Re: [ga] GA/DNSO Funding Issues

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

Christian.Ahlert@sowi.uni-giessen.de wrote:

> Is the crucial question not what does ICANN own?

If not, it is certainly another good one.  Does it own all
domain names, so that it can create a UDRP and a
required Registrar-Registrant contract empowering
trademark owners, and hence effectively control who
gets which ones?

Bill Lovell

>
>
> Best,
> CA
>
> Date sent:              Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:47:34 +0200
> From:                   Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>
> To:                     ga@dnso.org
> Subject:                RE: [ga] GA/DNSO Funding Issues
>
> Hello Roeland!
>
> Roeland Meyer wrote:
> > Note: Erik's question on ICANN ownership speaks directly to this topic. Any
> > corp is directly and solely accountable to it's owners and the issuer of its
> > corp charter. Forget the socialist drivel, in the USA that is a matter of
> > law. Ambiguity in declaration of ownership may gain someone an advantage
> > somewhere, but the organization *is* accountable to its owner(s), whomever
> > they may be. Further, those owners are accountable to the issuer of the corp
> > charter (State of California), whom is further accountable to the US Federal
> > government. The visible chain appears to be broken, but if the legal chain
> > were indeed broken then ICANN wouldn't legally exist and all this would be
> > for nought.
>
> Since the question "who owns ICANN" so frequently pops up,
> maybe this is an item for ICANN.org's FAQ section?
>
> >From what I as a non-U.S. non-lawyer understand (and I
> hope that U.S. lawyers clarify it), a non-profit
> corporation has no owner, cannot issue shares and cannot
> pay dividends. The Smiley vs. ICANN request for a
> preliminary injunction was sent to C.T. Corporation
> System (http://www.ctcorporation.com), because this
> is ICANN's agent for service of process (something like
> a representative authorized to receive certain
> documents)
> http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2121683
>
> Oversimplified, you seem to need only Articles of
> Incorporation and an initial Board of Directors or
> alternatively incorporators to start a California
> non-profit public benefit corporation. In this case,
> the incorporators were G.A. Ellis and Clint L. Duran
> (I think lawyers from Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue), and
> the initial Board took over from those incorporators
> at the organizational meeting.
> http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-25oct98.html
>
> Neither the former incorporators nor the agent own the
> corporation, and there are no shareholders, so the
> question "who owns ICANN" does not seem to make any
> sense. Oversimplified even more (to a point where
> I fear lawyers' responses...), ICANN seems to own
> itself. When it comes to who may spend ICANN's money,
> who may dissolve ICANN, who may change the bylaws
> etc., the answer is clearer: the Board (or, within
> limits, those authorized to do so by the Board).
> So the chain is not broken -- it's simply different
> from a for-profit corporation with owners.
>
> Does that make any sense?
>
> Best regards,
> /// Alexander
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--


The URLs for Best Practices:
DNSO Citation:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/gaindex.html
(Under "Other Information Documents"; "August 2001:
Proposal for Best Practices for the DNSO GA." This
page also includes much else about the DNSO.)
Part I:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BestPractices.html
Part II:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BP-flowchart.pdf
(Access to the .pdf file requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader,
available for free down load at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.)
Part III:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BP-PartIII.html


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