said "Trust us", some (Vint Cerf)
>>> > have said "Trust them", and a lot of us have said "We are unhappy",
>>> others
>>> > have said "We too are interested in buying PIR".
>>> >
>>> > Nobody, including ICANN org and the Board, has really addressed your
>>> core
>>> > question.
>>> >
>>> > Sam Lanfranco
>>> >       ---- Original Message ----
>>> >       From: Scott Johnson <scott at GNUVEAU.NET>
>>> >       To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>>> >       Sent: Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:36 PM
>>> >       Subject: Re: Letter from Senators+ on .ORG Sale
>>> >
>>> >       Has anyone clearly defined a set of circumstances whereby the
>>> >       sale of PIR
>>> >       to $ANYBUYER would be acceptable by the consensus of relevant
>>> >       parties?
>>> >       Put another way, what specific performance on the part of
>>> >       buyer and
>>> >       seller would be required to make any such transition
>>> >       comfortable moving
>>> >       forward?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-discuss/attachments/20200117/35aa772f/attachment.htm>