[ga] FYI: "Overcoming ICANN"

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

This was just forwarded by Jay Fenello to the CSIF list: Dave 
Farber, Peter G. Neumann, and Lauren Weinstein have published an 
Open Letter to the Global Internet Community, entitled "Overcoming 
ICANN: Forging Better Paths for the Internet."

The letter is available at <http://www.pfir.org/statements/icann>,
and required reading - in its entirety.

Some tasty bits:

 - "ICANN's lack of meaningful representation, and its continuing 
   pattern of drastic and seemingly arbitrary structural and policy 
   changes (among other shortcomings), have created an unstable and 
   suspicion-ridden environment that is detrimental to the interests 
   of the vast majority of Internet users around the world. The 
   resulting overly politicized situation not only threatens the 
   stability of the Internet itself, but also invites drastic and 
   undesirable interventions by a variety of vested interests."

 - "Wide consensus has already been achieved on at least one key 
   point -- even by ICANN's current president -- ICANN is seriously 
   broken. We agree, and we additionally assert that ICANN's history, 
   structure, and behaviors strongly indicate that the most 
   productive course would be for ICANN's role in Internet affairs to 
   be discontinued."

As a cure to the problems in ICANN, the authors suggest: (1) "all 
Internet policy, operational, and other [...] functions currently 
performed by ICANN should be transferred", as soon as practicable, 
to some other organization such as the IAB as a transitional 
measure.  (2) A study be started "with a mandate to propose detailed 
and meaningful paths for the Internet's development".  (3) Results 
of that study should be carefully considered and implemented.


This statement is certainly demonstrating that public distrust in 
ICANN's board, and ICANN as a whole, has reached a new climax after 
the Lynn proposal and the Accra decisions.  To me, it seems 
unreasonable to believe that any kind of trust in the ICANN board 
could be restored by either keeping the current directors, or 
selecting new ones in a circular nomination committee approach.  In 
fact, this approach would perpetuate current distrust.

Quite frankly, I do not see any other way to re-establish trust in 
this board than replacing a considerable number of directors (like 
those whose terms expire later this year) by way of public elections 
 - whatever be the mechanism used for these elections.  And even that 
doesn't have to work.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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