ICANN Stacks Board with Non-Critical Appointees

Froomkin writes "ICANN's outgoing dissident Board member, Andy Mueller-Maguhn, has leaked the slate that ICANN's so-called NomCom (actually an appointments committee) has picked. The new public representatives are mostly a mix of incumbent ICANN Board directors who don't rock the boat, corporate executives, and ISOC members. Dissident Andy Mueller-Maguhn got replaced by a former member of the board of Deutsche Telekom. Dissident Karl Auerbach (who had to sue ICANN to get to see its documents) got replaced by the President of the U.S. Council for International Business. At least the Board Squatters are finally going to be history. Details at ICANNWatch." ICANN is an interesting study in how a ruling regime can usurp a democratic institution and turn it into an autarchy.

Comments

SOP

[retto]

I don't see how this could be a surprise because isn't this type of behaviour standard now for any kind of governing body in business? I thought that one of the major complaints about most modern board of directors is that they have long stopped operating in the public, or even their own company's or organization's, interests?

Their authority comes from everyone

[Sloppy]

They get their authority defacto from the people who choose to use the servers that they control. Does the resolver that you use, use their root servers? Then you're voting for ICANN.

It's democracy, but almost all the voters are apathetic.