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.