ICANN 51 Opens with Likely Solution to Accountability Concerns

The U.S. government will “protect and preserve a free, vibrant and open Internet,” said Pritzker in opening remarks (http://1.usa.gov/11gV1zO). The U.S. won’t let the Internet be “co-opted by an person, entity or nation seeking to substitute their parochial worldview for the collective wisdom” of the multistakeholder community, she said. Pritzker said she was “encouraged” by the ICANN community’s handling of the IANA transition proposal, but said the multistakeholder model and ICANN was under “intense and unprecedented pressure and scrutiny.” Pritzker said she was “confident” that the multistakeholder model is the “greatest assurance” to the Internet’s continued growth and that the U.S. government would reject at the ITU Plenipotentiary next week proposals to “put governments in charge of Internet governance” (http://bit.ly/V4kHwI). “We must ensure that ICANN can build on its efforts to strengthen the multistakeholder process and can become directly accountable to the customers of the IANA functions and to the broader Internet community,” said Pritzker.

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade told us that the ICANN community’s reaction to the accountability revisions has been “very, very positive,” at a news conference Monday. Chehade said he received a “unanimous thumbs-up” from ICANN’s community leaders on the revisions. The revisions included a “standard” cross community working group (CCWG) for its accountability process instead of the two separate working groups in the Aug. 14 proposal, he said. The ICANN community felt the original working groups could’ve “diluted” how the community contributed to the process, said Chehade. The revisions also clarified the role of the Public Experts Group -- and the seven advisors it will choose -- in that the advisors won’t be involved with consensus calls or votes on the accountability process, he said.

NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling highlighted the two closely related “streams” within the accountability revision’s new CCWG, at a panel Monday. The CCWG will focus on accountability issues directly related to the IANA transition and issues beyond the transition, he said. The latter consideration could include how to deal with the possibility of a “hostile takeover” of ICANN’s board, said Strickling. While the chances of such a scenario are extremely low, it’s an example of the kind of “heavy scrutiny” that the final accountability proposal will face when it’s presented to NTIA, he said. Strickling implored the ICANN community to consider all possible accountability “contingencies.”

The purpose of a CCWG is to develop recommendations that “cut across” ICANN’s supporting organizations (SOs) and advisory committees (ACs), said Marika Konings, ICANN senior policy director, on a panel Monday. Such recommendations include those that aren’t in the immediate purview of an AC or SO and which fall outside the scope of SO policy development, she said. The CCWG’s chartering organizations -- the SOs and ACs -- will appoint members to the group, but participation will open to anyone, said Konings. The CCWG’s final accountability proposal will need the “endorsement” of all chartering organizations before being submitted to the ICANN board, she said.

Because the accountability CCWG has yet to develop a charter, it could learn from the “organic” creation of the IANA Transition Stewardship CCWG, said Byron Holland, Country Code Names Supporting Organization chairman. CCWG understands that its role isn’t only to develop recommendations, but to serve as “key communicators” for the rest of the ICANN community, he said. The IANA-CCWG has also made efforts to include the voices of ICANN stakeholders who aren’t members of the group, he said.

Revision Risks?

How the ICANN board plans to respond to the CCWG accountability proposal is a concern for some stakeholders, they said in interviews.

ICANN essentially withdrew its accountability proposal and said it was for the “community to decide,” said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw, in an interview. ICANN “inadvertently strengthened [ICANN’s] multistakeholder model” when it tried to “jam through a staff-designed proposal” Aug. 14, he said. ICANN “united the community [against that proposal] in a way its never been united before.” ICANN’s board needs to make clear the “extraordinary circumstances” under which it would reject the community’s accountability proposal, said Corwin.

“We feel good about the outcome” of the revisions, said NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco, who noted two “remaining risks” within the changes. The first risk is splitting the accountability CCWG’s focus, because its work on the IANA transition could be completed before its review of overall accountability issues, he emailed us. “That could allow ICANN to press for the IANA transition before the general accountability is addressed,” which “could reduce the community’s leverage to get new accountability mechanisms approved,” he said. The second risk is the uncertainty surrounding how the board could respond to the CCWG’s proposal, said DelBianco.

Chehade and ICANN board Chairman Steve Crocker said at a Monday news conference that it's premature to speculate on how the board could respond to the CCWG’s final accountability proposal. The accountability proposal “has to be what the community tells us,” said Chehade.

“There shouldn’t be any disagreement” on the final accountability proposal between the board and the CCWG, said Strickling. If the final accountability proposal doesn’t measure up to the “scrutiny” of either the board or the CCWG, it’s almost certain that it won't work, said Strickling. “This needs to be a consensus proposal.”