ICANN director has .xxx job offer
Sebastien Bachollet, recently installed on the ICANN board as its first elected “At Large” director, has been offered a job working for the .xxx top-level domain, it has emerged.
According to a board “statement of interests” (pdf) released yesterday, independent technology consultant Bachollet:
has been invited to be a member of the Board of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which is set up to be the sponsoring organization for the .XXX sTLD, should ICM be awarded a contract for the .XXX sTLD.
He’s only the second person to be named as a potential member of the IFFOR board, after Canadian entrepreneur Clyde Beattie.
It goes without saying that Bachollet will be recusing himself from the (final?) ICANN board vote on ICM Registry’s .xxx contract, set for the San Francisco ICANN meeting March 18.
If .xxx is approved, IFFOR will create policies governing the .xxx TLD. It will be made up of a mixture of the adult industry, security, child protection and free speech advocates.
The SOI also revealed, in an ambiguously plural statement, that: “IBM may apply for new gTLD”.
The SOI also revealed, in an ambiguously plural statement, that: “IBM may apply for new gTLD”.
Hewlett Packard are unlikely to be very pleased!
Funny. Bachollet is begging for big bucks after trashing domainers, pornographers… Money talks, pride not.
I don’t understand the sensationalism or surprise in this Article.
It is routine for conflicts of interest to be declared (as in any company) and it would be stupid for such Applicants not to recruit experts (including Board members) to ensure that they do not run foul of ICANN’s rules and other operational procedures. It is in this way that these controversial Applicants can dovetail their procedure with what is required by ICANN and the rest of the internet community in this novel area.
In this respect, Sebastien is an obvious good choice- being the Board member from At Large he understands end user issues and would be able to provide invaluable insight and moral balance to the Applicant. On this note, the article admits his ethical and intended abstention from the vote on this contract.
Frankly, there are too many in the internet community who are happy jumping-up-on-their-soap-boxes to scream anonymously on blogs (and comments to these articles)…. but very few that would actually contribute substantively to the issue to ensure that problems are curtailed. In this respect we should admire Sebastien for standing forward to propose a tangible solution particularly in such a controversial area.
Regards to the Doers!
If you can refer to me one sentence in this article that is sensationalist, I’ll Paypal you $10. Actually, make it $50.
Thanks for the offer Kevin, but I also am part of the At Large community am not accustomed to being tempted by money but rather the challenge placed before me 🙂
My ‘sensationalism’ sentence stems from the bolded first paragraph of your article–
“Sebastien Bachollet, recently installed on the ICANN board as its first elected “At Large” director, has been offered a job working for the .xxx top-level domain, it has emerged.”
In my opinion the “it has emerged” ending implies a sense of secrecy and underhandedness. Neither of which existed in this case.
Dictionary.com’s first definition for “emerge” connotes the same –verb (used without object), e·merged, e·merg·ing.
1. to come forth into view or notice, as from concealment or obscurity
I don’t want to belabour the vocabulary or linguistics but certainly there was no concealment (as it was clearly stated in the SOI). Further, I don’t think it is appropriate to say that either working or not working for an Applicant is an obscure thing, but rather discrete (positive or negative) in nature.
Therefore personally I think the paragraph as a whole is misplaced and just meant to add unnecessary excitement.
You are the writer, and you know your ‘audience’ best. I am also certain that you are aware of the nature of for profit and non-profit business and directorships. So in this regard I am happy to agree to disagree and hope you will not become fixated on the first line of my comment.
Spoken like a true lawyer.
The ICM’s .xxx proposal has no support from the adult industry so the ICM has to resort to these kind of tactics 🙁
(posted by an adult webmaster)
Does M. Bachollet’s Statement of Interest also reveal that he had (has?) dealings with .green and .paris? Amazing! It does not.
This might fit the definition of “emerge.”
Those statements of interest appear far from complete. As an example, note the one for Rita Rodin Johnston (#13 in the PDF), and contrast that to her statement of interest in 2006:
http://gnso.icann.org/elections/2006-june/rodin-statement-01jun06.htm
“I worked with the group of registrars that formed Afilias, Ltd., operators of the .info registry, through the (i) formation of Afilias, (ii) ICANN bid process, (iii) ICANN contract negotiations, and (iv) start-up of its operations.
I also represented the Global Name Registry in connection with its ICANN contract negotiations and start-up operations.”
The statements of interest need to be far more forthcoming, because there can be conflicts of interest not just from *current* work, but also from work that can be *anticipated* simply by extrapolating from past assignments or other conversations one might be having that aren’t formalized.
The adult industry and the FreeSpeechCoalition are organizing a rally against the .xxx tld tomorrow in San Fransisco. This again shows what adult webmasters and domainers have known for a long time: the .xxx tld has no support from the adult industry.
Boycott .XXX!!!!!!
This is not good for anybody, only ICANN and it’s directors.
Nobody wanted this! and yet it has been approved!
Boycott .XXX and save yourself!!!!
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