Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

ICANN says it can spend quarter-billion-dollar auction fund however it likes

Kevin Murphy, October 12, 2018, 12:51:42 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN can tap into its $236 million new gTLD auction fund whenever it wants, and there’s nothing the community can do about it, according to its board of directors.
The board this week said it has a “legal and fiduciary responsibility” over the money, and would be obliged to spend the cash to meet ICANN’s obligations if it ever needed to.
The statement came in a letter to the leaders of a community working group that this week published a set of preliminary recommendations (pdf) for how the money should be distributed.
The group — a cross-community working group or CCWG — laid out a few options for how the money should be administered, either by ICANN alone or in conjunction with a charitable third party, and distributed.
The money was collected from new gTLD applicants that participated in ICANN’s “last-resort” auctions to settle their contention sets. Over half of the money came from Verisign’s winning bid for .web, which is still being contested.
The CCWG said that the money should be used to:

  • Benefit the development, distribution, evolution and structures/projects that support the Internet’s unique identifier systems;
  • Benefit capacity building and underserved populations, and;
  • Benefit the open and interoperable Internet

But the CCWG could not agree among itself whether ICANN Org or community groups such as the GNSO or GAC should be able to grab some of the cash, which is currently held in a special fund, separated from ICANN’s operational budget.
The group asked the board for its opinion, and the board responded (pdf):

ICANN maintains legal and fiduciary responsibility over the funds, and the directors and officers have an obligation to protect the organization through the use of available resources. In such a case, while ICANN would not be required to apply for the proceeds, the directors and officers would have a fiduciary obligation to use the funds to meet the organization’s obligations.

In other words: it doesn’t matter what rules you put in place, it’s our money and we’re duty-bound to spend it if we have to.
The board added, however, that ICANN Org “currently does not foresee a situation where it would need to apply for the proceeds”.
ICANN is pretty well-funded. It would have to hit hard times indeed before it needed to crack open the auction nest egg.
The board also said that supporting organizations and advisory committees would not be able to apply for funding because they’re not legal entities and wouldn’t pass the due diligence.
The CCWG’s initial report is now open for public comment until November 27.

Tagged: , ,

Comments (1)

  1. kd says:
    October 12, 2018 at 5:09 pm

    just another example of ICANN-do-what-ever-it-want. This is not a true multi-stakeholder organization and only a facade.

    Reply

Add Your Comment