Former ICANN Board Member To Congress

Karl Auerbach has written a quite long but very detailed and well thought out letter to Congress. It’s not clear which members of Congress were sent the letter.

Karl Auerbach is a former member of ICANN’s board and is probably best remembered by many as having taken ICANN to court (and winning) in order to gain access to the organisation’s financial records.

The letter is long, as I already mentioned, but it’s not a “hard read”, as Auerbach has gone to lengths to use plain language when talking about quite abstract stuff (yes, ICANN and IANA are abstract for most humans!)

Bottom line – he feels that NTIA hasn’t done much in the way of oversight of ICANN for the last 15 years, but feels that somebody should:

In the long term please take some time to become more engaged with the
issues of governance of the internet in general and ICANN in particular.

In the short term recognize that the immediate question of NTIA and ICANN is
not about US versus foreign influence but rather about whether ICANN will be
subject to effective oversight or be accountable to anyone. ICANN has not
demonstrated that it is willing to make itself accountable. One way or the
other ICANN ought to be subject to oversight – and that oversight ought to be
more real and substantive than it has been.

Here’s the full text:

ntia-icann-2014-others

Hat tip to Milton Mueller