ICANN Watch has long criticized Marina Del Rey, Calif.-based ICANN for not being transparent enough in its decision making, but co-editor Milton Muelller says recent developments regarding .XXX are a “smoking gun” that prove many of his organization’s fears that ICANN is beholden to the U.S. government and powerful corporate interests.
As XBiz reported on Monday, the chairman of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee to its board of directors stated his concerns about international opposition to the organization’s pending approval of the .XXX domain.
Later that same day, the Commerce Department asked for and received a delay on the contract with ICM Registry, the registrar for the controversial adults-only domain name, in order to provide time for additional review.
Mueller, who is a Syracuse University professor, co-founder of The Convergence Center and a senior associate at the Global Affairs Institute, says ICANN is violating a public trust by disregarding a decision-making process that spanned five years and cost interested parties, including ICM Registry, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“You’ve got to know something is terribly wrong … when Brazil, France and the Bush administration agree on something,” Mueller says. “They agreed to turn the Internet’s domain name administration into a political football and milk it for all the political capital they could.”
Mueller contends that those opposing the .XXX sTLD had plenty of opportunities during the long public comment phase to voice their concerns but have instead used political clout to wrangle last-minute, backdoor deals to put the brakes on the domain.
“Let’s start with the fact that the GAC letter would never have been sent if the U.S. government hadn’t agreed to let it be sent,” Mueller says. “And it never would have been put on the front page of the ICANN website unless there had been, shall we say, arrangements made, nods given between ICANN management, key board members and U.S. government officials.
“The fix is in,” he adds.
As for who is behind these “arrangements,” Mueller blames the far right, saying that ICANN, which is supposed to be a private, international organization free from political pressures, is “openly catering to a domestic political constituency.”
“No international agreement of any kind gives governments … the authority to exert censorship over what domain names exist [on DNS root servers],” Mueller says.
