The Register – Now even EUROPE is slapping down ICANN in internet power struggle
In an effort to reach a compromise, a key working group member, Steve DelBianco, proposed a week ago that the “member model,” which would give the internet community a legal right to enforce changes, be put off. Instead a “designator” model be introduced that would give the internet community many of the powers it wanted (such as firing board members and vetoing the budget).
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We spoke to key member Steve DelBianco about where he felt the process could go from here. He told us: “The selection of the member model was only ever the means to get some kind of enforceability over the new community powers; there is some flexibility over the model itself.”
Given the board’s resistance to the member model, he feels that a “somewhat less enforceable” approach could work, so long as it contained safeguards that would enable the community to impose the member model later if ICANN failed to stand by its statements.
But, we asked him, why would the internet community expect anything different from the ICANN Board in future if it is not prepared to accept the member model now with the prize of the IANA contract on the line?
He outlined the path that he sees: “If in future the community decides it needs the member model and the board resists, then the community can use its powers to spill the board. And then the community can make it a pre-condition for any new board members that they approve the membership model.”