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The ICANN Corporation

Presumed powers & responsibilities.

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Formed initially by the U.S. Government, ICANN is assuming responsibility for Internet protocols (IP), the numerical IP addresses assignments, the domain name system (DNS) overlaying the IP numbers, and the root zone file servers with all the DNS data. Controlling these four critical tasks gives ICANN virtual control over the entire Internet infrastructure -- and its accelerating growth.

Critics say ICANN has no right to presume it can assume control of anything.

Beginning with an overview in this section of the analysis, we will peel away layers of detail until reaching the struggle revolving around dominion over the domain name system. From there, you can decide what to do. about ICANN.

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ICANN Structure and Operations

According to its own official website, ICANN "is the new non-profit corporation... formed to take over responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol [IP] parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions performed [for the entire Internet] under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities." Seeing how ICANN describes itself provided insights into the organization's self-concept, which lets us understand the organizational vision driving ICANN activities.

Below are links from ICANN's home page at http://www.icann.org. Please go exploring on your own. Consider the implications here.

Note: Use this page as a console by opening links in a new window.)

.ICANN-U.S. Govt. MoU . Articles of Incorporation . The Bylaws ....

.ICANN Board . SupportingOrganizations . Transition Budget . ICANN Startup Fund . Community Feedback . IANA's Website

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The ICANN Board:

Says ICANN, "The Board of ICANN will be composed of nineteen Directors, nine At-Large Directors, nine to be nominated by Supporting Organizations, and the President/CEO (ex officio). The nine At-Large Directors of the Initial Board are serving one-year terms and will be succeeded by At-Large Directors elected by an at-large membership "

The 19 board members, after the elections, will be balanced between nine representatives from the Supporting Organizations and the nine members elected At-Large, the chair acting as the final tie-breaker. There now are only eight appointed board members, plus the chairperson and the CEO. That's 10 un-elected people making decisions as if they'd been elected.

Warning: Today's ICANN Board was appointed as an "interim" board, butt in spring 1999, this cast of characters redefined itself as the "initial" board. There was an outcry, but the coup d'etat was a fait accompli.

ICANN then proposed extending the terms of the initial Board members. Of 12 public comments filed, only two seemed to support the resolution, the rest reflecting mixed thinking or outright antagonism. At the August meeting in Santiago, the Board claimed a consensus for extending their terms. Afterwards, one who'd commented reported feeling the Board had "spat on" those voicing their "very serious concerns" about the proposal. (Ref. Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.)
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Esther Dyson, Interim Chair (1999):

Appointed as interim chair of ICANN sits Esther Dyson, media activist from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), author of Release 2.0, and the owner of EDventure Holdings in NYC. Dyson chose not to become the "initial" chair when the Board redefined itself. Even so, critics still call for her prompt resignation. She has pledged to stay through the end of her term in October 2000, and by then she's promised that ICANN will be wholly democratic.

Analysis: Dyson brings to ICANN a reputation for integrity, a personal commitment to developing community before earning profits. Since she joined ICANN, she's become a lightening rod for both professional and personal attacks. Both friends and foes alike urge her to resign as chair and repudiate ICANN. Her stance is that ICANN is simply misunderstood, that she's doing everything possible to make ICANN accountable and transparent, that the organization has not been "captured" -- even though some of the players may want to think they have captured it. Some critics speculate this masks her inner conflicts, that she does not want to see the truth because it implies some kind of personal failure. Her fortunes and ICANN's now seem inextricably linked, rise or fall. Come what may, she feels committed to continue. What a way to risk a fine career.

Apology: Seeing how hard it's going to be for any ICANN principal to walk away from this mess as clean as they walked into it, I can look back upon my chance conversation with Esther Dyson in Denver that led to me preparing for her in early 1998 a report on the DNS debate (Voices from the Committees of Correspondence). If the report so piqued her interest in network governance issues that otherwise she would never have entered this quagmire, indeed, I apologize, to everyone, primarily to one left alone in a no-phone home. As for resigning as chair, what's the best option? Stay true to our souls.
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Michael Roberts, President & CEO: (1999)

Appointed an "interim" executive officer overseeing a tiny staff and implementing Board policy is Michael Roberts, one of the founders of The Internet Society and its first executive director. Most recently, he was the vice president in charge of networking and telecommunications for the EDUCOM consortium of 600 colleges and universities, this after being the telecom director at alma mater Stanford University. Roberts also has been at the center of the Internet2 project, an emergent broadband network for research and education, mirroring the educational origins of today's narrowband "Internet1."

Analysis: Little known to the public, Roberts is seen as an upper-tier member of the Internet elite, an insider's insider. His work on the Internet2 project gives Roberts an excellent perspective on the broadband Internet already emerging, where we enjoy the high-speed video and audio of television on the computer, and this larger perspective probably expands his vision for ICANN His roots within the Internet Society, critics caution, suggest Roberts' openness to the "gTLD-MoU gang." Players from the failed pre-ICANN governance proposal now populate ICANN committees, adding fuel to the allegations that ICANN has been captured by the same "privateers" who attempting to usurp control of the Internet in 1997, the same old bandits behind brand new masks.
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At-Large Council:

At the Santiago meeting in August, the Board passed a resolution about the At-Large Council. Individuals joining the At-Large Council now will not be allowed to vote directly for their At-Large Board members. Instead, the At-Large Council will elect 18 of the Council members to a committee, which then will select directors for the nine seats specified in the Bylaws. Five of these seats must obey the Board's rules for diverse geographic representation. The other four directors can be selected from anywhere on earth; however, no two of the nine At Large directors can come from the same country.

Analysis: Critics claim the Board is using sensible geographic diversity rules to justify removing the voting process from the electorate. ICANN apparently has abandoned the idea of "one person one vote," central to any genuine democracy. yet direct democracy doesn't seem to work for ICANN, which seems to prefer only the illusion of freedom.

The At-Large seats stay vacant until there are elections, if there ever are elections, because the Board has declared that there cannot be At-Large elections until the At-Large Council has at least 5,000 members, which might never happen, leaving the un-elected Board perpetually in charge, assuming their gerrymandering of the supporting organizations succeeds. The SO elections are slated for the November meeting in Los Angeles.

To date, not one person has been elected to the Board, so the Board feels loyalty only to its patrons, known or unknown. Further, warn critics, the Board now seated is making formative decisions that properly should be postponed until an elected Board is duly seated. Instead of delaying the elections, the Board should be delaying setting new policies.

ICANN Activities
[From the ICANN website. Please visit ICANN and NTIA for updates]

• Resolutions from the Santiago Meeting,
  (http://www.icann.org/santiago/santiago-resolutions.htm) (August 1999)
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• ICANN's Santiago Meeting details,
  (http://www.icann.org/Santiago/santiago-details.htm) (August 1999)
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• Proposal for recognition of DNSO Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency
  (http://www.icann.org/dnso/noncommpage.htm) (August 1999)
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• Proposed Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy for .com, .net, and .org Registrars
  (http://www.icann.org/Santiago/udrp.htm) (August 1999)
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• Staff Report and Analysis on At-Large Membership
  (http://www.icann.org/prelim-report-12aug99.htm) (August 1999)
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• ICANN Board Clarifies DNSO Constituency Representation
  (http://www.icann.org/prelim-report-12aug99.htm) (August 1999)
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• http://www.icann.org/icann-pr11aug99.htm ICANN Reply to U.S. House Committee on Commerce
  (http://www.icann.org/correspondence/bliley-response-08july99.htm) (July 1999)
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• ICANN Status Report to Department of Commerce
  (http://www.icann.org/statusreport-15june99.htm) (June 1999)
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• Commerce Dept & NSI extend shared registration test bed
  (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/testbed062599.htm) (June 1999)
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• Update on Registrar Competition, Testbed, and Accreditation (http://www.icann.org/registrars/update-14june99.html) (June 1999)
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• Letter to Esther Dyson from Ralph Nader and James Love regarding ICANN, with Esther Dyson's Response
  (http://www.icann.org/nader-questions.htm) (Spring 1999)
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• Berlin Meeting Results
  (http://www.icann.org/berlin/berlin-resolutions.html) (May 1999)
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• Singapore Meeting Statement
  (March 1999) (http://www.icann.org/statement.html) (March 1999)
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• NTIA Comments and Mailing Lists
  ( http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfc/dotuslistfedreg51099.htm) (1998-99)
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• Proposed contract between National Institute of Standards and Technology (on behalf of NTIA) and ICANN for operating the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
  (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm) (Jan 1999)
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• Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Between U.S. Commerce Dept. and ICANN
  (http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm) (Nov. 1998)
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• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Domain Name Process
   (http://wipo2.wipo.int/process/eng/processhome.html) Big guns with big bucks.
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  NOTE: Please excuse delays on updates. I work on the website as time allows. -kf
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  Analysis: The August ICANN meeting in Santiago, reports one critic, featured "the continuing stumbling of ICANN in unknown directions," comparing the Board to "a bunch of ducks meandering around a pond."

  The next meeting is scheduled for November 1999 in Los Angeles.

  Alert! A feud is growing between ICANN and Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), which since 1993 has held a monopoly from the U.S. Government on registering all ".com, .org and .net." domain names. At first a major ICANN supporter, NSI became an foe when ICANN demanded that NSI relinquish all ownership claims on its database of five million domain name holders. The ICANN Board also is discussing competition among .com registrars, breaking the NSI monopoly, perhaps gaining fresh friends for ICANN among those who love to hate NSI.

  NSI became a healthy corporation not only from its monopoly, but from selling selected contact information from its database. NSI's critics say the database was never NSI's to own or sell, that marketing its collected data without a domain holder's permission is unethical, if not illegal. The U.S. Commerce Department attests that the U.S. Government itself owns the .com database because NSI is acting under a federal contract. If NSI keeps refusing to play ball with ICANN, the Commerce Dept. can end or amend its contract with NSI. NSI would be S.O.L.

  Jeri Clausing of the New York Times has been watching ICANN. In her reporting related to the Santiago meeting, her article referred to ICANN as the "Internet's governing body," and called ICANN "the Internet's Oversight Board," which the Board then decried as a "misconception." What she sensed in her analysis may be how ICANN is acting like the Policy Oversight Committee (POC), conceived by the IAHC with the Council of Registrars (CORE). The POC would have controlled all network policy making, exactly what ICANN seems to be attempting.

  Warning: ICANN faces bankruptcy while desperately seeking funds.

  With administration costs estimated at $6 million annually, ICANN had collected only $500,000 by late summer 1999, this funding coming from individual and corporate donors, e.g., IBM, Microsoft, AOL, others.

  Critics accuse the Board of mishandling what scant funds are available. Booking the Berlin meeting into grandest and most expensive of Europe's grand hotels, The Adlon, not only prevented those of modest means from participating, but illustrates the sort of unjustified "lavish spending" the critics criticize.

  Malfeasance, say critics, prompted the Board to pass a resolution that retroactively authorized CEO Mike Roberts to go after unsecured loans from corporations being affected by Board decisions. Could such "influence peddling" actually be happening?

  Alert to ICANN's antics, Brock Meeks at MSNBC reported August 20 about Vint Cerf at MCI pursuing a quiet million dollar loan from MCI and IBM as a backup, just in case public appeals for corporate donations were not too successful. The campaign would be based on the premise that "ICANN must succeed or the Internet will be in jeopardy," Meeks quoted Cerf as suggesting the strategy would "play well" with companies whose stock price depends on a well-functioning Internet. Gordon Cook reported the same deceptive strategy after Santiago, based on ICANN emails that he obtained.

  The "final solution" imposed by the ICANN Board is a $1 fee atop each registration fee for all domain names registered, to be collected by the registrars and passed along to ICANN. Where now we pay only $35 a year to NSI for a ".com," domain, we instead would pay $36 a year. ICANN's critics labeled the fee as a "tax," protesting against "taxation without representation."

  Apart from the disputed legality of the ICANN "tax," the scheme itself is not working. The five million domain names in NSI's servers would have covered most of ICANN's annual budget, but because of its dispute with ICANN, NSI is refusing to collect the fees, gutting ICANN's budget.

  Operating funds show up somehow as ICANN faces an uncertain fiscal future. Warning that ICANN's failure could ignite a dire chain reaction destabilizing the Internet worldwide, the U.S. Commerce Department has promised to locate interim funds to keep ICANN going, In the same week as the Santiago meeting, ICANN received $650,000 from MCI WorldCom and Cisco. Is this an investment? How can anyone invest in a nonprofit? Perhaps the payback is more indirectly political than directly fiscal?

  Said Gordon Cook, "ICANN has constructed an edifice of Byzantine complexity to do a job that six people are doing now for a cost of about $600,000 a year, including equipment and overhead."

  The Berkman Center at Harvard recently posted at its own website the Projected Cash Flow Analysis for ICANN for July 1 to August 31, 1999. Beginning with $62,000 in cash on hand, Berkman projected receipts of $100,000 from contributions, $100,000 from DNS registration fees, and about $825,000 from loans, for a total of $1,087,000 with which to pay the projected total disbursements of $1,050,000, leaving ICANN with a projected cash on hand by August 31 of only $37,000. Please note, the budget figures were published in the public interest from a third party, not by ICANN itself, still reluctant to open its books. Accountability?

  The Board bemoans having limited staff, limited funds and limited time, saying that people must be patient with its progress in creating a world membership and holding elections. Critics answer that ICANN would be less limited if the Board focused on its financial affairs and membership structure instead of focusing on substantive, controversial matters that properly should be deferred until there finally is an elected Board.

  Option: Consumer advocate James Love has proposed that ICANN be recognized as an international non-governmental organization (NGO), funded and overseen by our national and world governments, an NGO akin to the Red Cross or Red Crescent. Should ICANN become an NGO, agreements ICANN forms today with national and world governance bodies may come to have the effective force of treaties, like NAFTA.

  Considering the alleged authoritarian tendencies of ICANN's own Governmental Advisory Committee, could global censorship occur? Would respected international bodies back ICANN in such measures? One can only hope not.

  P.S. while I favor replacing ICANN's "committee rule" with some form of genuine democracy, my voice joins those urging a smooth transition to something better..

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