Recent Posts
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Domainers want the head of auDA’s chair
Disgruntled domainers have managed to arrange for a vote on whether auDA chair Stuart Benjamin should be fired.
auDA, the .au ccTLD administrator, has been under fire for many months from registrants who believe the organization is being managed in an increasingly erratic and secretive manner.
Now, a campaign and petition at Grumpy.com.au, run by Domainer.com.au publisher Ned O’Meara, has led to auDA calling a special meeting July 31 with a single resolution on the agenda:
That Stuart Benjamin be removed as a director of the Company with immediate effect.
Benjamin will therefore lose his job with simple majority votes of both classes of auDA members — “supply” class, meaning registrars, and “demand” class, meaning registrants.
O’Meara blogged yesterday that he believes there is “a slightly less than even chance” of the resolution being carried due to the possible lack of votes from supply class members.
But auDA rejected as legally “invalid” three additional resolutions that had been proposed.
Grumpy members had also wanted auDA to restore all of its board’s meeting minutes that were inexplicably deleted from the organization’s web site.
They’d wanted a recently instituted member code of conduct to be scrapped, rewritten, and then put to members for a vote.
The code of conduct bans “harassment” and “bullying” of auDA staff, but it also prevents members from talking to the media about auDA in disparaging terms.
Finally, they’d also wanted auDA to abandon its plan to build an in-house registry infrastructure (replacing current provider Neustar) without first putting the plan to a member vote.
But all of these resolutions have been taken off the table on the basis of unspecified “legal advice” provided to auDA.
According to O’Meara and others, dissatisfaction with the organization has been brewing for some time, ever since late 2015 when Benjamin was brought in as a “demand” class director and appointed chair, only to be quickly dismissed and immediately reinstated as an “independent” director and reappointed chair.
In March 2016, 16-year CEO Chris Disspain was fired and replaced by Cameron Boardman.
I’m told auDa has been hemorrhaging staff for months — 10 of its 13 employees have apparently left the organization this year.
The campaign over auDA’s lack of transparency and accountability is not just being led by domainers. There are a wide range of industry players – registrars, registrants including domainers, former board members and other interested industry participants – who are unhappy and are pressing for change. The recent Freedom of Information request was led by a former board member, for one.
I support the petition!
We at DOC support the petition and ALL 4 resolutions at http://www.grumpy.com.au