[Ecommerce] ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While Excluding ICANN, U.S. Government from Meeting

[john bolk]

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CircleID, Dec 09, 2003

ICC Seeks U.N. Takeover While Excluding ICANN, U.S. Government from Meeting

An organization which purports to be "the voice of world business" is proposing a de facto U.N. takeover of ICANN. The proposal by a senior official of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) would place ICANN under the U.N. umbrella and give a strong role to U.N. agencies and to various national governments, including those that suppress free speech and free enterprise. In a move of breathtaking arrogance, the ICC refused to even invite ICANN or U.S. government representatives to the meeting at which they are presenting their proposal. As reported here by Jennifer Schenker:

"Paul Twomey, the president of the Internet's semi-official governing body, Icann, learned Friday night what it feels like to be an outsider. Mr. Twomey, who had flown 20 hours from Vietnam to Geneva to observe a preparatory meeting for this week's United Nations' conference on Internet issues, ended up being escorted from the meeting room by guards. The officials running the meeting had suddenly decided to exclude outside observers. Mr. Twomey's ejection may underscore the resentment of many members of the international community over the way the Internet is run and over United States ownership of many important Internet resources. Although Mr. Twomey is Australian, Icann - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - is a powerful nonprofit group established by the United States government in 1998 to oversee various technical coordination issues for the global network. Icann and the United States government are expected to come under heavy fire at the conference, which
 begins Wednesday in Geneva and will be one of the largest gatherings of high-level government officials, business leaders and nonprofit organizations to discuss the Internet's future."

Any proposal or process for overhauling ICANN's governance that excludes key stakeholders is a major step backwards for the goals of openness and transparency. Furthermore, for a business group to propose giving a strong role in managing the infrastructure of the international information economy to the United Nations, an organization best known for unwieldily, costly, ineffective, and unaccountable bureaucracies, is downright strange. Corporations that contribute to the ICC may want to reconsider how best to use their shareholder's resources.

http://www.circleid.com/article/394_0_1_0_C/





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