ICANN has backtracked and substantially pared down a proposal that could have weakened its accountability mechanisms after most of the community said they didn’t like it. The Org has published for public comment a proposed amendment to its bylaws that will exclude its new Grant Program from the Request for Reconsideration and Independent Review Process […]

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The GNSO Council has started discussing bringing in the lawyers over ICANN’s recent handling of issues related to its $200+ million auction fund and Grant Program. The Council today raised the possibility of deploying the never-before-used Community Independent Review Process, which would involve every major community group ganging up on ICANN’s board in a protracted […]

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Parts of the ICANN community have revolted over ICANN’s move to make it easier to turn off the mechanisms used to appeal its decisions.

Both registries and registrars, along with their usual opponents in the business and intellectual property communities, have told the Org that a proposal to change its foundational bylaws are overly broad and creates new powers to diminish ICANN’s accountability.

Meanwhile, the Intellectual Property Constituency seems to have escalated its beef with ICANN related to the proposals, entering into a Cooperative Engagement Process with ICANN. CEP is usually, but not always, a precursor to an expensive, quasi-judicial Independent Review Process case.

The row relates to the Grant Program, which launched a month ago and will see ICANN hand out $217 million it gained from auctioning registry contracts during the 2012 new gTLD program application round.

The rules of the program were developed by the Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds.

The CCWG was afraid that ICANN might wind up frittering away most of the money on legal fees unless unsuccessful grant applicants, and third parties, were banned from appealing grant decisions they didn’t like. So its Recommendation 7 proposed a bylaws amendment that would prevent the Independent Review Process and Request for Reconsideration process from being used with reference to the Grant Program.

What ICANN came up with instead is a bylaws amendment that could be applied not only to the Grant Program, but also potentially to any future activities.

Specifically, ICANN’s proposed amendment gives future CCWGs, assuming they have sufficient community representation, the ability to recommend exceptions to the accountability mechanisms, which ICANN could then accept without having the amend the bylaws every time.

But almost every constituency that has filed an opinion on the proposals so far thinks ICANN has gone too far.

The IPC said says ICANN’s proposal is “unacceptably broad and exceeds what is necessary to give effect to Recommendation 7” adding:

The IPC is also concerned that making such a broad Bylaws amendment could have the consequence of normalizing the idea of removing access to accountability mechanisms, rather than this being an exceptional event. This is not something that should be encouraged.

The Registries Stakeholder Group said the proposal “creates an alternative path for amending the Bylaws that contradicts the existing amendment processes”

“The Accountability Mechanisms are foundational to ICANN’s legitimacy. Access to Accountability Mechanisms should be prevented only in rare circumstances with the clear support of the Empowered Community,” it added.

The Registrar Stakeholder Group concurred, writing:

Robust Accountability Mechanisms are a lynchpin of ICANN’s broader accountability structure. They should only be disallowed, if ever, in very specific circumstances, and as a result of the full bylaw amendment process. The proposed bylaws amendment vests CCWGs with the power to disallow Accountability Mechanisms which we believe is inappropriate.

Several commenters pointed out that CCWGs are less formal ICANN policy-making structure, with fewer checks and balances than regular Policy Development Processes.

The only dissenting view came from the At-Large Advisory Committee, which said it “strongly supports” ICANN’s proposed amendment, writing:

Although any limitation in accountability is potentially onerous, the ALAC is comfortable that the three conditions proposed in the amendment only allow such limitations in situations where a more specific Bylaw limitation would also be approved by the Empowered Community.

In a related development, the IPC has taken the highly unusual move of entering CEP with ICANN, suggesting it is on the IRP path.

The IPC had filed a Request for Reconsideration late last year, at a time when it appeared that ICANN had outright rejected Recommendation 7 (having previously approved it), but ICANN’s board threw it out mostly on the grounds that the IPC could not show it had been harmed, which the IPC found curious.

If the IPC were to go to IRP, it would be unprecedented. The mechanism has only ever been used by companies defending their commercial interests, never by one of ICANN’s own community groups on a matter of principle.

The post Community revolts over ICANN’s auction proceeds power grab first appeared on Domain Incite.

Ten million bucks of ICANN’s money is up for grabs, starting today.

The Org has opened the application window for the first stage of its Grant Program, which it hopes to eventually see hand out over the $217 million that it raised auctioning off contested gTLDs during the 2012 new gTLD program application round.

In this first phase, up to $10 million will be distributed, in tranches of between $50,000 and $500,000, to projects that align in some way with ICANN’s technical and internet governance missions.

Only registered non-profits are allowed to apply.

The application window is open until May 24, and ICANN expects its board of directors to make its final decision in December, before grant contracts are signed early next year.

Successful applicants are expected to begin their funded projects, which should last no more than two years, within 60 days of receiving the money, so presumably the cash will start actually making a difference about a year from now.

In a blog post, ICANN CEO Sally Costeron urged readers to spread word of the program on social media, specifically naming Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and WeChat, which appears to be a platform used primarily in China.

With ICANN occupying a rarefied, occasionally incestuous corner of the internet, there’s obviously a risk of the perception that the money will be doled out primarily to community insiders, but the rules ban anyone who was involved in crafting the program’s rules from participating.

The rules also ban applicants from using ICANN’s accountability mechanisms, such as the Independent Review Process, to challenge adverse grant decisions, and ICANN wants to change its bylaws to also ban third-party non-applicants from using IRP to appeal decisions they don’t like.

Details on the Grant Program can be found here.

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