Most of the ICANN community is headed to ICANN 54, the critical meeting in Dublin where some kind of an agreement on accountability reforms needs to be reached if the historic IANA transition is to take place. Only a few months ago, an open, multi-stakeholder process proposed to enhance ICANN's...
Early this year, it appeared as if the U.S. Congress was going to be taking an intelligent and constructive approach to the IANA transition. Led by Senators Thune and Rubio, Congress asserted its oversight authority over NTIA to help ensure that the transition settlement provided adequate accountability mechanisms for ICANN....
It's the end game in the ICANN accountability process. ICANN thinks it's losing the game. It is desperately trying to derail the accountability reforms developed by an open, bottom up and very deliberate process with multiple public comment periods. It responds (to use a basketball metaphor) with a full court press....
And we wept as the ICANN Board scrapped our work on the accountability proposal. Of course, the board cannot really reject the proposal, they can only comment on it. But if their comments are taken seriously, our work will indeed be scrapped. For months the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing...
How will ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) handle the dilemma it has been put into by the community empowerment mechanism? The dilemma I am referring to is this: does the GAC want to participate in the community empowerment mechanism as an organization, with voting seats, or does it want to...
Yesterday the US Government announced an extension of the IANA functions contract for another year. The move formally recognizes what everyone knew already, which is that the IANA stewardship transition and accountability reforms will not be completed in time for the September 30, 2015 target that we were aiming for...
The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG) has released a second draft for public comment. While the group has been enormously successful debating and coming to consensus on key areas (e.g., strengthening the Independent Review Process and Reconsideration processes), there continue to be some sticking points where...
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the IANA stewardship transition revolves around the fate of the IANA trademark and domain name (IANA.ORG). Both of these assets are currently owned by ICANN. But the IANA stewardship transition has raised questions about who or what should be their proper home. In each...
We are in Buenos Aires at ICANN meeting 53. The IANA transition and ICANN accountability reforms are, of course, the main topic of discussion here. Both processes are at critical turning points. The IANA Stewardship cross community working group is showing off its newly-developed plan to create a separate "Post-Transition...
The public comment period on the Cross-Community Working Group on Accountability is about to close. Reading through the proposal, we discovered aspects of the proposal that would definitely improve ICANN's accountability. But we also got a disturbing sense that some of the "chartering organizations" who make up the CCWG are...
“In characteristically rigorous fashion, Mueller’s outstanding book punctures the alarmist myth of Internet fragmentation and helps us to understand what is really at stake as nations and other groups vie for power over the Internet.”
