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

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George and all,

  Perhaps in the ICANN's Bod and Staff's infinite and near omnipotent
wisdom, "Party On", as you put it, is good stimulus for all economies.
To me much of ICANN's spending is shifting money from many pockets
to a choice few.  That's not good long term economic policy or practice
and squeezes the middle class even further, eliminating many as the loss
of jobs figure you quoted below, clearly shows.  Trickle down, never did,
and still doesn't work as an economic model.  The Regan era proved that
already, even though I liked Regan.

George Kirikos wrote:

> 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/

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 284k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln
"YES WE CAN!"  Barack ( Berry ) Obama

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
My Phone: 214-244-4827