ccTLD "contributions" - was Re: [ga] your comments

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, DPF wrote:

> ...  ICANN *refuse* to update our address in the IANA database until
> InternetNZ sign a contract with them so the result is official mail from
> ICANN (including their request for a donation to be made as a good faith
> gesture!!!)

I'd like to explore this "request for a donation".  On more than one
occassion I have heard ccTLD people mention something like this.

It would help me greatly to understand this if you happened to have a
timeline, with attached documentation, showing who said/did what to whom
at what time.

One of the reasons that I ask, apart from the potentially coercive
aspects, is how to account for such "donations".  For example, a true
"donation" is something made out of pure generosity and is not an advance
payment or substitute for a past, present, or future debt.  True donations
offset neither debt nor future payments, and they are not refundable.  On
the other hand, one can slap the label "donation" or "contribution" onto
something that is in reality an advance payment that will be used to
reduce future payments.  And that raises questions of refundability if the
foundation for those future payments not soon come into being.  I have
found ICANN's accounting of these matters to be less than satisfactory.  
On at least one occassion I have had to write to putative "contributors"
to learn whether their understanding was consistent with that of ICANN's
management.

		--karl--



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