ICANN loses $4.6 million of your money in the stock market

[carlton]

I'm not a one man band. Don't let policymakers go unchallenged. ICANN have made enough bad decisions that they understand there is a test to pass. You see what happened to the initial gTLD proposal don't you? You also see what happened when domainers rallied against the biz/info/org contract of 2-3 years ago? ICANN can be reasoned with when their own viability and judgement are at stake.

They need to demonstrate relevance as an effective governing agency. And failure to do that will lead to their dissolution. The recent news of losing invested money puts them even more under scrutiny.

[reclad]

ICANN has lost $4.6 million of your money in the stock market

Oh you guys, all doom and gloom.

Here's the fix.

ICAAN charges $185000 per TLD application.
Just take 25 new applications ... you're in profit.

If you then run as expected, rule all the applications ineligible and keep the cash.

Anyone else need some economic advice ?

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[ilovedomains]

But who are ICANN sucking up too? They seem to be universally disliked and untrusted.

Well someone is complaining in another thread that "83 percent of all Web sites advertised through spam can be traced back to just 10 domain name registrars", and ICANN just sits there with their thumb up their bum.
http://www.dnforum.com/f557/icann-fu...ad-348817.html

Since some of these registrars are owned by highrollers like Goddaddy, I would guess thats who ICANN sucks up to.

[GeorgeK]

(I tried to create a new thread, but it looks like it got hit by the "moderation" queue yet again, grrrrrrrrrrrr)

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

http://www.icann.org/en/announcement...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 below, 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?

[Keyword Factory]

By going to Mexico City and complaining about the issue is exactly what ICANN wants. This gives legitimacy to what ICANN is doing. They can now say the issue was reviewed by a "consensus of the internet community" yada, yada, yada. People need to stop playing ICANN's game. ICANN will never give legitimate answers to questions posed at one of their "meetings."

I think peoplke need to boycott these ICANN meetings and complain other ways. Participating in their farce process just gives them legitimacy and wastes your time.

[GeorgeK]

Well, one can engage them and send their unacceptable responses to NTIA/DOC/DOJ, etc. I agree that their process is a farce.

By the way, the separate thread got approved by the mods, so is now visible at:

http://www.dnforum.com/f17/ask-icann...ad-349918.html

Feel free to ask them some tough questions. I think the questions matter more than their slick answers.

[GeorgeK]

Hi folks,

As I just noted on CircleID (see last comment):

http://www.circleid.com/posts/200902..._stock_market/

ICANN has sunk to another low. Notice in the article above there used to be a bar chart indicating the $4.6 million loss in the dashboard. However, in the most recent dashboard:

http://forms.icann.org//idashboard/public/

(Updated Financials as of January 31, 2009), the bar chart with the investment losses has disappeared (it used to be next to "Contributions")!

I've created an annotated screenshot archive showing the missing bar chart.

http://www.loffs.com/images/dashboard20090227.pdf

So much for ICANN transparency!

[jasdon11]

At what point does creative accountancy become fraud?

[cursal]

This is getting (further) out of control.