Big changes proposed to DNS overseer ICANN

Domain name overseer ICANN is likely to go through a radical reorganization if it wants to be given more control of critical internet functions, currently run under contract from the US government. Two recent papers - one from independent legal experts hired by a group looking into the contract's transitioning, and a second …

[elDog]

Does this mean that the US has figured out a backdoor into the ICANN process?

Forget about just slurping all the conversations, etc. Perhaps they've also wired in a few buttons in critical voting junctions to make sure that they've retained control (in the name of Democracy, of course.)

[Gordon 10]

Re: Does this mean that the US has figured out a backdoor into the ICANN process?

In fairness to the US government every public statement they have made has been to tell ICANN to sort themselves out. . They seem as exasperated with their behaviour as everyone else.

[Mark 85]

Benevolent despots are still despots.

This board seems to prove it very well.

[boba1l0s2k9]

The devil you know

There are aspects of ICANN I think are broken. Though I'm perhaps even more afraid of what happens if too many different idiots wield that power... There have been several proposals over the years to give more power to countries that I wouldn't trust to borrow my lawnmower, let alone run global DNS policy. I'm quite sure we really don't want DNS to be run by like the UN: toothless, in perpetual deadlock on important issues, and yet willing to vote for political points at the drop of a hat. In fact it might be better to weld the current policies into place and not allow any changes by anyone than to let ICANN or anyone else continue to muck around.

[Ole Juul]

US control

There are underlying contracts with the US which could prevail. US is also not likely to relinquish their ability to control .com .net and .org where in the past they have seized domains that were registered in other countries. Things could be a lot worse though. I'm hopeful, but skeptical.

Here is a quote from Michael Geist in an article published last year:

in 2009 the U.S. and ICANN entered into an agreement that institutionalized “the technical coordination of the Internet’s domain name and addressing system.” That document included a commitment for the U.S. to remain involved in the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), the powerful body within ICANN that allows governments to provide their views on governance matters. It also contained an ICANN commitment to remain headquartered in the U.S., effectively ensuring ongoing U.S. jurisdiction over it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no problem

In have no problem letting Chine or Russia,....having any say it how it is run - just look how open the Internet is in their country.

The current system may suck - but at least we can complain about in over the Net. Not sure that will be true in this new future.

[OmgTheyLetMePostInTheUK]

Why does ICANN even continue to exist?

In light of the fact that ICANN has refused, is refusing, and will continue to refuse to do what is needed for the good of the internet, we should allow the contract with them to expire and then give it to a new group that is run by members of the internet, and with bylaws that require them to do things that are best for the internet.

ICANN is not needed for the internet to function. All they have done it line their pockets with huge sums of money, and attempt time after time to do some really stupid things. Only the fact that ICANN was forced to listen to the US Government has forced them to back off of those stupid things. Going forward, ICANN expects to get full freedom to do those stupid things without the US Government being able to stop them, and you can be sure that they fully intend to continue to line their pockets at the expense of corporations that use the internet. That is the only thing are focused on. Except for the fact that they can extort boatloads of cash from internet users, they have very little understanding of the concept where the internet should be run by the very people that use it.

Dump ICANN. Let the fat cats go find a new game. Let the internet rule itself, and things will be much better. Obviously there has to be rules to prevent nations that censor their citizens from taking over the rules, but I doubt the US Government would give control to any group that felt otherwise. Then again, the US Government created the U.N., and look at the mess it is.. So maybe we need something very different.

[PyLETS]

Would the ITU be any worse ?

I don't see problems with international level telephony codes managed by the ITU being sold off to the highest bidder. I guess we'd have a different set of problems in relation to bureaucracy and slowness of process, but I don't see the fact that member states of the ITU are not all shining democracies to be it's main problem. Slowness of process, to the extent this achieves political consensus, would probably be a relatively good thing in connection with the ICANN TLD sell off which shouldn't be occurring at all.

There would be an initial issue of technical competence, probably best solved by passing the managment of ICANN as it stands over to an ITU process to be defined.

[justacontractor]

Good step forward

Making ICANN a membership organization is an excellent step toward addressing "troubling revelations"* regarding the arrogance, weak, non-transparent, top-down mentality (e.g., .sucks issues), and poor, short sighted IANA management ingrained in the current "inner circle" staff - who sometimes refer to themselves as "the global leaders".

Oversight of IANA functions is essential. The current intentional obfuscation of creating groups upon groups to supposedly provide oversight over each other will never solve the circular - self anointed - oversight problems with ICANN.  This article does a great job pointing this out.

The troubling revelations regarding the growing arrogance inside ICANN have manifested themselves in the form of debacles such as netmundial handling where the CEO would rather pretend to play statesman hobnobbing at WEF and with Brazilian president (now fighting calls for impeachment), undiplomatic f aux pas revealing lack of necessary experience with both domain industry and CWG experts, a "circle the wagons" mentality of yes men management that has ignored warnings from experienced community members regarding names like .sucks and problems with IANA management as well as a string of breaches and failures leading up to the new gtlds.

This top down approach to governance has led to non-transparent decisions (e.g., 1M usd additional fee for .sucks and unclear redistribution to the community ICANN should be serving) that encourages legal actions.

This bodes well for separating IANA from ICANN for the sake of stability and continuity of the Internet.

Conclusion: current top management must go before transition can be safely carried out – or - IANA must be made a financially and legally separate entity from ICANN with different management and oversight.

* domainnewsafrica.com/troubling-revelations-regarding-the iana-transition-major-alarming-gaffes-by-icann-ceo