DIDP Request #1: ICANN's Expenditures on "Travel & Meetings"
CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of expenditure by ICANN at its Meetings. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.
CIS' Request
18 December 2014
To:
Mr. Cherine Chalaby, Chair, Finance Committee of the Board
Mr. Xavier Calvez, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Samiran Gupta, ICANN India
All other members of Staff involved in accounting and financial tasks
Sub: Request for itemized details of expenditure by ICANN at its Meetings
We would like to thank Mr. Calvez and Mr. Gupta for providing information regarding ICANN’s domain name revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.[1] We would like to request further information through the DIDP.
In the Audited Financial Statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014, the “statements of activities” provides Total Expenses (for ICANN and New gTLD) as USD 124,400,000.[2] For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013, the Total Expenses (ICANN and New gTLD) noted is USD 150,362,000.
According to the statement, this covers expenses for Personnel, Travel and meetings, Professional services and Administration. Quarterly Reports note that the head “Travel and meetings” includes community support requests.[3] In addition to these heads, Quarterly Reports include “Bad debt expenses” and “Depreciation expenses”. The manner of accounting for these is explained in Note 2 to the Notes to Financial Statements.[4] Note 2 explains that the expenses statement is prepared by “functional allocation of expenses” to identifiable programs or support services, or otherwise by methods determined by the management.
For the purposes of our research into normative and practised transparency and accountability in Internet governance, we request, to begin with, current and historical information regarding itemized, detailed expenses under the head “Travel and meetings”. We request this information from 1999 till 2014. We request that such information be categorized and sub-categorised as follows:
Total and Individual Expenses for each meeting (categorised by meeting and year):
1. Total and individual expenses for ICANN staff (differentiated by department and name of each individual attending the event, including dates/duration of attendance);
- Also broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each ICANN staff member who attended the event to be named.
2. Total and individual expenses for members of ICANN Board (listed by each Board member and dates/duration of attendance);
- Broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each Board member to be named.
3. Total and individual expenses for members of ICANN constituencies (ALAC, ATRT, ccNSO, GAC, GNSO, etc.)
- Broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each attendee for whom ICANN covered expenses to be named.
4. Total and individual expenses for ICANN fellows
- Broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each attendee for whom ICANN covered expenses to be named, including their region and stakeholder affiliation.
5. Total and individual expenses incurred for any other ICANN affiliate or liaison (ISOC, IETF, IAB, etc.)
- Broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each attendee for whom ICANN covered expenses to be named, including their affiliation.
6. Total and individual expenses incurred for any other person, whether or not directly affiliated with ICANN
- Broken down into each individual expense (flights, accommodation, per diem or separate local transport, food and other expenses).
- Each attendee for whom ICANN covered expenses to be named, including their affiliation.
Please note that we request the above-detailed information for ICANN meetings, and also other meetings for which ICANN may provide financial support (for instance, CWG-Stewardship or CWG-Accountability). We request, as a preliminary matter, a list of all meetings to which ICANN provides and has, in the past, provided financial support (1999-2014).
We note that some information of this nature is available in the Travel Support Reports.[5] However, the Travel Support Reports are available only from 2008 (Cairo meeting), and are not available for ICANN48 to ICANN51. Further, the Travel Support Reports do not exhibit the level of granularity necessary for research and scrutiny. As explained above, we request granular information for all meetings.
In our view, providing such information will not violate any individual or corporate rights of ICANN, its Staff, Board, Affiliates/Liaisons or any other individual. Public corporations and even private organisations performing public functions may be subjected to or accept an increased level of transparency and accountability. We believe this is of especial importance to ICANN, as it is involved in a process to enhance its accountability, intrinsically related to IANA Stewardship Transition. We expressed similar views in our initial comment to “Enhancing ICANN Accountability”.[6] Increased transparency from ICANN may also address accountability concerns present across stakeholder-groups both within and outside ICANN.
We await your favorable response and the requested information within the prescribed time limit. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require any clarifications.
Thank you very much.
Warm regards,
Geetha Hariharan
Centre for Internet & Society
ICANN's Response
ICANN responded to the above request for information within the stipulated time of 30 days. ICANN’s response is here. A short summary of CIS's request and ICANN's response can be found in this table (Request S. no. 1).
[1] See ICANN reveals hitherto undisclosed details of domain names revenues, http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-receives-information-on-icanns-revenues-from-domain-names-fy-2014.
[2] See ICANN Financial Statements As of and For the years ended June 30, 2014 and 2013, pages 7, 19-20, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/financial-report-fye-30jun14-en.pdf.
[3] For instance, see ICANN FY14 Financial Package: For the nine months ending March 2014, pages 2-5, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/package-fy14-31mar14-en.pdf.
[4] Supra note 1, page 14.
[5] See Community Travel Support, https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/travel-support-2012-02-25-en#reports.
[6] See CIS Comments on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-enhancing-icann-accountability.
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