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

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Wed, 29 May 2002 17:43:14 -0700 (PDT), Karl Auerbach
<karl@CaveBear.com> wrote:

>
>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.

The first year everyone got invoices which went down like a pork roast
at a bar mitzvah.  Despite this many paid something but noted it was a
donation as there was no contract of any sort as a basis for said
invoices.

SInce then has got better with invoices now being a pleasant letter
from the President and specific amounts being replaced with ranges or
a guideline formula.

We have paid IIRC pretty much the full amount requested the last
couple of times but as Steven Heath stated have now decided not to pay
an further due to dis satisfaction with issues such as ccTLD
contracts, at large representation, lack of consultation and the silly
games over IANA database.  We have approved handing the money over to
the proposed ccSO body which could then pass it on once things are
worked out.

>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.

I will ask our staff to put this together.

>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.  

I believe they are "true donations".  They are made as an act of good
will and good faith because people want ICANN to succeed.  There is no
punishment or withdrawal of service for not paying.  Hell the service
you get having paid is so bad it couldn't actually get worse :-)

>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.  

AFAIK no-one at ICANN is keeping track of donations asked for and
donations received (for each ccTLD) hence treating them as partial or
advance payments.  Again AFAIK each new year starts with a fresh
slate.

>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.

I am not sure if ICANN treat donations from cTLDs not received as
creditors.  If they did that would be very silly of them.

DPF

PS - please note that while I am on the Council of InternetNZ I do not
speak for them and my comments on this matter are my opinions only
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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