[ncdnhc-discuss] CPTech statement on ICANN meeting

[James Love]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: CPTech statement on ICANN meeting
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 05:07:32 -0400
From: James Love <james.love at cptech.org>
To: "random-bits at lists.essential.org" <random-bits at lists.essential.org>

CPTech statement on ICANN meeting
Friday -  June 28, 2002

"I've posted a number of reports from here which reflect our views on the
ICANN meeting, but now that the Board has approved with June 20 Blueprint
plan, one week after anyone had seen it, it is time for governments to wake
up and look at what is being created.  Despite countless letters from the US
Congress and contractual requirements to do so, ICANN is refusing to create
an independent review panel.  ICANN is eliminating the ability of
individuals to freely debate issues with the ICANN system, even going so far
as to remove the ability of the public to elect their own leaders or have
votes in public forums that have no legal power.  The original concept of a
public "at-large" membership that would elect board members has been
replaced with cynical top down staff/board managed PR exercise that will
ironically be used by the board to pack key committees,including the new
"NomCom" with cronies.  Esther Dyson, who is making a career out of
protecting ICANN from its critics or government oversight is currently in
charge of deciding who "really" speaks for the public, and what constitutes
"constructive" input.  This is a huge mistake, because Esther is completely
out of touch with the public, and would likely have no support in any
at-large strucutre that was democratic.

The board can freely meet in secret, and makes no efforts to even record
telephone board meetings, even when making decions that effect millions of
internet users, such as the delegation of .org, a "business" that is
probably worth $40 to $100 million.  It will not provide its own board
members access to its books, or tell the public how much ICANN is spending
on litigation to prevent such access.

Everyone is searching to understand what the new "reformed" ICANN is, and it
appears to be partly like the unacccountable International Olympic Committee
(IOC), and partly like OPEC.  The clique of insiders who control ICANN are
not willing to give up control, the unelected board members who promised
years ago to leave ICANN are still there, and the at-large elected members
will soon be moved off the board.

The GAC itself is part of the problem.  It does not meet with the public, is
surounded by secrecy itself, and has done nothing at all to address the
transparency or accountability issues for itself or ICANN.  The member
countries for the GAC should hold public consultations at home and also
jointly to allow civil society to have a voice.  The Internet is too
important, ICANN's proposals for policy making authority too sweeping and
ambitious, and the costs of cartel like activity too high to allow ICANN to
operate outside of all known systems of accountablity.

Most important, the GAC and the member countries have to allow new ideas for
DNS management to be given a fair hearing, the subject of the last motions
the ICANN General Assembly was permited to vote on.  At yesterday's meeting
the ICANN board said it did not understand how it could decentralize policy
making, as if there were some technical hurdles it could not overcome.  This
of course is no more true than saying the entire global phone system should
be regulated by a single agency just become someone has to allocate country
codes for phones.    The entire DNS management issue needs to be much more
decentralized, and the groups that act as gatekeepers to new TLDs should be
spit up and put into a new framework that would have pro-competitive
incentives, and give the public a choice and also a chance to create TLDs
that they can control themselves.  We expect to participate in a meeting on
these and other ICANN issues on September 9-10 in Geneva, and we ask others
who are interested in serious policy discussions about ICANN to also
participate."

Jamie

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James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:love at cptech.org
voice: 1.202.387.8030; mobile 1.202.361.3040


-- 
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James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:love at cptech.org
voice: 1.202.387.8030; mobile 1.202.361.3040