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posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In 11 days, DNS overseer ICANN is supposed to rule on the $1.13bn purchase of a critical piece of the internet – the .org registry with its 10 million domain names. But ICANN has yet to even decide what criteria it will use decide whether to green-light the takeover.

Despite two previous postponements, four months' notice, dozens of letters, and a protest outside its headquarters, on Monday this week ICANN refused to say whether it will consider the broader public interest in its decision, or apply the same criteria it used last time the registry changed ownership.

It even refused to say whether it considered the use of so-called "public interest commitments" (PICs) – a format that ICANN had itself devised – would be legally sufficient to address concerns from the non-profit community that the sale of the registry from non-profit Internet Society to an unknown private-equity firm would undermine decades of investment in their .org addresses.

ICANN and its community were supposed to be meeting in person this week in Cancun, Mexico, but the Covid-19 coronavirus forced it to hold the conference virtually. The result was an hour-long Zoom call of frustration as representative after representative raised concerns about the deal and were met with a variation on "thank you for your input, next!"

At one point, after ICANN refused to answer a question about whether any commitments on the future of .org could be subsequently changed without input from .org owners, the virtual chatroom was flooded with people demanding a response from the organization supposedly in charge. They didn't get one.

"We are noting all of the questions and where we are able to answer those questions, we will respond, although not in this forum," explained ICANN board member Becky Burr who, as a staffer at the US Department of Commerce, actually wrote most of ICANN's founding documents. Burr didn't say which questions would be answered and which wouldn't. Or when they would be answered. Or how. Or where.

ICANN told attendees at the start of the meeting it had decided the confab was going to be "a session designed to gather your input, to listen to your input, so we can take that into account when making our decision." Everyone else, however, had expected the meeting to largely comprise ICANN representatives providing clear answers to precise questions that have been asked repeatedly for several weeks.

It's no coincidence that the primary criticism leveled at ICANN since its inception in 1998 is that it is – and remains – largely unaccountable. It makes decisions of global import and holds itself up as a model of modern "multistakeholder" decision-making, where everyone impacted has a say, but in reality the organization never reveals internal deliberations and it goes to great lengths to shield its decisions from scrutiny.

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Dale on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:21PM (1 child)

    by Dale (539) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:21PM (#969266)

    Of course they've decided. They just aren't sharing how or when (not if) they are going to approve it.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:23PM (#969268)

    we can pretty much end the thread here.