[ga] As the economy goes into a freefall, what's ICANN's response? "Party on!"

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

In the latest economic report:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7jpCSt.gQoM&refer=home

nearly 600,000 jobs were lost, and the US unemployment rate surged to 7.6%. One 
economist noted that "the economy is still in freefall."

What has been ICANN's response?? "Party on, dudes!"

We've seen:

1) Overspending on salaries and a fellowship program:

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090105_icann_for_profit_companies_comparables/

2) Speculation in financial markets:

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090203_icann_blows_46_million_stock_market/

3) Attempts to force unwanted new gTLDs upon the public, imposing new costs 
upon businesses

http://www.cadna.org/en/newsroom/press-releases/cadna-washington-policy-forum-discussion

instead of focusing on more important matters (e.g. security, stability, IPv6 
transition, DNSSEC, etc.).

4) Approving contracts that allow gTLD registry operators (VeriSign, Neustar, 
Afilias, PIR, etc.) to increase prices, demonstrating market power, even in a 
declining economy and declining technology costs, in an anti-consumer and 
anti-competitive manner compared to a tender process:

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/davis-to-twomey-27mar08.pdf
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/raad-to-twomey-01may08.pdf
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/frolich-to-twomey-18apr07.pdf
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/laplante-to-twomey-29apr08.pdf
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/laplante-to-twomey-13apr07.pdf
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/switzer-to-twomey-23nov08.pdf

Of course, the above just scratch the surface of ICANN's failures. If ICANN 
wishes to survive beyond September, they should really try to get their act 
together. The low hanging fruit are:

A. Reset salaries to appropriate non-profit comparables. Review past 
over-spending to determine whether any overpayments can be clawed back (might 
not be legally possible, but can be worked around through additional salary 
reductions). Even FedEx reduced salaries 5 to 20% :

http://www.ajc.com/printedition/content/printedition/2008/12/19/fedex.html

B. End the ICANN fellowship program, thereby immediately saving money.

C. Redo the "investment policy" to place any "emergency" funds in 
government-insured deposits (CDs, T-bills, etc.).

D. End the new gTLD program (which also saves on excess ICANN staffing costs), 
except for IDN ccTLDs and gTLDs that are aliased to existing TLDs for free 
(i.e. providing a pure "value added" to new and existing registrants), by 
aliasing .multilingualTLD to .TLD.

Naturally, all cost savings would be passed through to domain registrants.

Not so low hanging, but worth exploring:

E. Investigate reopening the gTLD contracts, perhaps with the assistance of the 
USDOJ antitrust department, to instead compel competitive tenders for registry 
operators. This would provide a $400 million plus annual "stimulus package" to 
consumers and businesses, i.e. reflecting probably $2/yr wholesale costs under 
a tender, version $6.86 today, multiplied by 80 million dot-coms.

Effective execution of "E" might require the DOC to not allow ICANN to continue 
beyond September (no big loss), but instead require a successor organization to 
do the heavy lifting to set things right.

While ICANN is partying in Mexico, others can keep a scorecard as to their 
progress on the above.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.leap.com/