Congress tells ICANN: Quit escaping accountability

[SnakeMasteR]

US senators lean on ICANN, tell it to quit squirming and open up

Letter comes as organization meets to decide changes

Two leading US senators have warned domain name overseer ICANN to stop resisting accountability changes in return for control over the internet's DNS.
John Thune, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, and ranking member Brian Schatz signed a letter [PDF] warning that without "significant accountability reforms that empower the community," Congress will not support the transition of the IANA contract from the US government to ICANN.

"In legislation, letters, and hearings, we have called for robust accountability reforms to ICANN as a necessary pre-condition to any possible lANA transition," it notes. "Our support for these reforms has not wavered."

Thune and Schatz were cosponsors of the recent Dotcom Act that gives Congress a 30-day review window of the transition plan. As such, Congress will have final say over the move.

The reason for the letter is that after a year of work by an internet community working group, the ICANN Board has refused to accept its core recommendation: that the internet community be given a legal right to direct the organization under specific circumstances.

Instead, the Board has heavily pushed its own alternative of putting future disputes through an ICANN-controlled arbitration process under which the Board would be expected, though not obliged, to follow the result.

That approach angered many in the internet community who pointed out that the Board's efforts to maintain its absolute authority were a clear indicator of why there needed to be a legal right to overrule it.

Which side you on?

The letter from Congressmen Thune and Schatz makes it clear on which side they stand: "We understand the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability has been diligently developing such a package of reforms to ensure that the stakeholder community can exercise the stewardship role historically played by NTIA. Significant accountability reforms that empower the community and are developed by the community are necessary for Congressional support of any such transition."

Their letter follows a similar one sent by European governments and registry operators two weeks ago which noted: "The requirements set forth by the proposals from the CWG and ICG groups [the two community groups working on the IANA transition] can only be met if implemented by credible, enforceable powers in the ultimate interest of all stakeholder groups."

That reference to "credible, enforceable powers" gets back to the same point: which model is introduced to make sure that ICANN cannot continue to put off real reforms into its accountability and transparency, as it has done now for over a decade, and which has led to the organization being compared to football organization FIFA.

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[CODYQX4]

Congress, pot calling kettle black? Escaping accountability, you say?