.music and .gay CPE probe could end this month

An ICANN-commissioned investigation into the fairness of its Community Priority Evaluation process for new gTLDs could wind up before the end of June.
In an update Friday, ICANN also finally revealed who is actually conducting the probe, which has been slammed by affected applicants for being secretive.
A tentative timeline sketched out in the update means applicants for gTLDs including .gay and .music could find their applications closer to release from limbo in just a few weeks.
ICANN revealed that FTI Consulting’s Global Risk and Investigations Practice and Technology Practice have been looking into claims ICANN staff meddled in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s supposedly independent CPE reviews for the last several months.
FTI is reviewing how ICANN staff interacted with the EIU during the CPE processes, how the EIU conducted its research and whether the EIU applied the CPE criteria uniformly across different gTLDs.
ICANN said that FTI finished collected material from ICANN in March and hopes to have all the information it has asked the EIU for by the end of this week.
It could deliver its findings to ICANN two weeks after that, ICANN said.
Presumably, there would be little to prevent ICANN publishing these findings very shortly thereafter.
ICANN has been harangued by some of the applicants for .music, .gay, hotel, .cpa, .llc, .inc, .llp and .merck, all of which have been affected by controversial CPE decisions and have been delayed by the investigation, for months.

Time to show ICANN who’s boss!

You are in charge of ICANN.
That statement may sound trite — it is trite — but it’s always been true to some extent.
Even if their individual voices are often lost, members of the ICANN community have always had the ability to influence policy, whether through sporadic responses to public comment periods or long term, soul-crushing working group volunteer work.
ICANN only really has power through community consent.
That’s another trite statement, but one which became more true on October 1 last year, when ICANN separated itself from US government oversight and implemented a new set of community-created bylaws.
The new bylaws created a new entity, the “Empowered Community”, which essentially replaced the USG and is able to wield more power than the ICANN board of directors itself.
Indeed, the Empowered Community can fire the entire board if it so chooses; a nuclear option for the exercise of community control that never existed before.
And the EC is, at the ICANN 59 public meeting in Johannesburg at the end of the month, about to get its first formal outing.
What the EC will discuss is pretty dull stuff. That’s why I had to trick you into reading this post with an outrageous, shameless, sensationalist headline.
Before getting into the substance of the Johannesburg meeting, I’m going to first bore you further for several paragraphs by attempting to answering the question: “What exactly is the Empowered Community?”
The EC exists an an “unincorporated association” under California law, ICANN deputy general counsel Sam Eisner told me.
It doesn’t have shareholders, directors, staff, offices… you wouldn’t find it by searching California state records. But it would have legal standing to take ICANN to court, should the need arise.
It was basically created by the new ICANN bylaws.
It comprises the five major constituencies of ICANN — the Generic Names Supporting Organization, the Country Code Names Supporting Organization, the Governmental Advisory Committee, the At-Large Advisory Committee and the Address Supporting Organization.
They’re called “Decisional Participants” and each is represented on a committee called the EC Administration by a single representative.
Right now, each group is represented on the Administration by its respective chair — GNSO Council chair James Bladel of GoDaddy represents the GNSO currently, for example — but I gather that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case; each group can decide how it appoints its rep.
Bladel tells me that each representative only takes action or casts a vote after being told to do so by their respective communities. As individuals, their power is extremely limited.
When the EC makes decisions, there must always be at least three votes in favor of the decision and no more than one vote against. A 3-1 vote would count as approval, a 3-2 vote would not.
This is to make sure that there is a fairly high degree of consensus among stakeholders while also preventing one community stonewalling the rest for strategic purposes.
The EC’s nine powers are enumerated in article 6.2 of the ICANN bylaws.
It can hire and fire an unlimited number of directors, reject the ICANN budget, file Requests for Reconsideration or Independent Review Process appeals, sue ICANN, and oversee changes to the ICANN bylaws.
Most of these powers are reactive — that is, if the ICANN board did something terrible the EC would have to consciously decide to act upon it in some way.
But one of them — approval of changes to Fundamental Bylaws — places the EC squarely in the legislative pathway. Think of it like the Queen of England’s Royal Assent or the US president’s ability to veto bills before they become law.
That’s the role the EC will adopt in Joburg this month.
The ICANN board recently passed a resolution calling for a new board committee to be created to focus on handling accountability mechanisms such as Reconsideration, removing the function from the overworked Board Governance Committee.
Because this requires a change to a Fundamental Bylaw — those bylaws considered so important they need more checks and balances — the EC has been called upon to give it the community’s formal consent.
To the best of my knowledge, the bylaws amendment is utterly uncontroversial. I haven’t heard of any objections or complaints about what essentially seems to be a probably beneficial tweak in how ICANN’s board functions.
But it will be the EC’s first formal exercise of executive power.
So there will be a session at ICANN 59 in which the EC convenes to discuss the board’s resolution and, probably, hear any input it has not already heard.
The exact format of the session seems to be up in the air at the moment, but I gather an open-mic “public forum” style meeting of about an hour is the most likely choice. It will of course be webcast, with remote participation, as almost all ICANN public meetings are.
No votes will be cast at the session — I’m told the bylaws actually forbid it — but the EC will have only 21 days afterwards to poll their communities and formally deliver their verdict. Assuming at least three of the communities consent to the board resolution and no more than one objects, it will automatically become ICANN law.
The next test of the EC, which would prove to be actually newsworthy enough to write about without a clickbait headline, may well be the ICANN budget. ICANN’s financial year ends at the end of June, and the EC has explicit powers to reject it.
The budget often raises concerns from those parties who actually pay into it, and given the difficulties the industry is in right now there may be more concerns than usual.
Anyway, this is the way ICANN works nowadays. It would make for more interesting reading if a triumvirate of Iran, China and Russia now ran the show, but they don’t. You lot do.
Just be glad Donald Trump isn’t holding the reins.
Sorry, that was also trite, wasn’t it.

Country names to finally be released in new gTLDs

It looks like hundreds of domain names matching the names of countries are to finally get released from ICANN limbo.
The ICANN board last week passed a resolution calling for the organization to clear a backlog of over 60 registry requests to start selling or using country and territory names in their gTLDs.
Some of the requests date back to 2014. They’ve all been stuck in red tape while ICANN tried to make sure members of the Governmental Advisory Committee was cool with the names being released.
The result of these three years of pondering is scrappy, but will actually allow some names to hit the market this year.
The new resolution calls for ICANN to “take all steps necessary to grant ICANN approvals for the release of country and territory names at the second-level”, but only “to the extent the relevant government has indicated its approval”.
And that’s the catch.
Some governments, such as the US and UK, don’t care who registers matching names. Dozens of others want to vet each registry request on a case-by-case basis.
The wishes of each government are record in a GAC database.
The only territories to so far give a blanket waiver over their names are: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK, the USA, Guernsey and Pitcairn.
Almost 70 other countries have said they need to be told when a registry wants to sell a domain matching their name. Ten others give carte blanche to closed dot-brands, but require notification in the case of open gTLDs.
The majority of countries in the world have yet to officially express a preference one way or the other.
Of the roughly 60 new gTLD registries to request country name releases over the last few years, the vast majority are dot-brands. The number of open gTLDs with such requests appears to be in the single figures, and the only ones with mass-market appeal appear to be .xyz and .global.

Iran reported to Ombudsman after new gTLD conspiracy theory

ICANN’s Ombudsman has stepped in to resolve a complaint from the Iranian government that it was being “excluded” from discussions about the next phase of the new gTLD program.
Kavouss Arasteh, Iran’s Governmental Advisory Committee representative, earlier this month accused the leadership of the New gTLD Subsequent Procedures Working Group of deliberately scheduling teleconferences to make them difficult for him to attend.
He said the 0300 UTC timing of a meeting made it “painful” for European volunteers to participate (though it’s 0730 in Tehran).
When WG co-chair Avri Doria said that the time had been selected to avoid clashes with other working groups and declined his request, Arasteh said in an email: “If you insist, I interpret that this is an effort to EXCLUDE GAC TO ATTEND THE PDP.”
In other words, he was accusing the WG leaders of trying to exclude governments from helping to develop the rules of the new gTLD program.
Doria responded that she took the tone of the remarks as “abusive”, adding:

since my motives have been attacked and since I have been accused of trying to prevent GAC participation, I have no choice other than to turn this issue over to the Ombudsman.
The only other alternative I can think of is to accept the fact that I am incapable of co-chairing this group and step down.

Fellow co-chair Jeff Neuman chipped in with a detailed explanation of how, in the global ICANN community, there usually isn’t a time of day that is not inconvenient to at least some volunteers.
(It’s sometimes possible to hear snoring on these calls, but that’s not always due to the time of day.)
Today, Ombudsman Herb Weye responded to Doria’s complaint, saying that it has been “resolved” between the two parties. He wrote:

Without going into detail I am pleased to advise the working group that this complaint has been resolved and that I can bear witness to a unanimous demonstration of support for the leadership of the working group.
I would like to highlight the professional, “human” approach taken by all involved and their willingness to communicate in a clear, respectful and objective manner. This cooperative atmosphere allowed for a timely discussion and quick resolution.

Aratesh has for some time been one of the most vocal and combative GAC reps, noticeably unafraid to raise his voice when he needs to make his point.
He recently publicly threatened to take his concerns about ICANN’s policy on two-character domains to the International Telecommunications Union if his demands were not met.

Let’s all have a nosey at how much ICANN staff get paid

It’s that time of year again when ICANN publishes its US tax returns and we all get to have a good old nosey at how much its top brass get paid.
Figures for fiscal 2016 — so, basically a year out of date — came out this week and they show some senior executives got big pay boosts.
Overall, the return shows that the 17 highest-paid ICANN staffers received a total of $7.3 million in a combination of salary and bonuses, or about $429,000 on average, in the year.
That’s an increase of $603,000 on fiscal 2015 or $488,000 if you don’t count the bonuses.
I’m only counting the 17 named executives who appear in both the FY15 and FY16 returns, and I’m not counting non-executive directors.
Three of these executives received pay rises, not including bonuses, in excess of $100,000. While most top staff saw pay increases below 5%, raises of 21%, 34%, 44% and even 58% were recorded.
Four of them received bonuses of $125,000 or more.
One of the 17 saw his compensation go down. I’m guessing that might be an exchange rate fluctuation.
CEO Fadi Chehade, who left three quarters of the way through the fiscal year, still took home $854,000 in salary and bonuses, up from $737,000 in FY15. His successor’s compensation does not figure into the FY16 numbers.
ICANN has 155 staff members making over $100,000 a year, the return shows, up from 132 the previous year. That means more than half of ICANN’s total staff is in six-figure territory.
ICANN’s pay policy is to set compensation at the 50th to 75th percentile of the “relevant market”, which I assume is the technology sector rather than the not-for-profit sector, in order to stay competitive when hiring.
Its FY16 tax return can be downloaded here (pdf) and the FY15 one is here (pdf).

ICANN’s origin story is well worth a watch

The story of how ICANN was born is being told through an ongoing series of video interviews.
The ICANN History Project went live late last week with an initial batch of eight videos on the theme of ICANN’s relationship with the US government, from before ICANN’s inception in 1998 to more recent developments such as the IANA transition.
There are several hours of interviews to watch so far, covering many of the key figures in ICANN over the last 20 years.
We have the likes of “Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf, “Father of ICANN” Ira Magaziner, “Godmother of ICANN” Becky Burr and “Second Cousin of Usenet” Fadi Chehade (sorry).
Three of ICANN’s four chairs to date are interviewed, along with two of its six CEOs.
From the USG side, recently departed assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Larry Strickling gets half an hour in the warm seat.
It’s fronted by Brad White, ICANN’s head of comms for North America, who says he’s trying to approach the project from a journalistic perspective.
Before he fell to the Dark Side, he was a TV reporter for many years, as will become quickly apparent.

I must admit I’ve only managed to watch half of the videos so far, but from what I’ve seen they’re pretty damn good. Don’t expect PR fluff or self-congratulatory circle-jerky.
The interviewees all seem to talk pretty frankly about what was going on around the time of ICANN’s formation in the quagmire of bloodthirsty partisan hackery over the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, a stirring from the International Telecommunications Union, and Jon Postel’s hacking of the entire DNS.
All worth a listen, if you’re an ICANN nerd.
Subtitled versions of each are available in each of the UN languages.
It’s slightly disappointing that ICANN’s original CEO Mike Roberts and chair Esther Dyson aren’t among the first batch of interviews (Dyson, particularly, has emerged as a critic of ICANN since her departure in 2000) but I gather the project is ongoing and more content will be posted as it’s completed.
The videos are supplemented by documentation that speaks to the same topics as the interviews. As far as I can tell, it’s all public info already, but it’s nice to see it collected in one place.
The project can be found here.

.gay, .music and others in limbo as ICANN probes itself

Several new gTLD applicants have slammed ICANN for conducting an investigation into its own controversial practices that seems to be as opaque as the practices themselves.
Seven proposed new gTLDs, including the much-anticipated .music and .gay, are currently trapped in ICANN red tape hell as the organization conducts a secretive probe into how its own staff handled Community Priority Evaluations.
The now broad-ranging investigation seems have been going on for over six months but does not appear to have a set deadline for completion.
Applicants affected by the delays don’t know who is conducting the probe, and say they have not been contacted by anyone for their input.
At issue is the CPE process, designed to give genuine “community” gTLD applicants a way to avoid a costly auction in the event that their choice of string was contested.
The results of the roughly 25 CPE decisions, all conducted by the independent Economist Intelligence Unit, were sometimes divergent from each other or just baffling.
Many of the losers complained via ICANN’s in-house Requests for Reconsideration and then Independent Review Process mechanisms.
One such IRP complaint — related to Dot Registry’s .inc, .llc, .llp applications — led to two of the three-person IRP panel deciding last July that ICANN had serious questions to answer about how the CPE process was carried out.
While no evidence was found that ICANN had coached the EIU on scoring, it did emerge that ICANN staff had supplied margin notes to the supposedly independent EIU that had subsequently been incorporated into its final decision.
The IRP panel majority wrote that the EIU “did not act on its own in performing the CPEs” and “ICANN staff was intimately involved in the process”.
A month or so later, the ICANN board of directors passed a resolution calling for the CEO to “undertake an independent review of the process by which ICANN staff interacted with the CPE provider”.
Another month later, in October, the Board Governance Committee broadened the scope of the investigation and asked the EIU to supply it with documents it used to reach its decisions in multiple controversial CPE cases.
A couple of weeks ago, BGC chair Chris Disspain explained all this (pdf) to the applicants for .music, .gay, hotel, .cpa, .llc, .inc, .llp and .merck, all of which are affected by the delay caused by the investigation.
He said that the investigation would be completed “as soon as practicable”.
But in response, Dot Registry and lawyers for fellow failed CPE applicant DotMusic have fired off more letters of complaint to ICANN.
(UPDATE: Dot Registry CEO Shaul Jolles got in touch to say his letter was actually sent before Disspain’s, despite the dates on the letters as published by ICANN suggesting the opposite).
Both applicants note that they have no idea who the independent party investigating the CPEs is. That’s because ICANN hasn’t identified them publicly or privately, and the evaluator has not contacted the applicants for their side of the story.
DotMusic’s lawyer wrote (pdf):

DotMusic’s rights are thus being decided by a process about which it: (1) possesses minimal information; (2) carried out by an individual or organization whose identity ICANN is shielding; (3) whose mandate is secret; (4) whose methods are unknown; and (5) whose report may never be made public by ICANN’s Board.

He added, pointedly:

The exclusion of directly affected parties from participation eerily reproduces the shortcomings of the EIU evaluations that are under scrutiny in the first place.

Dot Registry CEO Shaul Jolles, in his letter (pdf), quoted Disspain saying at a public forum in Copenhagen this March that a blog post addressing the concerns had been drafted and would be published “shortly”, but wasn’t.
He suggested the investigation is “smoke and mirrors” and, along with DotMusic, demanded more information about the investigator’s identity and methods.
It does strike me as a looking a bit like history repeating itself: ICANN comes under fire for non-transparently influencing a supposedly independent review and addresses those criticisms by launching another non-transparent supposedly independent review.
No matter what I feel about the merits of the “community” claims of some of these applicants, it has been over five years now since they submitted their applications and the courtesy of transparency — if closure itself its not yet possible — doesn’t seem like a great deal to ask.

ICANN changes Panama meeting dates to avoid Muslim holiday

ICANN has changed the dates of next year’s ICANN 62 public meeting to accommodate the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.
Eid is the movable festival marking the end of the fasting month Ramadan, when observant Muslims are allowed to start eating during daylight hours again.
In 2018, it runs from June 14-15, which would have made things difficult for Muslims hoping to attend ICANN’s mid-year meeting, previously slated to begin June 18.
So ICANN has pushed it back a week. ICANN 62 will now begin June 25. As a mid-year Policy Forum, it is the shortest meeting of the year.
The meeting is due to be held in Panama City, Panama.
Its the second change for the Panama meeting. ICANN had originally planned to meet there for ICANN 56 in mid-2016, but relocated the event to Helsinki due to the panic about Zika virus.

Hey, you! Listen to the ICANN board webcast more private sessions

ICANN’s board of directors is to live stream two sessions during an upcoming retreat, and if you’re at all interested in ICANN you really ought to tune in.
The webcasts are part of an ongoing pilot program designed to increase transparency at the very top of ICANN’s policy-making reverse-hierarchy.
The public, listen-only sessions seem to have been cherry-picked from the broader program of a retreat in Geneva over the May 6-7 weekend, and are:

Marketplace Dynamics Session I: Registries and Registrars
Saturday, 6 May, 11:15 – 12:00 UTC
Internet Governance Engagement Strategy with a Focus on the Internet Governance Forums (IGFs): Proposal to the Board
Sunday, 7 May, 09:00 – 10:00 UTC

Neither session sounds earth-shatteringly exciting, but both will be worth a listen in my view.
If nobody listens, ICANN could fairly say that streaming board meetings is a waste of money and stop doing it rather than expanding the program in future. That reduction of transparency would be in nobody’s interests.
The most recent live sessions occurred during ICANN 58 in Copenhagen last month, but until I ranted on Twitter nobody apart from me was listening.
That’s despite the fact that increased board transparency has been something the community has been crying out for for years.
So if you agree with transparency but find the chosen topics boring, perhaps just open the Adobe Connect room, hit mute, and go for brunch or play with your kids or something.
The Adobe links can be found here.
Disclosure: now that I’ve written this post, I think it’s almost inevitable that I will accidentally miss one or both of these sessions. You’re welcome to mock me should that happen (though you’ll only know whether I was there if you tune in yourself).

ICANN attendance shrank in Denmark

Attendance at ICANN’s recent meeting in Copenhagen was down about 8% on the comparable meeting a year earlier in Marrakech, according to ICANN statistics.
There were 2,089 at the Denmark meeting, down from 2,273 reported a year ago in Morocco.
The decline appears to be largely a result of relatively lower local participation. Africa is usually under-represented at ICANN meetings, but there was a surge in Marrakech, with almost 956 attendees hailing from the continent.
About half of Copenhagen participants — 1,012 people, of which 417 were first-timers — were European.
The number of remote participation attendees was much higher in Copenhagen. ICANN counted 4,428 unique users logging into Adobe Connect meeting rooms, compared to 3,458 in Marrakech.
Both Copenhagen and Marrakech, ICANNs 55 and 58, are designated as “community forums”, meaning they follow the traditional ICANN schedule. ICANN 56 was a shorter, policy-focused meeting and ICANN 57 was a longer meeting with a focus on outreach.
The stats for Copenhagen can be downloaded here (pdf).