"US gov't cedes control of Internet" announcement is 99%
symbolic - and not bizarre UN giveaway. It empowers ICANN, not UN/ITU.
A cynic would say that the Americans have decided that de jure control is
no longer tenable and by dumping the IANA functions to ICANN would empower
an organisation in which it has substantial leverage and control. As NTIA
has largely been hands off the practical consequences of the occurrence are
perhaps not as revolutionary as one might first think.
What we need to be careful about is the organisational structure and legal
position of ICANN coming out of these changes. This Board has shown a
propensity for empowering itself and it's friends at the expense of the
bottom up nature of MS most of us subscribe to. Since we filed our initial
Reconsideration petition eleven months ago there have been twenty nine new
reconsideration petitions filed, as opposed to three in 2011 and 2012
combined. Universally these petitions have been unsuccessful. This Board has
ignored it's own Bylaws, flaunted it's accountability processes,
denied our efforts to obtain documentation as we seek explanation for
decisions made and, as above, largely shown an unwillingness to reflexively
and honestly examine it's own decisions despite repeated requests by
Community members.
NCSG member Rolf Weber co-wrote an
interesting piece a few years ago illustrating the "who controls
the board" problem at ICANN, with a suggested solution, a problem
that may be exacerbated by this weeks US government announcement:
http://www.stlr.org/html/volume14/WeberGunnarson.pdf . Milton has also written in the past about the
concept of Members, ICANN's lack thereof, and consequences under the
current legal accord.
I have deep concerns
about the maturity of ICANN and the commitment of many in the
organisation, particularly in legal, to an open, transparent and accountable
governance structure. In fact, the cynic in me conceives of new oversight by
Jones Day (ICANN's outside law firm) replacing that of the NTIA. I
don't think that would be progress.
There will be opportunity here, of course, to make positive change but let
us not be so overjoyed by the proposed internationalisation of IANA to
ignore the fact that ICANN itself has deep and abiding problems. There may
be possibilities in the current chaos to correct some of these problems,
foremost of which is sorting a way in which staff and Board are held
accountable to someone or something other than themselves or the nebulous
and poorly defined "community".