Massive Conflict Of Interests In ICANN Called Out By CEO, Start To Get Some Attention
from the the-system-is-broken dept
We've noted what a joke ICANN has been for quite some time, culminating with some of its more bizarre decisions to help governments seize domains and censor the internet. Separately, its sense of entitlement towards its role managing domain registrations is really pretty disgusting. Of course, for years we've also discussed its ridiculous policy of rolling out new top level domains whose sole purpose appeared to be to transfer money from companies to registrars.
At a recent ICANN meeting, however, outgoing ICANN boss Rod Beckstrom (who we had hoped would clean up ICANN back when he took the job) blasted his own organization for the massive conflicts of interest that have made the organization almost entirely ineffectual when it comes to doing anything for the public's benefit.
At a recent ICANN meeting, however, outgoing ICANN boss Rod Beckstrom (who we had hoped would clean up ICANN back when he took the job) blasted his own organization for the massive conflicts of interest that have made the organization almost entirely ineffectual when it comes to doing anything for the public's benefit.
"I believe it is time to further tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board," Mr. Beckstrom said in a speech during an Icann meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, last week. "This is necessary, not just to be responsive to the growing chorus of criticism about Icann's ethics environment, but to ensure that absolute dedication to the public good supersedes all other priorities."In fact, it looks like the conflicts are even worse than originally discussed, with a significant number of top people being closely tied to registrars directly, such that their positions are heavily influenced by what makes registrars the most money rather than what's best for the public or the internet as a whole. Isn't it time to just start over again from scratch, rather than letting this farce continue?
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A) armed
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B) right there.
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Ah, well then...
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Re: Ah, well then...
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Gotcha...
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It must be Friday. The trolls are drunk early.
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Tech blogger Laurent Weinstein has put forward a solution and we need some debate on this. Can it work? Would it work? If so, when do we start?
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I smell a Corporate Civil War
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Sounds mostly like he didn't get the job done, is going away, and has sour grapes because he couldn't get people to do it all his way.
Good riddance!
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 23rd, 2012 @ 8:02pm
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ICANN has conceded that its ethics/conflicts policy is in need of major revamping and is moving to do so. Anyone can comment and participate in that process -- so do so if you care about this, and think about what comes after ICANN if it is junked rarher than reformed.
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