"ICANN has a conflict of interest in pursuing the global public interest since its own financial interests are at odds with keeping costs down for Internet users and businesses. Without US oversight, ICANN has the potential to grow into the world's largest unregulated monopoly." - Daniel Castro, senior analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (source: InformationWeek)
"“ICANN has made a lot of mistakes, and ICANN has not really been a good steward” - Garth Bruen, a security fellow at the Digital Citizens Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group that combats online crime. "Business groups and some others have long complained that ICANN’s decision-making was dominated by the interests of the industry that sells domain names and whose fees provide the vast majority of ICANN’s revenue." - Washington Post
Domain Mondo: Are Domain Names Dinosaurs?: ".... the whole new gTLDs process was dysfunctional, driven by greed and conflicts of interest, without any consideration of demand, need, or the public interest...."
Ethics Fight Over Domain Names Intensifies - New York Times March 18, 2012: "The Commerce Department ...warned the organization [ICANN] that it needed to tighten its rules against conflicts of interest or risk losing a central role.... ICANN has come under heightened scrutiny because of an initiative to increase vastly the number and variety of available Internet addresses. Under the plan, which ICANN is putting into effect, hundreds of new “top-level domains” — the letters like “com” that follow the “dot” in addresses — are set to be created. Some business groups say the expansion of domains will cause a rise in trademark violations and cybersquatting, while some governments object to Icann’s move to create address suffixes like .xxx, for pornography. But the initiative has been cheered by companies that register and maintain Internet addresses. A number of current and former members of the ICANN board have close ties to such registrars or to concerns involved in other areas that stand to benefit from the expansion.“ICANN must place commercial and financial interests in their appropriate context,” said Mr. [Rod] Beckstrom [former ICANN Chairman]... “How can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain-name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently? “A more subtle but related risk is the tangle of conflicting agendas within the board... the United States government is also dissatisfied with ICANN. The Commerce Department said it had canceled a request for proposals to run the so-called Internet Assigned Numbers Authority because none of the bids met its requirements: “the need for structural separation of policy-making from implementation, a robust companywide conflict of interest policy, provisions reflecting heightened respect for local country laws and a series of consultation and reporting requirements to increase transparency and accountability to the international community.” Eyebrows were raised last year when Peter Dengate Thrush, former chairman of ICANN and a fan of the domain name expansion, joined a company that invests in domain names. [A version of the article appeared in print on March 19, 2012, on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Ethics Fight Over Domain Names Intensifies.]
The ICANN Conflicts of Interest Policy can be found here.
July 2014 Update on action increasing compensation of Fadi Chehadé, Directors, and others can be found here.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a California non-profit corporation formed in 1998 that controls the global internet domain name system under authority granted it by the U.S. government.
FY14 Annual Report of Expense Reimbursement and Other Payments to ICANN Directors
For the Period 1 July 2013 through 30 June 2014 (pdf)
Summary of ICANN Officers and Board Members Statements of Interest - 13 June 2014 update
Officers
Akram Atallah –President, Global Domains Division – Nothing identified.
Susanna Bennett – Chief Operating Officer – Nothing identified.
Xavier Calvez – Chief Financial Officer – Nothing identified.
Fadi Chehadé – President and Chief Executive Officer – Nothing identified.
John Jeffrey – General Counsel and Secretary – Nothing identified.
David Olive – Vice President, Policy Development Support – Nothing identified.
Board Members
Sébastien Bachollet – Mr. Bachollet is a member of the Board of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which is the sponsoring organization responsible for policy setting for the .XXX sTLD and may be seeking to provide services to other new gTLDs; he has a consulting contract with Items International, which had a contract with ICANN for the ccNSO (2010) and the ASO(2011) reviews. Items International is also providing consulting services for one new gTLD applicant. Mr. Bachollet will not be involved in the new gTLD projects initiated by either IFFOR or Items International. For Items International he is in charge of open-data and information systems projects. Mr. Bachollet is also a member of the AFNIC Board.
Cherine Chalaby – Nothing identified.
Fadi Chehadé – Outside of his role as President and CEO, nothing identified.
Steve Crocker – Dr. Crocker is the CEO and a Director of Shinkuro, Inc. Shinkuro has had a contract with DHS for approximately $1 million annually for development of policies and procedures for adoption of DNSSEC; such policies may or may not align with ICANN's objectives in this area. Shinkuro also has a contract with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to provide services; this work may involve advice related to USPS's use of .POST and/or possibly future gTLDs, but will not relate to application processes or other interactions with ICANN.
Chris Disspain – Director and CEO of .au Domain Administration Limited, the .au ccTLD manager; .au has sponsorship agreement with ICANN under which .au pays ICANN a yearly amount based on the amount of names under management. Former Officer of ICANN, Paul Levins, is a Director of .au Domain Administration Limited. .au Domain Administration Limited licenses AusRegistry Pty Ltd to run the registry for the second level names in .au. Under the Registry License agreement, AusRegistrypays fees to auDA; companies affiliated with AusRegistry are affiliated with new gTLD applications.
Heather Dryden – Ex Officio, non-voting Board Director, representing Industry Canada for the Operator of dot-CA.
Bill Graham – Holds a consulting contract with the Internet Society. The subject matter of that contract is unrelated to the mandate of ICANN. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance.
Wolfgang Kleinwächter – Is Executive Director of a summer school program on Internet Governance that has sponsors, some of which have included, or currently include, ICANN current or potential contracted parties, all of which were sponsors before Mr. Kleinwächter was named to theICANN Board.
Bruno Lanvin – Nothing identified.
Erika Mann – Heads up the Facebook, Inc.'s policy office in Brussels.
Olga Madruga-Forti – Nothing identified.
Ram Mohan – Executive Vice President and Officer of Afilias, which is a contracted party with ICANN and which is under contract for services to registry operators that are under contract to ICANN. Mr. Mohan is also the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Internet Society. His sister-in-law is owner and CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar. Afilias is a minority shareholder in ICM Registry, Inc., that operates the .XXX TLD. Afilias has regular business transactions with Melborne IT (Bruce Tonkin's employer and an ICANN accredited registrar). Afilias is involved in some way in numerous new gTLD applications. Mr. Mohan's wife is employed by a new gTLD applicant, but she is not involved in the applications or in other matter relating to the applications or to ICANN.
Gonzalo Navarro – Chief of Staff, Chilean National Institute of Industrial Property.
Ray Plzak – Nothing identified.
George Sadowsky – Nothing identified.
Mike Silber – Member of the Management Committee and Treasurer of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) South Africa. He is also, a Director and Treasurer of the .za Domain Name Authority, the ccTLD administrator for .za. The .za Domain Name Authority has concluded an arms-length operating agreement with Uniforum t/a the .za Central Registry for Uniforum to operate the .za registry. Under the agreement, Uniforum will collect and pay transaction fees to .za Domain NameAuthority. Uniforum is acting as the registry service provider for various new gTLD applicants.
Jonee Soininen – He owns a nominal amount of shares of a gTLD applicant.
Bruce Tonkin – Chief Technology Officer of Melbourne IT, which has contract with ICANN as accredited registrar on the same terms as all other registrars. Melbourne IT is an accredited registrar for: (i) .au Domain Administration Limited of which Chris Disspain is the CEO and former ICANN officer Paul Levins is a Board member; (ii) .fr operated by AFNIC on which Sébastien Bachollet serves as a Board member; and (iii) .info, where Afilias, the employer of Ram Mohan, is the gTLDoperator. Melbourne IT may also be a registrar for new gTLDs operated by the employer of ICANN's former Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Wilson.
Kuo-Wei Wu – CEO – National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA)– Internet Policy Research. His daughter works for Progressive Insurance, which applied for two new gTLDs. Out of an abundance of caution, Progressive established an ethical wall keeping Kuo-Wei Wu's daughter from any involvement or discussions related to the new gTLD applications.
Suzanne Woolf – Nothing identified.
______________________
The following members of the Board of Directors of ICANN, disclosed the following "Statements of Interest" as of February 4, 2014 --
FY14 Annual Report of Expense Reimbursement and Other Payments to ICANN Directors
For the Period 1 July 2013 through 30 June 2014 (pdf)
Summary of ICANN Officers and Board Members Statements of Interest - 13 June 2014 update
Officers
Akram Atallah –President, Global Domains Division – Nothing identified.
Susanna Bennett – Chief Operating Officer – Nothing identified.
Xavier Calvez – Chief Financial Officer – Nothing identified.
Fadi Chehadé – President and Chief Executive Officer – Nothing identified.
John Jeffrey – General Counsel and Secretary – Nothing identified.
David Olive – Vice President, Policy Development Support – Nothing identified.
Board Members
Sébastien Bachollet – Mr. Bachollet is a member of the Board of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which is the sponsoring organization responsible for policy setting for the .XXX sTLD and may be seeking to provide services to other new gTLDs; he has a consulting contract with Items International, which had a contract with ICANN for the ccNSO (2010) and the ASO(2011) reviews. Items International is also providing consulting services for one new gTLD applicant. Mr. Bachollet will not be involved in the new gTLD projects initiated by either IFFOR or Items International. For Items International he is in charge of open-data and information systems projects. Mr. Bachollet is also a member of the AFNIC Board.
Cherine Chalaby – Nothing identified.
Fadi Chehadé – Outside of his role as President and CEO, nothing identified.
Steve Crocker – Dr. Crocker is the CEO and a Director of Shinkuro, Inc. Shinkuro has had a contract with DHS for approximately $1 million annually for development of policies and procedures for adoption of DNSSEC; such policies may or may not align with ICANN's objectives in this area. Shinkuro also has a contract with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to provide services; this work may involve advice related to USPS's use of .POST and/or possibly future gTLDs, but will not relate to application processes or other interactions with ICANN.
Chris Disspain – Director and CEO of .au Domain Administration Limited, the .au ccTLD manager; .au has sponsorship agreement with ICANN under which .au pays ICANN a yearly amount based on the amount of names under management. Former Officer of ICANN, Paul Levins, is a Director of .au Domain Administration Limited. .au Domain Administration Limited licenses AusRegistry Pty Ltd to run the registry for the second level names in .au. Under the Registry License agreement, AusRegistrypays fees to auDA; companies affiliated with AusRegistry are affiliated with new gTLD applications.
Heather Dryden – Ex Officio, non-voting Board Director, representing Industry Canada for the Operator of dot-CA.
Bill Graham – Holds a consulting contract with the Internet Society. The subject matter of that contract is unrelated to the mandate of ICANN. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance.
Wolfgang Kleinwächter – Is Executive Director of a summer school program on Internet Governance that has sponsors, some of which have included, or currently include, ICANN current or potential contracted parties, all of which were sponsors before Mr. Kleinwächter was named to theICANN Board.
Bruno Lanvin – Nothing identified.
Erika Mann – Heads up the Facebook, Inc.'s policy office in Brussels.
Olga Madruga-Forti – Nothing identified.
Ram Mohan – Executive Vice President and Officer of Afilias, which is a contracted party with ICANN and which is under contract for services to registry operators that are under contract to ICANN. Mr. Mohan is also the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Internet Society. His sister-in-law is owner and CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar. Afilias is a minority shareholder in ICM Registry, Inc., that operates the .XXX TLD. Afilias has regular business transactions with Melborne IT (Bruce Tonkin's employer and an ICANN accredited registrar). Afilias is involved in some way in numerous new gTLD applications. Mr. Mohan's wife is employed by a new gTLD applicant, but she is not involved in the applications or in other matter relating to the applications or to ICANN.
Gonzalo Navarro – Chief of Staff, Chilean National Institute of Industrial Property.
Ray Plzak – Nothing identified.
George Sadowsky – Nothing identified.
Mike Silber – Member of the Management Committee and Treasurer of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) South Africa. He is also, a Director and Treasurer of the .za Domain Name Authority, the ccTLD administrator for .za. The .za Domain Name Authority has concluded an arms-length operating agreement with Uniforum t/a the .za Central Registry for Uniforum to operate the .za registry. Under the agreement, Uniforum will collect and pay transaction fees to .za Domain NameAuthority. Uniforum is acting as the registry service provider for various new gTLD applicants.
Jonee Soininen – He owns a nominal amount of shares of a gTLD applicant.
Bruce Tonkin – Chief Technology Officer of Melbourne IT, which has contract with ICANN as accredited registrar on the same terms as all other registrars. Melbourne IT is an accredited registrar for: (i) .au Domain Administration Limited of which Chris Disspain is the CEO and former ICANN officer Paul Levins is a Board member; (ii) .fr operated by AFNIC on which Sébastien Bachollet serves as a Board member; and (iii) .info, where Afilias, the employer of Ram Mohan, is the gTLDoperator. Melbourne IT may also be a registrar for new gTLDs operated by the employer of ICANN's former Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Wilson.
Kuo-Wei Wu – CEO – National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA)– Internet Policy Research. His daughter works for Progressive Insurance, which applied for two new gTLDs. Out of an abundance of caution, Progressive established an ethical wall keeping Kuo-Wei Wu's daughter from any involvement or discussions related to the new gTLD applications.
Suzanne Woolf – Nothing identified.
______________________
The following members of the Board of Directors of ICANN, disclosed the following "Statements of Interest" as of February 4, 2014 --
Steve Crocker [Chairman of ICANN Board of Directors] – Dr. Crocker is the CEO and Director of Shinkuro, Inc. Shinkuro has had a contract with DHS [US Dept of Homeland Security] for approximately $1 million for development of policies and procedures for adoption of DNSSEC; such policies may or may not align with ICANN's objectives in this area. Shinkuro also has a contract with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to provide services; this work may involve advice related to USPS's use of .POST and/or possibly future gTLDs, but will not relate to application processes or other interactions with ICANN.
Chris Disspain – Director and CEO of .au Domain Administration Limited, the .au ccTLD manager; .au has sponsorship agreement with ICANN under which .au pays ICANN a yearly amount based on the amount of names under management. Former Officer of ICANN, Paul Levins, is a Director of .au Domain Administration Limited. .au Domain Administration Limited licenses AusRegistry Pty Ltd to run the registry for the second level names in .au. Under the Registry License agreement, AusRegistry pays fees to auDA; companies affiliated with AusRegistry are affiliated with new gTLD applications.
Ram Mohan – Executive Vice President and Officer of Afilias, which is a contracted party with ICANN and which is under contract for services to registry operators that are under contract to ICANN. Mr. Mohan is also the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Internet Society. His sister-in-law is owner and CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar. Afilias is a minority shareholder in ICM Registry, Inc., that operates the .XXX TLD. Afilias has regular business transactions with Melborne IT (Bruce Tonkin's [see below] employer and an ICANN accredited registrar). Afilias is involved in some way in numerous new gTLD applications. Mr. Mohan's wife is employed by a new gTLD applicant, but she is not involved in the applications or in other matter relating to the applications or to ICANN.
Mike Silber – Member of the Management Committee and Treasurer of the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) South Africa. He is also, a Director and Treasurer of the .za Domain Name Authority, the ccTLD administrator for .za. The .za Domain Name Authority has concluded an arms-length operating agreement with Uniforum t/a the .za Central Registry for Uniforum to operate the .za registry. Under the agreement, Uniforum will collect and pay transaction fees to .za Domain Name Authority. Uniforum is acting as the registry service provider for various new gTLD applicants.
Jonee Soininen – He owns a nominal amount of shares of a gTLD applicant. [name of applicant undisclosed]
Bruce Tonkin – Chief Technology Officer of Melbourne IT, which has contract with ICANN as accredited registrar on the same terms as all other registrars. Melbourne IT is an accredited registrar for: (i) .au Domain Administration Limited of which Chris Disspain [see above] is the CEO and former ICANN officer Paul Levins is a Board member; (ii) .fr operated by AFNIC on which Sébastien Bachollet [see above] serves as a Board member; and (iii) .info, where Afilias, the employer of Ram Mohan [see above], is the gTLD operator. Melbourne IT may also be a registrar for new gTLDs operated by the employer of ICANN's former Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Wilson.
Suzanne Woolf – Employer, Internet Systems Consortium (ISC), for which she is a key employee, provides products and services related to its BIND software product to Afilias, and ICANN has contracted with ISC re: BIND software used in the DNS infrastructure. Outside her salary, she has no direct financial interest in these contracts. ISC does business with many DNS related entities. ISC is currently actively pursuing partnerships and capabilities to become a back-end registry service provider, but does not currently provide such services. Suzanne is Secretariat Director for OARC (DNS-OARC, the Operations, Analysis, and Research Center for the DNS); Shinkuro is a beneficial member of OARC. ICANN has contracted with OARC to (i) study L-Root capabilities; and (ii) to collect and analyze DNS data related to DNSSEC rollout in 2010.
Source of above information is ICANN (emphasis added).
____________________
A Look Back at ICANN Board of Directors, Conflicts of Interest as of 12 March 2012-- (source: ICANN) - Summary of Individual Board Director and Board Liaison Statements of Interest (in alphabetical order):
____________________
A Look Back at ICANN Board of Directors, Conflicts of Interest as of 12 March 2012-- (source: ICANN) - Summary of Individual Board Director and Board Liaison Statements of Interest (in alphabetical order):
Sebastien Bachollet – Member of the Board of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which is the sponsoring organization responsible for policy setting for the .XXX sTLD; has a consulting contract with Items International, which had a contract with ICANN for the ccNSO review and is currently running the ASO review. Items International is set to provide consulting services for New gTLDs. Mr. Bachollet will not be involved in the new gTLD projects, but will be in charge of open-data and information systems projects.
Rod Beckstrom – TWIKI.NET – Investor.
Cherine Chalaby – Nothing Identified.
Steve Crocker – CEO and Director of Shinkuro. Afilias, that has registry agreement with ICANN, has an investment in Shinkuro. Ram Mohan is a Director and an investor of Shinkuro. Shinkuro does some analysis and software development work for Afilias related to their back end, narrowly focused on the detailed operational differences among the various DNS name server software packages. Shinkuro has a contract with DHS for $1 million for development of policies and procedures for adoption ofDNSSEC; such policies may or may not align with ICANN’s objectives in this area.
Chris Disspain – Director and CEO of .au Domain Administration Limited, the .au ccTLD manager; .au has sponsorship agreement with ICANN under which .au pays ICANN a yearly amount based on the amount of names under management. Former Officer of ICANN, Paul Levins, has been named as a Director of .au Domain Administration Limited.
Heather Dryden – Ex Officio, non-voting Board Director, representing Industry Canada for the Operator of dot-CA.
Bill Graham - Holds a consulting contract with the Internet Society. The subject matter of that contract is unrelated to the mandate of ICANN.
Bertrand de La Chapelle – Launched and heads a program (research and dialogue facilitation) on the topic “Internet and Jurisdiction”, at a Paris-based think-tank. Some expected funding for the program comes from entities that may apply for new gTLDs or provide services to applicants.
Erika Mann – Heads up the Facebook, Inc.’s policy office in Brussels.
Ram Mohan – Employee Officer of Afilias, a contracted party with ICANN and which is under contract for services to registry operators that are under contract to ICANN. Afilias is an investor in Shinkuro, the R&D Company for which Steve Crocker is the CEO, and where Ram is a Director and a small shareholder. Afilias is a minority shareholder in ICM Registry, Inc., the .XXX TLD operator. Afilias has a minority investment in Sedari, which provides advice to new gTLD clients. Afilias is a minority shareholder in an entity that was a candidate to operate the ICANN Trademark Clearinghouse. Afilias has a contractual relationship with ICANN's former CEO on security-related matters. Ram's family member is the owner and CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar. Afilias has a standard agreement with Melbourne IT (Bruce Tonkin's employer and an ICANN accredited registrar). Afilias is a contributor to Internet Systems Consortium (Suzanne Woolf's employer) for BIND and for the development of BIND10. Ram is the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC).
Thomas Narten – Software engineer for IBM. IBM may apply for a new gTLD.
Gonzalo Navarro – Chief of Staff, Chilean National Institute of Industrial Property.
Ray Plzak – Nothing identified.
R. Ramaraj – Nothing identified.
Thomas Roessler - Chairman of the Board of the World Wide Web Foundation (US), for which George Sadowsky provides consulting services. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that appointed Mr. Roessler as Board Liaison is the recipient of a major grant from the Internet Society (ISOC), whose major income source is the operation of the .org TLD through PIR and Afilias (Ram Mohan’s employer and new gTLD registry operator). Several contracted parties of ICANN are current or former W3C member organizations.
George Sadowsky – Provides consulting services to the World Wide Web Foundation (US), for which Thomas Roessler serves as Chairman of the Board.
Mike Silber – Director and treasurer of ccTLD .za domain name authority and member of the Management Committee and treasurer of Internet Service provider Association (ISPA) South Africa.
Bruce Tonkin - Chief Strategy Officer of Melbourne IT, which has contract with ICANN as accredited registrar on the same terms as all other registrars. Melbourne IT is an accredited registrar with .au Domain Administration Limited of which Chris Disspain is the CEO. Melbourne IT has a standard registry-registrar agreement with Afilias (Ram Mohan employer and current gTLD registry Operator) for .info and has a non-exclusive teaming agreement for services for new gTLD applicants with Afilias. Melbourne IT also provides corporate domain name management services to IBM (Thomas Narten’s employer).
Kuo-Wei Wu –CEO – National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA)– Internet Policy Research.
Suzanne Woolf – Employer, Internet Systems Consortium (ISC), for which she is key employee, provides products and services related to its BIND software product to Afilias, and ICANN has contracted with ISC re: BIND software used in the DNS infrastructure. Outside her salary, she has no direct financial interest in these contracts. ISC does business with many DNS related entities. ISC is currently actively pursuing partnerships and capabilities to become a back-end registry service provider, but does not currently provide such services. She is Secretariat Director for OARC (DNS-OARC, the Operations, Analysis, and Research Center for the DNS); Shinkuro is a beneficial member of OARC. ICANN has contracted with OARC to (i) study L-Root capabilities; and (ii) to collect and analyze DNS data related to DNSSEC rollout in 2010.
Judith Duavit Vasquez – Chair and CEO, with controlling interest in, Phcolo, Inc., which is involved in telecom and Internet infrastructure business; Board member for GMA Network, Inc., GMA Radio and GMA New Media Inc., which are broadcast, radio and digital media platform and content providers. Has indicated that she may be involved with a new gTLD application.
