I'm not saying this just because I'm a lawyer, but we need litigation pressure (if we prefer that to government pressure) to keep ICANN in line. Everything I see points troublingly to less accountability.

Please don't take this as aggression Wendy, but your comment is hopelessly vague - "everything I see".

I don't know what you are looking at but I can only assume you haven't found the public participation website at http://public.icann.org - where anyone in the world can follow ICANN's meeting in webcasts, audiocasts and chatrooms and interact directly and immediately with the meeting itself.

Or the blog at http://blog.icann.org where ICANN has been held directly accountable by individual users on the RegisterFly issue in particular.

The Board minutes are extensive and name individual Board members and list their arguments, their thinking, their questions and their conclusions.

The three new RALOs provide ALAC with the legitimacy it hasn't had up to now.

This is what I see in my role as general manager of public participation at ICANN -- what are you looking at?

I'm serious, point the arrows and I will see what I can do.




Kieren

I'll let Wendy address most of your questions.

As for the RALO's endowing legitimacy to the ALAC: I strongly disagree on the grounds that the ALAC is so perfectly engineered to keep the community of internet users on the outside looking in, powerless except to observe, that no grandstanding about an ICANN approved committee of an ICANN approved commitee that hosts other ICANN approved committees - which is what a RALO is - really has any meaning except to add yet another box to ICANN's very Byzantine organizational chart.

As for RegisterFly - there have been reports that the public comments and complaints about RegisterFly have suddenly vanished, without comment, without explaination, from ICANN's website. I'd certainly like to know the full and true story here.

Hi Karl,

Let me assure you that I will seek to give the ALAC a big voice in ICANN. And I will do so consistently and without pause. And I am going to tell the ALAC this at 4pm today (Thu 29 Mar 2007).

ICANN's organisation is not byzantine. ICANNwiki has a full chart - http://icannwiki.org/ICANN_Organizational_Staff_Chart - which as far as I have been able to make out is entirely accurate.

ICANN will update its website soon to provide greater clarity over who is where in the organisation.

As for reports of comments suddenly vanishing without explanation: well, they suddenly vanish alright, that's the nature of the technology. As for without explanation, I have explained in great depth what comments will be removed and why. And I have warned people publicly on the blog about why I would delete a similar comment like the one they had just posted.

At the top right, there is a Comment Policy link to a page which outlines the policy.

There is a choice - force everyone to go through a moderator or leave it open, be open, and delete comments that are abusive or pointless. And that is what they have been.

I hope this helps. Please do review the ICANN blog more because this is where I post most of the information outlined above.

Kieren

I have to strongly disagree that the ALAC is even worth keeping - it is an exclusionary mechanism that contrasts very badly against the very successful system of direct elections of directors that existed before the ALAC.

Moreover, the bias and prejudice against the public that is built into the ALAC becomes more than glaringly apparent when compared to the red-carpet treatment and direct access to fundamental policymaking that ICANN affords to its industrial "stakeholders".

The best thing that can be done with the ALAC is to erase it from existance.

As for Byzantine structure - Just because one can draw an org chart does not mean that something is not excessively complicated.

ICANN's one and single job should be to ensure that DNS query packets in the upper tiers of DNS are efficiently, accurately, and reliably transformed into DNS reply packets with no prejudice for or against any query source or query subject.

That's a job that can be done by a tiny organization.

Instead ICANN has grown into a kudsu that has overtopped all limits and has done so in the name of the public interest.

If ICANN is so dedicated to the public interest, why has it created such a massive disaster, the ALAC, which despite massive infusions of life support it is still moribund while its predecessor, a system of direct elections for seats that really mattered became vibrant and reached several hundred thousand people in a matter of months?

As for the removal of the messages, I heard that it was not on the blog but in ICANN's official registrar and registry comment forums and email lists. If so, that goes far beyond matters of net etiquitte.

I'll tell you what I think Karl, and please don't take offence.

I wasn't at all sure ICANN would - or perhaps even should - survive the WSIS process. And I sat through and watched the governments of the world - not to mention a fair few international organisations, companies, individuals, and so on - prod it and poke it and wonder whether it should be pulled apart, or rebuilt, or restructured.

And ICANN made it out, winded but still very much alive. And at that point, it suddenly became important that we all get ICANN to work.

The reality is that ICANN and its structures and its approach are here to stay at this point in the Internet's history. As such, discussion based around the fantasy that it can be redone any other way is - to my mind at least - all time wasted that could be spent on improving what's there.

I realised a week or so ago that one of the biggest things preventing that improvement from happening was people dragging up the past. The Net's not waiting, and ICANN isn't waiting either.

You think ICANN should be IANA and only IANA. But it's just not going to happen. ICANN is ICANN.

I really hope at some point soon Karl that someone with your talents will say "what the hell" and focus their attention on getting ICANN in the best shape it can be.

If you do, I'll be more than willing to do what I can to help.


Kieren

I disagree about fantasy. Indeed if there is fantasy it is that ICANN is like Wylie Cayote - having run off the cliff and standing on nothing but air.

There is the ICANN fantasy that the internet can have but one DNS. That is completely untrue and has always been untrue. Different systems of roots can arise - and do exist. The issue is that of consistency of content, not singularity of source. ICANN's insistance on singularity makes ICANN vulnerable to nearly instantaneous circumvention.

Also, ICANN's role is not IANA - IANA is a separate job that ICANN merely partially performs under contract to the US government. The IETF has begun making noises of dissatisfaction with ICANN's performance of the numbers-assignment function of IANA. And IP address policy at the IANA level is best described as "when the RIRs ask, IANA grants".

ICANN job is technical, or rather, was intended to be techical - to ensure that users and providers of the net receive reliable, accurate, and efficient DNS service. (We can forget IP addresses as ICANN long ago abandoned that task to the regional IP registries, the RIRs. ICANN has similarly abandoned oversight of upper tier DNS reliability when it left the root server operators to operate according to their own decisions and desires.)

Unfortunately ICANN has gone ultra vires in its attempt to become a worldwide regulator, and a regulator in the most heavy-handed and intrusive of senses, when it decided to abandon the technical oversight that we users and providers need and, instead, has become an instrument of social engineering mainly for the benefit of registries and trademark protection interests.

ICANN is a more dangerous monopoly in restraint of trade than is Microsoft. Microsoft is held-back by the need to keep its customers relatively happy and to make a profit, and also by national laws. ICANN, on the other hand, has attacked privacy and restrained the innovation of the internet, limiting the marketplace and selecting vendors, in ways that have come into direct conflict with national laws created by elected legislatures.

If ICANN wants to give substance to the claim that it has restraints then it ought to begin by living up to its promise to have the public select a majority of the seats on its board of directors. The ALAC is not even close to that promise, indeed it more resembles the old system of soviets in the old USSR.

Your argument that ICANN is here to stay to me sounds like Louis XVI saying to the crowds at the Bastille - "hey guys, I'm here to stay, so why don't you just go home, I'll make everything better."

The internet is certainly here to stay, but ICANN as a governance body is not so certain. DNS is evolving, and can easily slip away so that ICANN is left with nothing but a few contracts that, at the bottom of things, really say who can edit a given text file on a given computer.

I've written several papers analyzing the jobs that we need done on the internet and described how to create accountable, limited, inexpensive structures to provide those needs. Yes, this means splitting ICANN. And it also means that ICANN's social engineering would fall by the wayside.

It is likely that ICANN will be soon forced to abandon its social engineering - the era of lawsuits against ICANN as a combination in restraint of trade is, to my way of thinking, soon to begin. ICANN, because it can not base its choices on technical necessities, will find itself in a weak position.

Susan, what's a "private international organization?" Can you give an example of on that could be a model for ICANN?

like the Red Cross, as Karl suggests. But given what ICANN tries to do, this is probably a sui generis direction - it wouldn't have an analogue in other private international orgs.

this is just the first step and who knows what will happen. I just wanted everyone to notice.

Other examples include the International Olympic Committee, hardly a model of rectitude or accountability.

I just skimmed through ICANN's supporting documents. They seem rather naive regarding the steps that would be required to obtain the desired status *and* remain US based.

It seems that it would require both an act of Congress (or a treaty) and a Presidential declaration.

Given that ICANN has shown itself to be a body that regulates business practices, largely for the protection of trademark owners, and does nothing to ensure technical stability to the community of internet users that ICANN could, and considering its poor reputation, probably would have to jump a considerable hurdle to obtain these necessary legislative and executive approvals. There is nothing that ICANN's existing governmental patron, NTIA, could do to lubricate this process.

The best course for achieving the desired legitimacy and status is to consistently do good things over a long period of time. That's how the Red Cross did it - it started private and the international recognition was endowed as a result of its good work over many years. ICANN has done few good acts and those it has done have not been the result of a consistent policy designed to benefit the community of internet users as a whole rather than a few selected industrial interests.

At best ICANN is looking at the first step of a very long, very steep (uphill) road.

And as Wendy S. points out, ICANN has not earned the kind of public trust that would allow it to smothly pass the numerous check points and obsticles that it will encounter if it tries to do this; instead there will be many people and many groups who will raise serious issues whether ICANN is qualified for this kind of status.

Hey Karl,

If I remember correctly, the bloke that was asked to look at what sort of organisation could become - the ex top lawyer of the United Nations - specifically looked at The Red Cross, alongside a number of other organisations.

I'm slightly concerned that you didn't say any of this in any of the three open consultations that the President's Strategy Committee has run. This is exactly why they ran the meetings - so anyone could get their feelings and observations on the record and in the committee's heads.

Did you not hear about the meeting? Was it at the wrong time? Were you not comfortable with the method of interaction? What was it?

Seriously, because it's my job to get people to interact with ICANN. If you can think of a way in which I could have got you to put this input in front of the committee, rather than on this blog, can you please email me.

This is what I set up for the last open consultation - any ideas, suggestions etc - http://public.icann.org/19mar07/psc

Cheers

Kieren McCarthy

I wrote an paper on this subject. ICANN refused to publish it on their website even though I was the on ICANN's board of directors at the time and even though ICANN routinely published similar materials by other directors and officers - See "Why Louis XIV Would Have Loved The Internet " at http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_7.htm

And I did have the dubious experience of demonstrating, via a lawsuit (which I won), that ICANN has often not had even the most basic of clues about how an accountable, public-benefit body ought to behave. The papers for that lawsuit are up on the web at http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/DNS_control/ICANN_IANA_IAHC/Auerbach_v_ICANN/

Have you read my final report to ICANN when I left the board? It's posted at http://www.cavebear.com/icann-board/icann-evaluation-public-version.pdf In that report I addressed several of these issues. (This document too, was refused publication by ICANN on ICANN's website even though similar documents were published onto the website by other board members and officers.)

I addressed the question of ICANN's structure and legal foundations several times in testimony before the United States Senate and in other fora. Again, despite repeated requests, and despite the fact that I was on the board during much of that time, ICANN refused to hear or include any of my materials in its "official" collections. There is a partial list of these writings on my website.

So am I skeptical of ICANN's willingness to listen? Experience has demonstrated, time and time again, that ICANN has a degree of institutional hubris that would be worthy of an ancient Greek myth.

As for the meetings - ICANN has such a ramified, rambling circus that it is impossible, even for us on the inside to follow what is going on. So the answer to your question is "no, I did not know about the meetings". In fairness I must admit, however, that because of my medical condition over the last 18 months I've been less than fully engaged in ICANN, or much else for that matter. (Fortunately, for me, my condition has recently vastly improved.)

Besides, ICANN's home is here in California - Why is ICANN afraid to hold meetings in the place where it chose to have its legal existance? Even elected members of California's state government have noticed this disonnance and are asking whether ICANN really qualifies as a body that ought to rights under California law as a "public benefit" corporation.

ICANN has long had a difficulty separating legal reality from legal wishing. ICANN may wish to be conceived of as a Red Cross look-alike. But as long as ICANN acts more like the vindicator of industrial authority and profits over the needs of the community of internet users, you really can't expect much public support for ICANN being blessed with a rare and almost unique legal structure that would make it even less accountable than it is today.

The idea that ICANN is going to get special legislation out of Congress that stamps it as an up-and-coming red-cross is not a very astute reading of the support for ICANN outside of its core group of selected "stakeholder" interests. Even the IETF and IAB, once supporters of ICANN, now hold their noses and often openly laugh at it or moan when its name is mentioned.

ICANN holds forth the glamor, the intentionally created image, that it protects the DNS from wobbling off of its techical axis. Most users of the net think of ICANN as a kind of internet fire marshall and fireman that will assure reliable, accurate, efficient transformation of DNS query packets into DNS response packets. Yet ICANN does no such thing. By allowing, and even supporting that faux image ICANN is misrepresenting what it actually does, which is to protect the profits and assets of the registry and intellectual property protection industries. That is not the way to build the legitimacy from which comes recognition that an entity is worthy of being annointed as a body of international repute that ought to occupy a position nearly on par with nations.

You have made vast improvements in ICANN's ability to speak. But there is scant evidence to demonstrate that ICANN has learned to listen.

Karl,

Why is ICANN afraid to hold meetings in the place where it chose to have its legal existance?

I'm told that it can be quite difficult to obtain visas for many folk who might want to participate at an ICANN meeting in the US.

Regards,
-drc

Then ICANN should pack its bags and move out of California, indeed move out of the US.

ICANN reaps the benefits of California and US tax exempt status (and other privileges as well). It is unfair to those of us who pay taxes here in California and the US to support an organization that never holds its legally required meetings here.

I have been in meetings (on matters pertaining to voting, not to ICANN) in which currently sitting elected members of the California government have expressed questions regarding ICANN's use of California as a home and claiming the rights of a public-benefit corporation while it refuses to meet here and systematically excludes the public from its decision processes while simultaneously giving preferential rights to selected industrial interests.

Honestly, what are we talking about here? Does Hugo Chavez come to these meetings?

They had meetings last year in Algiers. I'm sure there are plenty of people, Israelis for example, who would have trouble getting in there.

Kierien - why not start by posting all of Karl's papers that were previously kept off the ICANN site?

I'll tell you why I won't do that - because for me to stretch back in time from when I took the job can only lead to conflict with absolutely no positive resolution.

From this point on, however, it's a different matter. If Karl produces a paper in response the President's Strategy Committee report I will see it is given due consideration.

I only wish he had got involved in the nine months of consultations before now.

I should note as well that there was nothing at all to stop Karl registering at the public participation website (public.icann.org) and on the President's Strategy Committee webpage (or in its forum, or in its chatroom) talking about his papers and providing links.

I am trying to set up the system so people can interact between themselves - because it is absolutely impossible for me to give everything a quick look-over. That much was made clear in the Lisbon meeting. I worked non-stop and I *still* have loads of bits of work to do.


Kieren

Dear Susan,

Thanks for this post. The accountability issue is important. Do we have a baseline? What is current global best practice on accountability in organisations like ICANN?

Many groups work collaboratively to safeguard infrastructure, pensions and standards all around the world. Others study it and try to understand how it is evolving and changing. Some examples:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/
http://www.civicus.org/new/LandT_Overview.asp

Many people assert that the ICANN model is unique, but I'm not sure that assertion has ever been subjected to serious research.

Regarding your question about ICANN's lack of uniqueness:

ICANN may have a unique subject matter, the upper layer of DNS, but in terms of organizational structure to obtain accountability ICANN is not unique at all.

In many organizations accountability is obtained by having the ultimate authority of the organization, in ICANN's case this is the board of directors, selected by the public in directy or indirect elections. ICANN once had this for 5 seats (I was the North American elected representative), but that system, which was a success, was abandoned by ICANN and replaced by an ALAC that was intentionally designed (I was privy to many of the meetings) to ensure that the public would be kept at a "safe distance".

Another way to obtain accountability is to analyze the jobs that need to be done and to create bodies of limited authority to perform each job. This is somewhat wasteful in terms of resources, but it does keep the bodies in check. I have written many papers on this topic and presented them to the ICANN, the ITU, and the UN, as have several other observers. For example, take a look at http://www.cavebear.com/rw/governance-structure-ITU-Feb26-27-2004.htm

Hi Karl,

Thanks for responding to my comment! I read your paper and have the following questions:

My post referenced a rigorous inventory and comparative analysis of existing systems. I don't see that in your paper. Do you know if something like that has been done already? Would be interesting to read it.

I know about the elections. I also read a Harvard analysis that claimed the opposite of what you claim with regard to the direct elections. That analysis claimed that it was in fact the elections that cost ICANN a good deal of credibility, because no one anticipated how fundamentally challenging it would be to hold a global election. What were your thoughts on that paper?

What are your thoughts on how global elections would work in practice? How would ICANN operationalise that and how much do you think it would cost?

Also, can you explain how splitting the bodies keeps them in check? I rather think it would just make them cannabalise participation and fight over resources.

I don't have a formal comparision with existing systems.

As for a Harvard paper that claims that ICANN's elections were a failure - I have not seen this paper, or if I have, I read it differently (pretty much everything I have seen out of the Berkman center discussed the difficulty, but did not conclude failure.)

Indeed, the difficulties of the election were exacerbated by open hostility on the part of ICANN and its hired contractors - one such contractor (who was awarded by ICANN with a lucrative, sinecure consulting position) actively subverted the election mechanisms that he/she was creating and deploying.

ICANN picked a particularly arcane system for those elections - a mix of postal mail and software. Both parts were run with the skill level of a barrel of monkeys - a large portion of the postal mail was never delivered to the people who tried to register to vote. And the codes that were sent out to actually vote often did not work or were not comprehensible. It was a system that made the Diebold systems here in the US seem like paragons of perfection by comparision.

As it was, the ICANN election in year 2000 was very vibrant - systems of debate and discussion sprang up all over the world. In the North American election there were several face-to-face debates among the candidates and nearly every candidate participated. And here in North America the quality of the candidates was superb - From Larry Lessig to Harris Miller. In the other reagions the slates included many good candidates. And the people who were elected, all (and with lack of humility I include myself), were well suited, conscientious, capable people - in my opinion they were rather better than the boardsquatters who preceeded them.

The difficulties of the technical systems used for the election could have been cured on the next election cycle, and the costs of building the electorate could have been amortized over more election cycles. But ICANN, because of its fear of elections, not to mention its phobia of "derivative lawsuites" by electors (who under California law are "members" who can bring such actions), ICANN strapped the election system to the table and gave it a lethal injection that it called "reform".

As for how such a system ought to run in the future - the hard part is the registration system and the issue of anonymous votes. In large corporate elections ownership of a share of stock gives the right to vote. And because of the pre-existing relationships it is relatively easy and inexpensive to disseminate voting keys that can be used on web-based ballots. Those elections also do not commit themselves to the level of voter privacy as in public elections.

My suggestion is that we begin by hooking the right to vote to some other system or systems that have already done the heavy lifting of identifying a person (and knowing that they are not merely an electronic creation) - such systems include domain name ownership, credit card possession, etc. There is a degree of American-European bias in this as more US citizens than, say Cambodian citizens, tend to have these relationships. But we have to start somewhere and there are perhaps more expensive mechanisms that can be deployed to register voters in such countries.

As for the actual voting - if we accept that votes for directors of ICANN do not require the kind of privacy as do votes in national, or perhaps more importantly, regional and local elections, then we can use fairly simply web-based voting using key sequences distributed to the voters. (The voters will have to trust that the keys will not be used to link them to their votes.)

It's imperfect, its not free of costs and risks, but a more klunky system worked in year 2000 and is a whole lot better than the stillborn system of committee-of-committees-of-committees that ICANN calls the ALAC.

As for splitting bodies to keep them in check - if each job is assigned to a distinct body that has its powers shrink-wrapped to only the degree needed to get its job done, then that body is less likely to go super-nova, as ICANN has, and grow into something well beyond its desired scope. This is the same principle as "separation of powers" that underlies many modern constitutions. It is the same idea that separates auditors from people who actually disburse money in banks.

Indeed, many of the jobs that we need done in internet governance - such as doing protocol number assignments, or creating the daily root zone file - are largely clerical and do not serve to satisfy people who want to build organizational empires.

ICANN's board of directors seems to lack comprehension of the need for a board of directors to direct, limit, and channel its executive officers. Paul Twomey is a very capable person, but ICANN's board has not aimed him or limited him as it ought to have done. Rather, ICANN's culture is such that the board and its members consider themselves to be part-time worthies who occassionally decide questions that ICANN's "staff" choses to refer to them. That is the kind of thing that led to Enron and Worldcom. It is unlikely that ICANN's board will change to become a kind of dominitrix standing with her whip over ICANN's staff. Rather, absent public elections and being the result of the least-devisive choice results of ICANN nominating committee politics, they will tend to themselves play the subservant role that they have historically played vis-a-vis ICANN staff.

That lack of a dominant board that takes its role seriously makes it very important to design neo-ICANN or other bodies of internet governance in ways that their very structure limits their power and tendency to grow beyond their intended bounds.

Thanks for these pointers, Jacob. The President's Strategy Committee is going to go off and study these mechanisms. I share everyones' concerns about accountability, and I'm hopeful that we'll get some concrete, detailed suggestions about how the Board and staff can be overseen. Susan

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http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/phone_sex_bill_022109
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=123&sid=136862
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/7244
http://www.newsnet5.com/video/18761561/index.html
http://www.newsonfeeds.com/article/8892012/Nebraska%20woman,%2086,%20gets%20$1,000%20phone%20sex%20bill%20%20%20%20%20%20(AP)
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05082007/tv/this_girl_is_a_phone_sex_worker_tv_linda_stasi.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/washington/10nsa.html?pagewanted=print
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2008/02/typo_points_state_retirees_to.html
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/02/019787.php
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/02/20/old-lady-gets-1000-phone-sex-bill/
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1744186
http://www.reddit.com/r/humor/comments/7z7la/phone_sex_youre_doing_it_wrong_pic/
http://www.rhapsody.com/next/rated-next/phone-sex/lyrics.html
http://www.sbsun.com/ci_4234479?source=most_emailed
http://www.sexetc.org/glossary/1189
http://www.sodahead.com/blog/44312/1000-phone-sex-bill-for-86-yo-woman/
http://www.spike.com/video/phone-sex/2857336
http://www.spike.com/video/seducing-doctor/2643661
http://www.startribune.com/nation/39963562.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:Ug8P:Pc:UiacyKU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUX
http://www.studlife.com/2.3490/1.95569-1.95569
http://www.theinsider.com/news/537899_Duelling_For_Same_Phone_Sex_Job_Evan_Gareth
http://www.thenewstribune.com/887/story/633225.html
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/money/18761620/detail.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013043mackris14.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,14886,00.html
http://www.times-herald.com/HOTstory/Nebraska-woman--86--gets--1-000-phone-sex-bill
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/sex/TC0URC7V8NLMN8L92
http://www.topix.com/forum/world/bangladesh/T173B1F095N4JH2OB
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/01/14/Phone_sex_number_listed_for_hospital/UPI-79561231975304/
http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa98/invited_talks/klein_html/sld007.htm
http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/40030127.html
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/04/58442
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/posts.html?pg=2
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0209/596923.html
http://www.wpix.com/pages/landing_weird/?Nebraska-woman-86-gets-1000-phone-sex-bi=1&blockID=219162&feedID=29