ICANN has made major strides towards increasing its transparency, but the point about openness and transparency is that you do it all the time, not just when its convenient or when the results won't challenge you. In that regard we find it interesting that ICM Registry's precedent-setting call for an Independent Review Panel has not seen the light anywhere on ICANN's website. ICM Registry, you will recall, was the applicant for the .xxx TLD, and due to interference by governments and some spinelessness by ICANN management ICANN's approval was reversed. ICM has chosen to become the first entity in history to attempt to use ICANN's Independent Review Process, something that ICANN touts as being a safeguard of its accountability but which some independent experts see as somewhat biased against the challenger. Sure, we don't expect ICANN to make a big deal about the challenge but we do think that its correspondence section, which contains virtually everyting sent to ICANN now, should post the notice of the IRP from the ICM Registry and that its ongoing front page news section should mention it.

2 thoughts on “Does ICANN Still Keep Some Things Hidden?

  1. I agree with this assessment of the significance of ICANN's silence. ICANN's Bylaws specifically require that all Independent review requests must be posted on the ICANN Web site, but none are.
    But it is false to say that “ICM has chosen to become the first entity in history to attempt to use ICANN's Independent Review Process”. There are have been at least 3 previous requests for Independent Review, including by Edward Hasbrouck, Karl Auerbach , and Dotster These are all years old, but still pending and still being ignored by ICANN.

  2. “Does ICANN Still Keep Some Things Hidden?”
    Short Answer: Yes
    Longer Answer: Of Course
    Do you really think that ICANN is going to reveal who is sleeping with who ? or how much that ICANN Danish Pastry costs ?
    Has anyone published Mike Robert's comments about what really went on during the first round of the TLD Beauty Contest ?
    Do you know what TLDs Paul Twomey plans for his retirement ?

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