 ICANN agrees to allow an independent review (?)
posted by michael on Monday December 12 2005, @08:18PM
ehasbrouck writes "ICANN has agreed to submit to "independent" arbitration of whether they followed their own transparency Bylaws in their (non)responses to my attempts to report on .travel.
If it happens, this will be the first independent review ever of whether ICANN follows its own rules.
But it remains to be seen if I will be offered genuinely independent arbitration, or only a corporate kangeroo court designed by ICANN to ensure that the arbitrators of their choice rule in their favor or that the arbitration process is so expensive that I can't afford to risk having to pay for it if I lose -- which, of course, is what is required for corporate "justice".
Under its Bylaws, ICANN is supposed to have procedures in place for the arbitration, and to have chosen the arbitration corporation in advance. They haven't. Instead, they are trying to ignore their own decision making policies, pick their own arbitrator (with whom they may already have a secret side agreement they haven't yet showed me) eight months after I asked for arbitration, make up the rules for the arbitration as they go along, and impose them unilaterally and retroactively.
I explain the issues at stake -- the meaning of "due process" and "judicial review" in the context of privatized government-by-corporation -- and my latest response to ICANN, in the latest entry in my blog." Editor's note: I very strongly recommend that anyone who has an interest in ICANN read Mr. Hasbrouck's full post. If you are new to ICANN, it will be hard to belive just how much ICANN has fought -- by delay, misdirection, by "losing" email and more -- to avoid any external check, no matter how frail, on its activities. On the other hand, if you are an old ICANN hand, it's always good to be reminded how the staff behaves. And how little has really changed down at the sharp end. -mf
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