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The Trials And Tribulations of ICANN
When the definitive history of the Internet is eventually written, last month's meeting of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Los Angeles is likely to be regarded as a significant turning point — if not a decisive one.
By proposing seven new top-level domains (TLDs) — on top of the Internet's key suffixes like .com, .net, and .org — the ICANN board took its most momentous decision to date, something that many regard as a key element of the fledgling organization's mission. The new domains — .biz, .info, .name, .pro, .museum, .aero and .coop — would be the first additions to the Internet's global naming regime since the late 1980s.
But. perhaps even more significant in the long run, five elected individuals took their seats on ICANN's 19-person governing board, potentially setting the stage for the democratization of what could prove to be cyberspace's key governing body.
None of this was accomplished without controversy. Indeed, the procedures leading to both the new names and the at-large elected board members are under assault, and could be overturned or modified by legal and political challenge. But both decisions are sure to accelerate the process in which the two-year-old ICANN — which still barely registers a blip on many Washington policy-makers' radar screens — is increasingly regarded as the international body whose decisions ultimately affect every Internet user.
Buzz From A New Board Member
Much of the negative buzz about ICANN that emanated from the Marina del Rey Marriott during the Nov. 13-16 meeting came from Karl Auerbach — a harsh critic of the group who, ironically, is now one of the board's new members. Elected the North American at-large director in elections conducted over the Internet in October, Auerbach did not officially take his seat until the major business of the Marina del Rey session had been conducted. But he was very much present throughout the week.
Among other things, Auerbach took the opportunity to: criticize one group of ICANN for meeting in secret; laud the legitimacy of the elections; blast the board for limiting at-large members' terms to two years when others serve for three; urge the body to approve all technically competent applications for new TLDs; and ridicule ICANN for attempting to bureaucratize the Internet.
At a press conference hosted by the five new at-large members, Auerbach called the board's lengthy review process delving into the financial and marketing details of 44 TLD proposals a "merry-go-round that has nothing relevant to Internet stability." Although such stability is often by ICANN as criteria for selection of new TLDs, Auerbach and other Internet experts believe the Internet could easily absorb hundreds — if not thousands — of new TLDs. He charged that ICANN's elaborate review process is "just a gross interference in innovation and the ability of the Internet to grow."
Declared Auerbach: "If we had subjected the Internet to this in 1974, it never would have happened. That is so far beyond technical coordination that it is not just laughable, it is scary."
Winnowing The TLDs
To obtain ICANN's blessing to run a new TLD, applicants needed to pony up $50,000 and submit to a detailed technical and financial review by ICANN's professional staff, resulting in a report that was published the Friday before the conference began. The ICANN board heard its staff grade each of the 44 proposals in a public meeting, and permitted each applicant to speak in defense of their proposal for a rigidly enforced three minutes.
Some — including the dotTV domain name registry and a member of two consortiums vying for the approval of .nom and .pro — used their time to lash out at what they regarded as a flawed process. "There were [factually] inaccurate conclusions reached by the staff," said Anthony Bishop, senior vice president and general counsel at dotTV, contending that to select a new TLD, one needed to give due process to all applications. Unless the board delayed the process for approving such TLDs, he added, "ICANN's credibility will be the worse for it."
While companies vying for the names .web, .kids, and .event likewise complained about getting short shrift from the staff's report, they still attempted to sell their proposal to ICANN. Others who passed muster in that "threshold review" were left disappointed when their names were dropped later for other reasons.
Among the proposals that garnered interest by board members — only to be dropped because of concerns about their business viability or sponsorship — were .health, .union, .sucks, and .iii. The latter, a proposed TLD for personal domains, ran into board objections over the construction of name itself. The .geo proposal, which would have assigned domain names according to geographical locations, was dropped at the last minute because of concerns that the applicant JVTeam already had received the nod from ICANN for the .biz TLD.
In another last-minute surprise, ICANN board member Vint Cerf successfully steered his colleagues away from awarding .web to Afilias, a consortium of 19 registrars that had submitted a well-regarded proposal for a TLD open to anyone. The board awarded the Afilias the TLD .info, its second choice selection — in part because Cerf worried about harm to Image Online Design, another applicant for .web that had operated the TLD for several years independently of ICANN.
"We are extremely pleased that the ICANN board recognized our role as a pioneer," said Chris Ambler, chief technology officer for Image Online Design. But other rebuffed applicants found fewer reasons for consolation.
"ICANN thinks they can step in and illegally reassign our assets," said Paul Garrin, founder and CEO of Name.Space, which has operated an alternate registry for .info, .pro, and .museum since 1996. Garrin said he would contact members of Congress and sue — if necessary — to stop ICANN from releasing those domains.
'Twisting In The Wind'
However, Garrin seemed to be in a distinct minority. Other applicants who complained loudly about the process before ICANN's selections have been holding their tongues since, in the hope of being selected by ICANN in a subsequent round.
Still, such critical comments raise the prospect that ICANN's decisions could be nullified by the federal Commerce Department, in spite of an agreement with the Commerce Department that hands much of the power for Internet governance to ICANN. The possibility of Commerce Department intervention inched closer to reality during the Marina del Rey conference, with release of a letter in which Reps. Edward Markey, D-MA, and Lois Capps, D-CA, asked Gregory Rohde, the assistant secretary who heads the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to delay implementation of the new TLDs until the public has an opportunity to review the ICANN process.
Because the NTIA has not relinquished fundamental control of the Internet protocol (IP) address space and the domain name system (DNS) root server, Auerbach said that "ICANN has been left by the Department of Commerce twisting in the wind." He said that, because not all meetings have been open to the public and because of other questions about due process, ICANN's decisions could be challenged on the grounds that the group has not followed regulatory rules spelled out by the federal Administrative Procedures Act.
ICANN officials dismiss such criticism, saying that all meetings of official ICANN bodies are open to the public — and that selection procedures have been clearly spelled out. At issue is whether a group of government officials from numerous nations is an official part of ICANN; former Chairman Esther Dyson argued they were not.
Another Election Controversy
More threatening to Auerbach and the other recently-elected at-large board members — including Brazilian Ivan Campos representing Latin America, Japanese Masanobu Katoh representing Asia, German Andy Mueller-Maguhn representing Europe and Ghanaian Nii Quaynor representing Africa — is the so-called clean sheet study of the recent election.
The study was called for under an agreement reached during ICANN's meeting last March in Cairo. Some board members fear that such a study would lead to elimination of the nine at-large positions in favor of the nine positions held by members of technical groups that support ICANN's mission. The 19th seat is held by Mike Roberts, the CEO of ICANN selected by the board.
"This clean sheet study is a significant reversal from previous commitments," said Hans Klein of the Internet Democracy Forum, a group seeking greater democratic participation in the body. Critics along this line were highly visible during the Marina del Rey meeting because of a button they wore with a line through the letters "B.S." The letters, they said, referred to four ICANN "board squatters," or individuals who have refused to relinquish their seats on the board even though their two-year terms are over. Those members were included in the nine initial at-large members who would have been replaced by elections had there been nine slots — rather than five — up for election last month.
During their joint press conference, each of the five new board members stressed differing top priorities that they see for ICANN. But on one key element, they were united: the need for all nine at-large seats to be elected democratically. With ICANN's increasingly high profile, that desire is likely to continue to be amplified.
 | - by Drew Clark |
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