ICANN's Time Is Up, According To John Gilmore

EyesWideOpen writes: "Salon has a lengthy interview with Cygnus Software co-founder John Gilmore about why he feels it's time for ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to go. Gilmore, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is currently helping to fund a lawsuit filed by ICANN director Karl Auerbach against ICANN. ICANN has denied Gilmore access to its financial information, providing the basis for the lawsuit. Gilmore states: 'I believe it's because there is information in there about how ICANN has misused its money, and/or has favored people who lent or gave it money.'"

Comments

discreditting

[larry bagina]

And he published it in an attempt to discredit the lawsuit, by claiming that the people behind the suit were just trying to tear down ICANN.

There's a saying that's popular with defense laywers ... "When you don't have the law, you argue the facts. When you don't have the facts, you argue the law. And when you don't have either, you persecute the prosecutor"

Read it and weep

[mumkin]

I shouldn't have to say this, but those of you reading comments without reading the article really should do yourselves a favor and follow that link. The fact that ICANN won't let its own director have access to the books is an incredible testament to both its star-chamber mentality and the incredibly fucked-up way in which it is constituted in the first place.

In addition, Gilmore has some particularly spooky things to say about the history of Network Solutions, and what he estimates the *real cost* of maintaining a domain's registration to be (less than 1 cent/year).

Corporate Governance Issue

[Slashamatic]

One of the things that is being kicked around with Enron/Worldcom/Xerox is that the board jointly and severally carries the responsibility for correct corporate governance. Well this for the "for-profit" companies. This means that the board is entitled to make enquires as to whether information being presented to them for approval (such as the balance sheet) is correct. What about non-profits? This question was posed before, but nobody seems to know about the specifics of California non-profits.

Actually, it sounds very similar to the shenanigans at FIFA where the CFO went up against the CEO on the basis of some very dodgy payments and accounting practices that he had authorised. The CFO was forced to resign, alledgedly through the use of bought influence (In FIFA, Tonga has the same number of votes as Germany).

Lets just forget that it is the Internet and just look at other organisations involved in coordinating things internationally. I mentioned FIFA, we also know about the Olympics committee. Other organisations closer to home, such as CCITT tend to be bureaucratic and inefficient but not particularly corrupt.

Is it possible to have a minimalist organisation that is cheap, efficient and honest that can manage something like the Internet?

ICANN't, Can you?

Re:Hm

[clickety6]

Just like Enron's and Worldcom's financial statements were published for everyone to see? ;-)

Re:Vint Cerf's statement prefixing Gilmore's email

[vidarh]

The point is that he is not supposed to have to go through that route, as California law give a director an "absolute right" to access the material he has asked for - if the Audit Committee ever denies a request from a director, they are violating California law, so it would seem that this procedure is only there to make it harder for directors to excercize their rights (and duties).