Chaotic scenes as ‘Grumpies’ lose auDA board fight

Three directors of .au registry auDA managed to keep their seats on the board despite losing the “popular vote” of members late last week.
The vote happened at the conclusion of an occasionally chaotic three-hour meeting that saw former AusRegistry chief Adrian Kinderis kicked out of the room barely a minute into proceedings.
The results in each of the three votes to fire directors Suzanne Ewart, Sandra Hook and chair Chris Leptos were 57 or 58 in favor and 51 or 52 against, which would have been a narrow win for the so-called “Grumpies” who originally called for the sackings.
However, auDA rules require, Leptos said, a simple majority of both “Supply” and “Demand” classes of members, and the Supply class (ie, registrars) voted against the motions by 30 to 2 or 31 to 1.
Therefore, all three directors get to keep their jobs.
auDA noted in a statement that a greater proportion of Supply class members (the substantially smaller constituency) turned out to vote compared to Demand class, adding:

It is time now for all members to get behind the reform of auDA as demanded by the federal government.
auDA is not the plaything of a small group of self-interested parties.
It can no longer be run as a club type organisation with a small membership who wield undue influence.

A “club type organization” was pretty much what came across during the meeting, which was audio-only webcast Friday morning. ICANN, auDA ain’t.
I was left with the impression of something a bit like Nominet circa 2010 or my first ICANN meeting back in 1999. Not so much herding cats, as [RACIST JOKE ALERT] herding wallabies.
At times it felt like an ICANN Public Forum, with an infinite number of Paul Foodys lining up at the mic.
At the same time, the meeting was chaired by somebody who, despite never losing his cool, seemed set on limiting criticism from members to the greatest extent possible.
There was controversy from the very outset, with the former CEO of former .au back-end provider AusRegistry (now part of Neustar) getting kicked out in the opening minute.
Kinderis, who no longer works for Neustar and has vowed publicly to be a thorn in auDA’s side, said he was “unlawfully removed” from the meeting by venue security, at the instruction of Leptos.
Leptos disputed Kinderis’ claim that he was there as a proxy for a legit member and said he believed he had acted “entirely appropriately” in ordering his removal.
There was no suggestion of physical force being used. His exit was recorded by chief Grumpy Josh Rowe, who then posted a brief video to Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/zvfJhuqUm9

— Josh Rowe (@joshrowe) July 27, 2018

Leptos then threatened to throw out fellow Grumpy Jim Stewart, who was protesting Kinderis’ removal, before warning non-member attendees that they would not be permitted to ask questions.
Forty-five minutes later, he repeatedly threatened to kick out Stewart for live-streaming video of the meeting from his phone, having apparently received complaints from other members.
Fifteen minutes later, the threats returned after Stewart and another member attempted to engage Leptos in an argument about auDA’s member recruitment policy.
The words “take a seat Mr…” were a recurring meme throughout the meeting.
The original reasons for the call for the directors to be fired were myriad, ranging from lack of transparency to projects such as the Neustar-Afilias registry transition and auDA’s desire to start selling direct second-level .au domains.
But the bulk of the meeting was taken up with discussions, and attempted discussions, about auDA’s recent membership spike.
The Grumpies have audited the new member list — which has grown from 300-odd to 1,345 in just a few weeks — and found that the vast majority of new members are employees of just three registrars and one registry (Afilias, the new back-end).
They reckon these new members, many of whom do not live in Australia, represent an attempt by auDA leadership to capture the voting community, and that foreigners are not technically members of the “Australian internet community” that auDA is supposed to represent.
Leptos responded to such criticisms by saying that employees of Australia-focused registrars are indeed members of the Australian internet community, regardless of their country of residence.
He added that auDA is under the instruction of the Australian government to diversify its membership — he said that registrars have no board representation currently — and that the recently added members are a first step on that path.
The Grumpies had shortly before the meeting started making accusations that the membership influx amounts to “potential cartel behaviour”.
Leptos addressed this directly during the meeting, saying they had “accused the CEO of criminal conduct” and categorically denying any wrongdoing.
auDA later issued a statement saying:

This is a very serious allegation to have been made and auDA strongly disagrees that by encouraging others to join the auDA membership, or by approving membership applications which satisfy its constitutional requirements, auDA or its officers have engaged in cartel behaviour or otherwise acted improperly.

Domain blogger O’Meara elected to auDA board

Domainer-blogger Ned O’Meara, one of the fiercest critics of auDA, has been elected to the organization’s board of directors.
He was one of four directors elected at the Australian ccTLD registry’s Annual General Meeting today.
auDA splits its board into “demand” and “supply” classes. The former are registrants, the latter registrars and resellers.
O’Meara, a domain investor who blogs at Domainer.com.au, was elected as a demand class director, along with Nicole Murdoch, a trademark lawyer who O’Meara backed when he was prevaricating about his own run.
On the supply side, members elected Canadian-born chair of the Australian Web Industry Association and founder of 1300 Web Pro, James Deck, and Grant Wiltshire.
Wiltshire, who works for the government of the Australian state of Victoria, has been a demand-class director for the last two years. There’s no indication in his candidate statement where in the domain industry he has worked.
The election came a week after auDA named its new chair and a new independent director.
Chris Leptos is the new chair. He replaces Stuart Benjamin, who was forced out earlier this year after a “Grumpy” campaign led by O’Meara.
Leptos is deputy chair of financial advisory firm Flagstaff Partners and sits on the board of PPB Advisory. That’s the company that conducted an audit of auDA following the departure of its former CEO last year.
O’Meara landing on the board means he will of course become privy to all the information he’e been campaigning for auDA to be more transparent about recently. How this will affect his blogging remains to be seen, he has yet to write a post about his election.