Defending ICANN
from the it's-not-so-bad dept
A day after Ira Magaziner criticizes ICANN, former ICANN chairperson Esther Dyson has come to its defense, sort of. She says that things aren't as bad as everone is making them out to be. She does think (as opposed to many ICANN board members) that they need to move towards democractic elections for board members. However, she does defend the board by saying that right now, the board is afraid that people will commit fraud in any online voting procedure. She seems to ignore that plenty of online voting systems have shown that they work fairly well. She also says that the disagreement between the board and Karl Auerbach (the rogue board member) is more personal than anything else. Basically, the board hates Karl and wants nothing to do with him. They won't listen to his good ideas, and won't reveal their books on principle, even though Dyson claims they have nothing to hide. So, in the end, this isn't so much of a defense of ICANN, but it does seem like a weak attempt to explain away a lot of stupidity in how ICANN goes about its business. It still sounds like a bunch of petty, power hungry people, fighting over issues with no real thoughts to how they can help the people they're supposed to be serving.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
