This is a vague statement.(posted 8904 days ago)Of the original board, nobody ever questioned their sincerity. However, there are clear questions about whether they ever spent any time examining the issues or simply responded to pablum from "staff".
The issues before the board were not clearly black and white and the lack of questions from the board indicates a lack of thought and consideration by the board members.
Similarly the points made in comments to ICANN were not always lucid or unambiguous. The utter lack of requests for clarifications and follow-up from "staff" were indicative that "staff" never read the comments or, rather, disposed of them in a cursory manner.
As for the point about ICANN's survival. If it can't take the heat, it ought to be allowed to melt down and be re-cast using better quality materials.
ICANN has itself engendered much of its criticism. ICANN has from the outset chosen to act as a secret, opaque, non-responsive, and non-accountable body. Such were the explicit choices of the ICANN board.
Similarly, ICANN's selection of executives and spokesman/attornies was their own choice. The fact that those people were not not muzzled or reprimanded when they insulted critics or fabricated claims of "consensus" is ICANN's own choice.
It has been ICANN's own choice to make its bylaws merely advisory rather than binding.
It has been ICANN's own choice to proclaim results and issue obviously fabricated claims of consensus.
When the IANA==>ICANN proposals were being floated about last year, the IANA team alienated a significant body of participants in these debates by exactly the same kinds of "methods".
So let's not cry for ICANN; its failures are based on its own intentional, knowning actions and choices.
> What has worked least is the (i) resistance to letting go of total control, > such as self perpetuating board of director (ii) expression by some close > associates of ICANN of deep distrust, hostility and lack of respect for > outsiders; (iii) the inability to live with some uncertainty, driving to > uniformity and central control. These, and especially the last item, which > may also threaten innovations, may threaten the continued existence of > ICANN.
I agree with these thoughts - ICANN has a siege mentality and a xenophobic personality.
But I'd go further and say that the prejudiced and biased nature of the recent NSI/NTIA/ICANN agreements, the UDRP, and the registrar agreements have moved ICANN's flaws beyond the mere procedural into the substantive. ICANN is now starting to actually hurt people and corporations.