.Com Accord Said to Show ICANN Ditching Core Values

Many country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) managers are struggling to find a satisfactory relationship with ICANN, but CIRA has played a key role in ICANN work. The letter noted CIRA’s engagement in ICANN’s creation and in helping to create the country-code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO). CIRA voluntarily give money to ICANN, has hosted or sponsored two ICANN meetings, and “generally promot[es] the value and benefits of ICANN to the world community,” the correspondents said.

ICANN won’t succeed unless it gets more accountable and open, CIRA said. ICANN should “change its structures, formally and publicly (including its by-laws)” to ensure the corporation and its board are accountable to the ICANN community and that board decisions come under formal checks and balances, it said: “A veto of board decisions by a super-majority of Supporting Organizations would be an acceptable change.”

CIRA blasted the board’s frequent closed-door talks and decisions. Directors should be able to hold nonpublic meetings if needed and to meet in closed session on some issues, the letter said. But justifications for such action must be aired publicly, it said. And more importantly, CIRA said, ICANN must give sufficient and timely information on deliberations leading to particular decisions.

Until ICANN mends its ways, CIRA will withhold funds, placing it instead in trust, it said. It’s also suspending consideration of any “accountability framework” (contract between ICANN and ccTLDs), quitting the chairmanship of the ccNSO Internet Assigned Numbers Authority working group, and declining to host or be a major sponsor of any ICANN event.

VeriSign Contract the Final Straw

The VeriSign pact was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Turcotte said in an interview. A “string of things” about ICANN processes has unsettled CIRA directors. At the Dec. ICANN meeting in Vancouver, ICANN Pres. Paul Twomey came to the ccNSO meeting with an earlier, unsatisfactory version of the .com registry contract. When ccNSO members stressed the need for ICANN to be open and accountable, they thought they'd convinced the decision-making process should change, Turcotte said. It didn’t. While CIRA won’t comment on the agreement’s merit, he said, it has “major exceptions” to the process by which it was consummated.

The letter is a “Canadian thing,” Turcotte said. It wasn’t cleared in advance with other ccTLDs, but CIRA hopes it will get their support. Because it wasn’t released until after close of business last Fri., ccTLDs just now are reviewing it. Other supporting organizations are beginning to discuss it with a view to issuing a joint statement at the ICANN meeting in Wellington, N. Zealand, at month’s end, he said.

CIRA’s move likely won’t hurt the ccNSO or ICANN, said Turcotte: “It’s a symbolic act more than anything else.” But CIRA hosted 2 meetings in Canada in 2005-06, since no one wants to travel to the U.S., meaning CIRA’s decision not to help with meetings could affect ICANN, he said.

Asked if CIRA’s stance could hamper ICANN efforts to formalize relations with ccTLDs, the CEO of Australia’s .au Domain Administration said it’s not clear. “Some ccTLDs care about the VeriSign stuff, some do not,” said Chris Disspain. Unlike CIRA, auDA has a registry pact with ICANN.

CIRA isn’t accusing anyone at ICANN of wrongdoing, Turcotte said, and “we're not taking our toys and going home.” But whoever fails to speak up about ICANN’s lack of openness and accountability is “buying into it,” he said. “We can’t do that.”

“The gauntlet is thrown. And by Canadians,” Miami U. Law Prof. Michael Froomkin wrote on ICANN Watch. “This is a very big deal.”