IP: Policy Post 8.04: ICANN President Proposes Radical Changes to Net Management Body

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

CDT POLICY POST Volume 8, Number 4, March 1, 2002

A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL
LIBERTIES ONLINE
from
THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY

CONTENTS:
(1) ICANN President Proposes Radical Changes to Net Management
Body
(2) ICANN Reforms Fail to Constrain Authority, Activities
(3) CDT, Partners Restate Principles for ICANN's Public Legitimacy
(4) Board Should Continue Ongoing Processes on User Role at
ICANN 
(5) Online Resources About ICANN Restructuring

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) ICANN PRESIDENT PROPOSES RADICAL CHANGES TO NET
MANAGEMENT BODY

M. Stuart Lynn, President of a key private management body for the
Internet, has proposed a new structure for his organization that
raises serious questions about whether principles of public
accountability and openness will be applied in the administration
of critical Internet resources.

Lynn is chief officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN), the private non-profit body that coordinates
certain important online domain name and addressing function --
such as the creation of new "top-level domains" like .com or .biz.
The systems ICANN manages are global in nature, and CDT and
others find ICANN's activities important enough that we have urged
ICANN to provide means of participation for all affected interests.

The Lynn proposal provides an honest and forthright assessment
of the problems facing ICANN. But its proposed remedies raise
serious concerns. The Lynn proposal would scale back ICANN's
accountability for its actions and its transparency before the online
community. It would eliminate direct representation of users on
ICANN's Board, replacing the nine members of ICANN's Board
originally to be elected by the public "at-large" with five Board
members selected by national governments. It would increase
ICANN's budget 300-500% and seek funding from governments. It
would change ICANN's relationships with the network operators it
affects, requiring that they accept ICANN's authority and contribute
financially in order to have a voice in its proceedings. Most
important, it would do little to address core concerns about the
unchecked growth of ICANN's powers and activities.

CDT harbors grave concerns about the Lynn proposal in its current
form. We believe that the original conception of ICANN -- a
non-governmental organization with a limited coordination function
and committed to making sound technical decisions through open,
bottom-up processes -- remains the best and most legitimate way
to coordinate core Internet functions.

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(2) ICANN REFORMS FAIL TO CONSTRAIN AUTHORITY, ACTIVITIES

A top concern about ICANN is that what was once considered a
narrow, "technical coordination" body could leverage its unique
authority over Internet systems into much broader policy-setting
activities - without adequate policy processes to ensure
accountability to those affected by its decisions.

The Lynn proposal makes this problem worse, by reducing
accountability while increasing the risk of "mission creep."

ICANN's central coordination role gives it the potential to exercise
a great deal of power by conditioning how names and numbers
are assigned. While the current ICANN Board admirably disavows
any intent to set broader policies, a future Board will face
tremendous pressure to use its authority to regulate the use of
names, promote government taxation or consumer protection
goals, or even control content.

There is already evidence that ICANN is exercising its powers
beyond the minimal role set out in its founding documents. It has
created massively detailed and regulatory contracts with the new
top-level domains created in the last year. It exercised remarkable
discretion in picking those seven new TLDs based on many factors
besides technical merit -- including how names "sounded". It now
turns its attention toward "keyword" systems that are not even part
of the domain name system.

Unfortunately, the Lynn proposal fails to clarify ICANN's narrow,
technical mission or to install safeguards that will prevent it from
venturing beyond those prescribed limits. If anything, the proposal
heightens the risk of "mission creep," most notably by seeking
funding from governments and placing government-selected
trustees on the ICANN Board. While governments have a role to
play in the ICANN process, without clear guidelines such close ties
to government will affect ICANN's independence and narrow
mission.

CDT believes ICANN must get "back-to-basics" -- committing itself
in a clear and tangible way to a core technical coordination mission,
and providing checks and balances to ensure that its activities will
remain limited. Without such a check on its authority, the user
community will have difficulty ever trusting in ICANN.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3) CDT, PARTNERS RESTATE PRINCIPLES FOR ICANN'S PUBLIC
LEGITIMACY

ICANN has worked hard to incorporate key principles of transparency,
representation, and bottom-up governance. CDT and its international
partnership to examine ICANN, the NGO and Academic ICANN Study
(NAIS), are concerned that the Lynn proposal constitutes a
disappointing retreat from these elemental principles. The proposal:

*    Substantially diminishes ICANN's commitment to making its most
   important decisions in full public view;
*    Creates a self-perpetuating structure, in which a substantial part
   of the Board would be chosen by the Board itself, rather than by
   stakeholder groups from the community;
*    Reduces opportunities for meaningful participation by important
   sectors of the Internet community;
*    Scales back the links of accountability between ICANN and the
   community of Internet users; and
*    Centralizes ICANN policy authority at the top, with network
   operators expected to respond to ICANN rather than vice versa.

If ICANN abandons these principles, it risks becoming further
detached from the interests of the community it was meant to serve.
CDT and its NAIS partners strongly urge ICANN to keep these
principles close in mind as it reviews the Lynn and other proposals.

The NAIS statement is available at
http://www.naisproject.org/020301statement.shtml

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4) BOARD SHOULD CONTINUE ONGOING PROCESSES ON
USER ROLE AT ICANN

The Lynn proposal clearly merits attention, and will likely consume
ICANN's attention for months to come. However, if the Board fails in
Accra to pass bylaws preserving the At-Large Directors, then the
outcome may be the same as if it took action to destroy them.

Dr. Lynn's publication of his reform proposal comes less than
three weeks before ICANN's quarterly meeting in Accra, Ghana. At
that meeting, the Board was expected to approve preparations for
a new public election of five At-Large Directors. If preparations are
not made, than an election will not take place this year and, as
ICANN's current bylaws provide, the At-Large Directors will leave
the Board without their replacements having been named. This
would effectively terminate the role of the At-Large Membership
at ICANN.

Moreover, the Lynn proposal has been released just as ICANN's
own committee to examine the At-Large concept, the At-Large
Study Committee (ALSC), is nearing completion of its work on
reinvigorating the At-Large concept. Other groups, such as the
NGO and Academic ICANN Study (NAIS), have made similarly
large investments of time and energy in a process that is now
being abridged.

The ICANN Board should not permit the introduction of this
expansive new proposal to derail an ongoing process. In order
to avoid prejudging the viability of the At-Large Membership, allowing
all the effort so far expended to explore the public's role in ICANN to
go to waste, the Board's Accra meeting should fully and openly treat
the issue of At-Large membership before the Board moves on to
new, more radical proposals.

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