Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UN Envoy Carl Bildt to be new CEO of ICANN?

Posted by michael on from the getting-to-know-you dept.

Anonymous reminds us that we haven't looked at ICANN for, oh, a week or two - so here goes: "Ted Byfield's roving_reporter is carrying a story today that Carl Bildt, the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Balkans and former Swedish prime minister, is under consideration to be the new CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The hiring of a career politician certainly puts the lie to the idea that ICANN is about "technical coordination," but it would certainly be a change for the better."

2 comments

  1. Is it just me... by 11thangel · · Score: 2

    Or is there more than one person that wonders if a company that is supposed to serve the whole internet shouldn't have some kind of legislative body running it instead of a CEO or a combination of the two?

    --

    I am !amused.
  2. Could be much worse by RandomPeon · · Score: 1

    There are hundreds of choices who would be far worse, but arguably "more qualified". I'd rather have a politician from an international body that has historically stuck up for the little guy. At least they didn't pick:

    1. Bill Gates
    2. Larry Ellison
    3. Another exec from Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, Oracle, etc.
    4. John Ashcroft or Paul Wellstone or similar folk on the right or left-wing of US politics
    5. A European pol who believes the net is destroying the precious cultural identity of whatever country he happens to come from
    6. Etc.

    Finally, isn't ICANN a lot like the Balkans? A complete lack of respect for rule of law, individual rights, free speech, and democracy? Maybe he has the right experience for the job