US senators lean on ICANN, tell it to quit squirming and open up Two leading US senators have warned domain name overseer ICANN to stop resisting accountability changes in return for control over the internet's DNS. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, and ranking member Brian Schatz signed a letter [PDF] warning that without "significant …
If could vote, I would turf every one of the current board out and appoint a new lot. Ones more interested in the Internet's general well-being and less on their personal fiefdoms.
In addition, I would make it a rule the no board member can stay on longer than, say, 4 years, and all have to have at least some real and recent computer science background (e.g. degree) or experience (e.g. successful management of software-heavy project).
Oh, and a personal unicorn would be nice while I'm at it...
'all the ICANN community has to do is decide how it will make decisions as that "single member."'
Let's see: they could appoint a committee of community representatives and have them judge the consensus of the community. Let's call it NewComm.
(Oh wait: that's exactly how the ICANN Board members are appointed.) So after a few years, there'll be a problem of NewComm accountability. So at that point, the community will need a veto power over NewComm. So all the NewComm community has to do is decide how it will make decisions ...
Or perhaps the word 'all' was intended to be deeply sarcastic? The ICANN community has in fact failed to decide how to make decisions every year since 1998. That's the fundamental problem here and the main reason that the Board has been free wheeling.
Contrary to the title of this article, I read the PDF expecting to find thinly-veiled threats of fire and brimstone.
Instead, I found a very civil letter outlining the beliefs of the senators and the expectation that ICANN will adhere to them.
That's all very nice, but when you write such a letter to the chair of an organisation that can be officially told to accept community governance and reply that it would be a bad idea because he thinks so, then I doubt anything in this letter will have a snowflake's chance in Hell to do any better.
I think that a right flogging in the middle of Times Square is the only thing that could concievably bring some sense to the entire ICANN board.
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