Re: [ga] Registerfly loses approximately 75,000 customer domains

[Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> The role of the Ombudsman is not to deal with all sorts of consumer rights
> protection issues, but to address the cases in which the damage is created
> by an unfair decision of the Board.

I would suggest that that is too narrow of an interpretation of the ombudsman role.

Let's begin by remembering that the ombudsman was sold to us as part of the 
"reform" package that stripped (without their consent and perhaps in violation 
of the law of California) the community of internet users of their ability to 
pick and elect members of the board of directors.  Those directors had the 
ability to intervene in ICANN matters with an authority that is based on law 
and is clearly superior to that of any hired ombudsman.  So it is consistent 
with the purpose to give the ombudsman role a broader rather than a narrower 
interpretation.

In addition, ICANN also used the ombudsman role as a partial replacement for 
the never formed independent review panel.  Again this argues for a broader 
interpretation rather than a narrower one.

Morever the review function of an ombudsman role is to look at the functioning 
and mal-functioning of all parts of ICANN, not merely the board.

In the case of registerfly there was an apparent malfunction with regard to 
staff's non-response to the accumulating mass of complaints.  Taken 
individually one could say that these were not ombudsman matters, but taken as 
a cumulative mass they indicated that ICANN was not doing what it said it was 
doing, which is to enforce the obligations of registrars under their agreements 
with ICANN.

Part of the difficulty is that the incumbent ombudsman is a person who sees 
trees and never perceives the forest, and is a person who seems intent finding 
ways to avoid than in ways to solve.  An amusing comparison can be made between 
ICANN's ombudsman and The Circumlocution Office as described by Dickens in 
Chapter 10 of the novel "Little Dorrit" - 
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/ldort10.txt

ICANN's "reform" created both the ombudsman role and the ALAC, both have proved 
to be inadequate replacements for directors nominated and elected by the 
community of internet users.  The sign of a progressive, enlightened 
organization is that it corrects such mistakes.

		--karl--