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DNS Women barred from ICANN funding?

Kevin Murphy, January 11, 2024, 17:23:01 (UTC), Domain Policy

A networking group set up to support women in the domain name industry, especially in the developing world, may be banned from applying for ICANN funding under rules published earlier this week.

Concerns have been raised that DNS Women may be excluded from the $10 million in non-profit Grant Program funding ICANN is making available this year because its CEO participated in the program’s community rule-making process.

ICANN’s rules, written by Org staff based on the recommendations of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP), ban anyone from applying for grants — set at between $50,000 and $500,000 — if they have potential conflicts of interest.

Participation in the CCWG-AP is listed as one such conflict:

No person that participated as a member (including temporary member appointments) of the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds (CCWG-AP) is eligible to apply for or be included within funded proposal activities as principals, advisors, or in other roles. Grants may not be awarded to businesses and organizations owned in whole or in part by the CCWG-AP members or their family members. Grant funding may not be used to pay compensation to CCWG-AP members or their family members.

DNS Women is currently led by Vanda Scartezini, who was a member of CCWG-AP representing the At-Large Advisory Committee. She’s written to ICANN to express surprise to find herself suddenly unable to apply for funding. ICANN has responded with a pointer to the CCWG-AP’s recommendations, where the language closely mirrors that found in the new application rules as implemented.

But if Scartezini has shot herself in the foot, she may not be alone. According to the CCWG-AP’s final report, there may have been almost enough foot-shooting to create a Paralympic football team.

Of the 22 people who participated as full members of the group — and would be therefore barred from financially benefiting from grants — 10 people answered “yes” or “maybe” when asked to disclose whether they or their employer expected to apply for funding (almost all, including Scartezini, were “maybes”).

The $10 million tranche available this year comes from a $217 million fund ICANN raised auctioning off contested gTLDs following the 2012 application round.

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