ICANN under scrutiny?

[Alex Gakuru]

Download the letter here:
http://domainnamewire.com/wp-content/ICANN-smith-coble.pdf

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Jorge Amodio <jmamodio at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't think it has to do with protecting the organization as a benevolent
>> parent might.
>>
>> Yes, it is a matter of protectionism, but it is commercial protectionism.
>
> Well I would not expect less from a US Congressman than representing
> the interests of her/his constituents, particularly from the republican
> side of the aisle that has been defending commercial interests and
> property rights since the American Compact days.
>
> Alex, about your comment, do you really believe that ICANN as an
> organization is mature enough to earn its "independence" ?
>
> I respectfully disagree, IMHO ICANN is far away of being the
> organization it should be.
>
> For starters the current framework makes ICANN accountable to
> nobody. I believe Milton said it somewhere and I agree that the
> JPA or something similar is part of the problem.
>
> The current architecture of the organization does not help either,
> and the bottom-up process gets manipulated from the top and
> the middle where the bottom sometimes looks like a group of
> puppets following the actions of their masters pulling the strings.
>
> Also, in some cases it's not very clear who is representative of
> what in many of the constituencies.
>
> On the other hand, an organization with lack of transparency
> and accountability that has $70+MM/yr up for grabs compounded
> with that we are dealing with a "market" that is estimated to be
> in the $4-5B ballpark, creates way too many interests which will
> fight up to their teeth to grab a larger piece of the pie.
>
> Sorry folks, the gTLDs are not coming as soon as you expected,
> not only because of technical or process scalability issues, and
> in my opinion we have yet to see if the ccTLD IDN fast track
> program which ICANN is using to get some ccTLD's on the bag,
> gets derailed as soon as other TLD operators start to fight for
> their privilege to compete and have their share on the IDN
> name space.
>
> I congratulate all the attorneys since they will have a very
> productive season coming soon.
>
> Cheers
> Jorge
>