ICANN Board Spurns Democratic Elections

Pelerin writes "At its meeting in Ghana, ICANN has voted against the proposals made in the Final Report on ICANN At-Large Membership, which among other things proposed an At-Large Supporting Organization (ALSO), which would hold elections for At-Large seats on the ICANN board. Membership in ALSO would have been "based on individual domain name holders". In today's resolution ICANN says that it "is not persuaded that global elections are the only or the best means of achieving meaningful public representation or the informed participation of Internet users in the ICANN process" and proceeded to reject the proposals, while at the same time engaging in a bit of double-speak about its action according to dissenting board member Karl Auerbach. It looks like ICANN is leaning towards its presidents' reform proposal which argues that ICANN suffers from "Too Much Process" among other problems, and that seats on the board should be chosen by the board itself, from among nominations submitted by governments and a new Nominating Committee (NomCom)."