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ICANN sub-committee rejects reforms
Friday, June 07 2002
by Andrew McLindon


Proposals to radically reform the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) have been rejected by a sub-committee of the organisation.







The plans to make ICANN, which presides over the Internet's traffic system, more
accountable to governments have not received the support of ICANN's Evolution and
Reform Committee (ERC), which had been looking into the issue. The committee is
made up of just four of the body's 19 directors, but it is thought that its views
are generally that of the board as its members were consulted by the ERC.



Although the ERC said it agreed that ICANN "must evolve into a more effective
entity," it failed to endorse ideas proposed by the organisation's president,
Stuart Lynn, who had called for greater governmental input and less corporate
control of ICANN. 



In February of this year, Lynn said that ICANN, operating as a purely private
organisation, was not working. As a result, he wanted to re-establish ICANN as a
body partly controlled by governments from around the world with additional
participation coming from technical bodies and other Internet-related
organisations. Lynn also recommended that the group abandon on-line elections for
the selection of five directors and instead rely on a "nominating committee"
to pick the board members.  



The restructuring committee rejected Lynn's proposal to give national governments
control of one-third of the board.  The ICANN Committee, did however agree that
more active government participation in the organisation was necessary, though it
dismissed the idea of totally watering down ICANN's commercial base and said that
"preserving ICANN's essential character as a private-sector institution" was
desirable.



The ERC said that the creation of increased interactions between its own
Government Advisory Committee and other elements of ICANN would instead be more
effective. 



The committee adopted some of Lynn's proposed measures however. His suggestion of
including a representative for national domains such as .ie and .fr on the board
was approved, as was the proposal to include around seven representatives of
established technical and commercial interests. These seats would be chosen by a
nominating committee to represent the Internet community as a whole, but the
report declined to say who would sit on that committee.



In February, Lynn had said that funding was a crucial issue for the organisation.
He proposed that governments would increase their funding of ICANN in return for
a greater say in its running. He also wanted new fees introduced for some ICANN
services. Again, the ERC agreed in principle for reform of funding, but said it
had not reached a decision on how to combine various proposals in order to bring
about effective levels of funding. 



Lynn announced at the end of May that he would step down as ICANN's president and
chief executive at the end of 2003 citing personal reasons for his decision. 



The ERC's proposals will be voted upon by the board at ICANN's next meeting in
Bucharest on 24 June to 28 June.