[ga] ICANN opens up Question Box for Mexico City meeting

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

ICANN has opened up a Question Box for the Mexico City meeting, see:

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-11feb09-en.htm

It'll be interesting to see whether they respond with more than just
canned non-answers given that they have the time to prepare. Since we're
allowed to submit more than one question, here's a few I submitted (with
perhaps more to come once the next new gTLD Draft Guidebook is published).
If others submit questions feel free to post them to the GA list, and we
can see whether ICANN does in fact answer them in Mexico. Questions were
limited to 30 words.


1. Why did ICANN use its emergency reserve fund to speculate in financial
markets, losing a reported $4.6 million? Emergency reserves are supposed
to be kept in risk free liquid securities.

2. In ICANN's Form 990, Paul Twomey's compensation was adjusted upwards to
reflect the declining US dollar. Now that the US dollar has soared, will 
his compensation be adjusted downward accordingly?

3. Why is the Board Finance Committee planning an expensive hedging 
program, when it is possible to conduct most of its business in US 
dollars, shifting currency risks to suppliers?

4. One million/year is spent on telephone costs. What's being done to 
minimize that cost, in particular competitive tenders by suppliers, etc? 
What's the cost per minute of conference calls currently?

5. Why was ICANN staff researching George Kirikos' political views on 
President Barack Obama? (as was verified by Apache webserver referrer 
logs) Does ICANN keep a dossier on every community participant?

6. Why does ICANN use For-Profit companies as "comparables" in its 
compensation, when it purports to be a Non-Profit? Given staff's job 
security compared to the private-sector, isn't this unwise overspending?

7. A federal court in California awarded Verizon $33.15 million against 
OnlineNIC for cybersquatting. What's ICANN doing to protect registrants in 
the event of registrar failure? Are other registrars vulnerable?

Sincerely,

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