DomainingAfrica – Chairman Crocker’s Self Defense on ICANN’s Lack of Accountability and Transition
ICANN accountability has come into question more than any other issue in the transitional discussions that led to the NETMundial conference. Under President Clinton in 1998, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) entered into a contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to manage core functions of the Internet—including managing policy and technical features of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS).
….
Internet policy analyst Steve DelBianco says in his CircleID Blog that any ICANN accountability mechanism ought to be able to handle obvious use cases. What if ICANN reneges on the Affirmation of Commitments, or becomes insolvent, or picks up and leaves the United States, frustrating civil process, or engages in censorship by removing domains from the root?