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Government gives auDA reform-or-die ultimatum

Kevin Murphy, April 18, 2018, 09:52:26 (UTC), Domain Registries

auDA has just months to either implement sweeping reforms or risk being dissolved and replaced.
That’s the outcome of a review of the Australian ccTLD administrator by the Department of Communications and Arts, published today, that found the organization as it stands today is “no longer fit-for-purpose”.
Among its 29 recommendations, the government is demanding that auDA refresh its board of directors within a year and scrap its “outdated” membership structure.
Minister Mitch Fifield said in a statement:

The central finding of the review is that auDA’s current management framework is no longer fit-for-purpose and reform is necessary if the company is to perform effectively and meet the needs of Australia’s internet community.

He added in a letter to auDA chair Chris Leptos:

In the event that auDA fails to demonstrate progress in achieving the necessary reforms, I will instruct my Department to undertake a public expression of interest process in the future to identify other entities that could administer .au

A failure to reform could even lead to the government itself taking over .au, the report says.
The review did not look at the claims of lavish spending by staff and directors, reported on earlier this week.
Nor does it express any views on the controversial decision to start selling direct second-level .au domains, or to transition the back-end from Neustar to Afilias.
What it does say is that the board of directors needs to be be replaced within a year, using a new membership structure that gets rid of the current “supply” and “demand” classes of member, which differentiate between those who sell domains and those who buy them.
The current system is open to capture or “stacking”, the review says, with it being too easy for individuals to move seamlessly between classes and a lack of clarity on whether domainers should be supply or demand-class members.
Today, the 12-person board comprises the non-voting CEO, three independent directors and four directors elected by each class.
The review states that the board should not get any bigger, but that the majority of directors should be independent, selected by a new six-person Nomination Committee modeled slightly on ICANN’s Nominating Committee.
Directors should be picked on the basis on their experience and skills, limited to two three-year terms, and subject to background screening, the review states.
The government also says that auDA should either replace its current membership classes with either a single membership class open to all or a “functional constituency model” reflecting groups such as consumers, registrars, government, etc.
Fifield said he expects to see “significant” progress on implementing these reforms in the next three to six months.
In a statement, auDA said it welcomed the report and has already begun work on an implementation plan.
Former CEO Chris Disspain, who was fired by the board in 2016, after running the company for 16 years, a move that arguably catalyzed the last two years of chaos at auDA, told DI:

I am pleased that the review has called out a number of important structural issues especially the matter of membership stacking, something that I had raised with the board on a number of occasions towards the end of my tenure and that may have led, at least in part, to my departure.

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Comments (1)

  1. Chris Disspain says:
    April 18, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    Thank you for quoting me Kevin.
    Following the publication of this report, I’d also like to say that I am proud of having built and led a stable and accountable multi-stakeholder organisation over 16 years with an extraordinarily effective small team of people who were totally committed to doing their best for the .au ccTLD.
    I hope that the fulfilment of the government’s requirements will lead to auDA returning to the stable, open, transparent and accountable entity that the Australian internet community deserves to have running its country code.

    Reply

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