> -----Original Message-----
> Milton, we already have the captured bureaucracy and funding spigot in
> the toolkit (and I think we see that and similar mechanisms as
> significant aids to our participation). The difference here is a
> proposal for funds that the SGs get to decide how to spend rather than
> ICANN staff doing it. Does having SG control of the funds make the
> problem you perceive better, or worse?

Good question, that is the kind of discussion we need to be having. 

I think you're wrong, we do not currently have a captured bureaucracy and funding spigot. Justify that claim further if you can. If you mean support for Council members travel, I think it's ok for ICANN to fund travel expenses for Council seats and other official duties. Getting elected to a Council seat is an objective fact that warrants very specific expenses and forms of support. That's part of ICANN business and ICANN should fund it. 

Beyond that, I see the funding of general activities SGs by ICANN as creating a dependency on ICANN that makes GNSO's representational organs less and less connected to support from the real world, and more and more a self-perpetuating group of insiders who have incentives to capture and hold positions in that bureaucracy forever. I am really amazed by the extent to which people don't see this, but then I think the insiders who are currently involved are so focused on the siren song of how some additional funding would make their lives easier (a perfectly legitimate feeling) to appreciate the longer term, structural implications of that kind of structure. 

If you want an example, you can look at TUAC, the Trades Unions Advisory Committee of the OECD. TUAC has been around a long time and it is a joke. It has no real, live connection to the labor movement, it does nothing in the policy sphere, it is just a tiny number of old boys who get free trips to Paris now and then. That is the future that awaits you. 

It is not true of you or me, David, or indeed of anyone in NCSG, but there are people on the other side of the aisle who essentially make their living as ICANN lobbyists for specific interest groups. The idea of domain registrants' money being used to subsidize their lobbying activities sickens me, frankly.

So the short answer is YES, having SG control of that money makes matters worse. 

--MM