[ga] Almost all that is wrong with ICANN...

["Jeff Field" <jfield@aaaq.com>]

Almost all that is wrong with ICANN can be firmly planted at the feet of Joe
Sims.

I have watched and participated in the evolution of ICANN from its very
beginning and, although not publicly stated, came to this conclusion early
on.  The latest over-the-top posting by Mr. Sims (included below) has
finally prompted me to state publicly the reasons for my conclusion and my
firm belief that the *single most important thing* the ICANN Board can do to
reform ICANN is to replace Joe Sims and the firm he represents, Jones Day
Reavis & Pogue, as ICANN's legal advisor.

For those of you that don't know me (and many of you don't, as I don't post
very often nor am I very political), I started in 1995 probably the first
major company on the Internet that focused exclusively in retail domain name
registration, Namesecure. (NOTE: I am no longer associated with Namesecure.)
The term "registrar" was not even in the vocabulary at that time and, of
course, all domain name registrations were done through Network Solutions
(now VeriSign).  When competition in domain name registrations was first
opened up by ICANN, Namesecure was in the very first group of companies to
become ICANN-accredited registrars.

It was during the initial "test-bed" phase of introducing competition that
Joe Sims first became known to me.  Without going into all the details,
Namesecure had a particular issue with the way in which the test-bed was
being run.  I presented our concerns to both Mike Roberts (ICANN's President
at the time) and Esther Dyson (ICANN's Board Chair at the time).  We had a
few emails go back and forth and, as I recall, a final email from me to
Esther thanking her for directing me to, I believe, the Department of
Commerce for resolution of the issue.  It was after that last email to
Esther that I received, in error, a carbon copy of an email that Joe Sims
had sent to Esther.  In that email, Joe basically said to Esther something
along the lines of, "looks like it was worth sending that last email...seems
to have done the trick".  In other words, they (ICANN) had succeeded in
getting rid of me and the issue we were concerned with.

My first thought after receiving that mistakenly directed email from Joe
was, who the hell is this guy and why is he involved in correspondence
between Esther and myself.  It was on further investigation that I found out
Joe Sims was a lawyer with the Washington DC based Jones Day law firm and
that Jones Day represented ICANN.  It was, I believe, over the course of the
next few months that Joe Sims also became known to me as the person most
responsible for selecting the original un-elected ICANN Board.

Being a rather curious type, I was interested in just who this person was
and at the first annual ICANN meeting in California in 1999, I introduced
myself to Joe and asked a question regarding having been involved in putting
the Board together.  Joe cut me off pretty short, turned his back to me and
then walked away.  Joe's attitude and demeanor towards me left me thinking,
"What an arrogant asshole".

I've learned over the years that my first impressions of people, while many
times close to being right, are sometimes way off the mark.  Because of
this, I try very hard not to rely on first impressions and always try to
reserve personal judgments of people for later.  In the case of Joe Sims, I
have over the past few years casually watched him in action.  I've seen him
address the Board, watched him make presentations, overheard conversations
he's had with others, read his posts to mailing lists, read his quotes in
news articles, watched his body language and, not once have I ever seen or
heard anything that sways me from my initial impression.  At this point, to
me, Joe Sims *is* an arrogant asshole.

Those that know me know that I am not in the business of making personal
public attacks on people.  The reason I do today is in the context of what I
am now going to say.  It is my personal belief that the one trait, above all
others, that collectively ICANN and the ICANN Board has shown over the past
few years is one of arrogance.  And, I now believe, most of that can be
traced to Joe Sim's role in selecting the initial Board and all his
involvement in policymaking and policy decisions of ICANN and the ICANN
Board since.  Forget the Blueprint for Reform; no amount of real reformation
of ICANN will take place until Joe Sims and Jones Day are no longer
associated with it.  It's been a bad marriage from the start and it's time
to get a divorce!

Best regards,

Jeff

--
jeff field
952-848-7626
952-848-7627 fax
jfield@aaaq.com <mailto:jfield@aaaq.com>
-----

On Sat, 17 Aug 2002, Joe Sims wrote:

> Your "cultural bias," as best I can tell, is to try to get your 15 minutes
> of fame by becoming the Cassandra of ICANN, apparently hoping to rescue an
> otherwise unimpressive career by finding a niche where you can be
perceived
> as the expert.  And I have to admit that you have been pretty successful
at
> that goal -- at least in the sense that you do get lots of attention, and
> invitations to testify, and calls from reporters.  Is it exciting?  Of
> course, there is one little thing:  it does not appear that your constant
> criticism has much impact, on anything.  Maybe that is because there are
> lots of other people, many of whom are also critical of some aspects of
> ICANN, who instead of just posting rants on the GA list and exercising
> their ego to run a webpage, actually dig in and work at trying to make
> ICANN more effective; those people do make progress in trying to shape
> ICANN more to their liking, because they invest the elbow grease it takes
> to get that done.  Of course, you sneer at these folks as "collaborators,"
> but the real sneers here from serious people are reserved for folks like
> you, who have no skin in the game, no willingness to invest even a little
> positive effort, and who insist that their positions are written on
tablets
> and not subject to compromise.  Junk like the stuff you post is exactly
the
> reason why more people do not participate in this or other similar forums,
> because it is a waste of time.  Of course, perhaps the worst thing from
> your point would be to actually succeed, since there would no longer be an
> excuse to pontificate on such weighty issues.  An advance warning: I am
not
> going to engage in a continuing debate with you or your fellow travelers
on
> this point, so fire away all you want; you won't get a response.  But your
> attack on Jon, who actually went to the (apparently useless) trouble to
try
> to engage in a dialogue, has left me with an irresistable compulsion to
> point out that, despite all the noise generated by Froomkin Inc., there is
> no "there" there.  Have a good day.
>
>
> Joe Sims
> Jones Day Reavis & Pogue
> 51 Louisiana Avenue NW
> Washington, D.C. 20001
> Direct Phone:  1.202.879.3863
> Direct Fax:  1.202.626.1747
> Mobile Phone:  1.703.629.3963
>
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