[ga] Who Owns ICANN

[Eric Dierker <eric@hi-tek.com>]

Dear Mr. Meyer and Mr. Svensson,

Very awesome analysis.  But who owns ICANN should be a simple question and upon an
answer we can require accountability, because we shall know the king to which we
may petition.

Who are these individuals?

Paul Vixie,
Paul Montapitiris
Greg Crew
Vint Cerf
Kim Hubbard
Carolyn Chicone

Please note my research has shown a variety of spellings to their names and so I
apologize to any error.

Does the Postal trust still own ICANN?  Most important is why the board or staff
will not answer this question. It is a stupid question that staff should answer
easily.

Eric

Alexander Svensson wrote:

> 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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