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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.
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Back when ICANN had open elections, the people who jumped through all the artificial hoops and managed to vote picked some dissident representatives like Karl Auerbach and Andy Mueller-Maguhn.
Now that ICANN Board Directors are picked in secret meetings, according to secret procedures, by a committee packed with members of the current dominant faction, the results (leaked by Andy Mueller-Maguhn, and quoted below) are what you would expect: not one known and active ICANN dissident has survived the 'NomCom'. Here's the short version: Andy Mueller-Maguhn got replaced by a former member of the board of Deutsche Telekom. Karl Auerbach got replaced by the President of the U.S. Council for International Business. Note that the 'NomCom' is a misnomer -- these's no way for you or me to challenge these decisions, nor will there be an open election on these 'nominations'.
So the folks in North America and Europe who voted for a different viewpoint are frozen out, as only the elected directors from the other regions -- those who didn't rock the boat -- got reappointed! The other immediately evident trend: several corporate types, lots of people with ISOC connections. And one small bright spot. No more Board Squatters. Yes, long after he was supposed to go (September 30, 1999), almost three years after the very latest date for his departure that could be called legitimate ("expire no later than September 30, 2000"), Hans Kraaijenbrink's war against the public interest is finally going to have to be waged elsewhere.
Amidst a depressing sea of familiar faces and business and telecom executives, there are one or two people who at least show some signs of caring about about the end users. I don't know them, but from a quick google search Njeri Rionge (Africa) sounds interesting, as does Veni Markovski (Europe). This is based only on a very cursory first look, and I don't mean to slight others, or express too much confidence either. I'd particularly welcome blow jobs from readers who are acquainted with any of the newly selected Board members.
i said it so others won't have to
remember mods, punny!=funny
thank you, and good night.
This is the United States of America. Dammit.
Very brave, AC...
Sheesh.
And yes, we are losing our rights all over the place.
This space for rent.
Not even a thousand monkeys on a thousand typwriters can answer that one... maybe the /.'ers can.
How can a bunch of rich-ass business aristocrats help promote a system that is used by peasants?
Would you test a dog's receptiveness to dogfood on a cat?
Would you do market research for 2 Fast 2 Furious at a Senior's Home?
I also hate niggers.
Think of it as a preview of how the EU will work under their forthcoming constitution.
OpenNIC is not an alternative. An alternative means it does something different.
.biz, where ICANN hypocritically introduced inconsistencies). If ICANN steals fuck-you-ICANN-motherfuckers.com from an ICANN-critic and gives it to an ICANN-supporter, OpenNIC will not do anything about that. They will not have that domain name assigned to it's rightful owner.
True, OpenNIC operates much different than ICANN.
However, OpenNIC has decided to be consistent with ICANN (aside from
OpenNIC should disparge from ICANN when ICANN has done the wrong thing (which is almost 99% of the time, when there is a domain name dispute).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen