structure, personnel, review

This page looks at the structure of ICANN, including its board, secretariat and ombudsman.

It covers -

• architecture
• the board
• the DNSO
• the ASO
• the PSO
• ALSO and ALSC
• Directors
• review

     architecture

ICANN consists of

• a 19-member Board
• three Supporting Organisations (SOs)
• a small but growing secretariat, initially only in the US but now expanded to Europe.

Additional SOs have been proposed.

The SOs "assist with, review, and develop recommendations on internet policy and structure, and encourage diverse and international participation in the technical management" of the net. They are "the primary source of substantive policy recommendations, serving as advisory bodies to the Board" and reflecting the Board's expectation that ICANN will have an open, bottom-up, consensus-based policy development process.

At ICANN's direction, each of the SOs 'self-organized' a few years ago and adopted "participation structures appropriate for their effective functioning".

     the board

ICANN is governed by a 19 member board of directors who are broadly representative of the 'internet community', that most nebulous of concepts extending from the US Commerce Department through to Bushmen in the Kalahari.

Given the organisation's history the board's composition is transitional rather than the subject of an election open to all comers. Most members are appointed by the supporting organisations (each SO currently selects three directors) or coopted. Some are elected by 'Members-at-large' in a process described later in this profile.

All are subject to lobbying by a range of advocacy organisations, discussed here.

     the DNSO

The Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO) is concerned with the DNS, the system of names commonly used to identify Internet locations and resources.

As we've noted in the separate Domains profile, the DNS translates hierarchically-structured, easy-to-remember names (such as www.caslon.com.au) into IP addresses - eg 123.9.325.421 - that uniquely identify the net's networked computers.

The DNSO is the most politicised of the SOs (or merely the one where bloodletting is public), with recurrent threats of secession by some participants and vigorous debate about policy directions. It is governed by the Names Council, which consists of representatives from seven 'constituencies':

•   ccTLD (country code top level domain) registries, with bodies such as the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR) having a strong influence
  
•   commercial and business entities (here)
  
•   gTLD (generic top level domain) registries
  
•   internet service and connectivity providers
  
•   non-commercial domain name holders (NCDNHC)
  
•   registrars (here, with around 46 members)
  
•   trademark and other intellectual property interests.

Each of the constituencies comprises a range of businesses or organizations.

     the ASO

The Address Supporting Organization (ASO) is concerned with the system of IP (internet protocol) addresses.

It is currently comprised of the three Regional Internet Registries (RIR) responsible for allocating IP address blocks in the Americas, Europe, and Asia:

•  Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) - Asia Pacific
  
•  American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) - the Americas, Caribbean and Africa south of the equator
•  Reseaux IP Europeens (RIPE) - Europe, parts of Asia, Africa north of the equator and Middle East

New RIRs may be established in the future: ICANN has granted observer status to the AfriNIC (Africa) and LACNIC (Latin America & Caribbean) registries, the so-called emerging registries.

The ASO is governed by an Address Council with RIR representatives.

     the PSO

The Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO) deals with the assignment of unique parameters for Internet protocols, the technical standards that let devices exchange information and manage communications over the net.

The PSO's governing Protocol Council is comprised of representatives of four bodies:

•   Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
  
•   World Wide Web Consortium (WC3)
  
•   International Telecommunications Union (ITU) - profiled here
  
•   European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)

The operation, basis and history of those bodies is discussed in our Network guide.

     the ALSO and ALSC

ICANN's At-Large Study Committee (ALSC) - also known as the Bildt Committee after its chair, Karl Bildt - proposed the establishment of an At-Large Supporting Organisation (ALSO) to represent individual internet users.

The new SO would parallel and work closely with the DNSO, PSO and ASO. The expectation is that it would be a regionally-based body to "ensure that 'users' voices' and diverse interests" are represented. It would have "participants" - anyone interested in participating in open, online discussion fora - and "members" comprised of a verifiable, vested community of users who register and pay a membership fee to participate in voting and policy development.

The ALSC recommended that ICANN -

• work with relevant entities to create the ALSO as a regionally-based framework for user involvement in ICANN
  
• create an At-Large membership (an ALSO electorate) to help select ALSO leadership and formulate ALSO policy recommendations
  
• provide At-Large members with the responsibility for selecting six members of ICANN's Board
  
• provide At-Large members with the responsibility for selecting members of six Regional At-Large Councils (based on six geographic regions) and one global At-Large Council to help build and govern the ALSO

Response to the recommendations has been underwhelming and, as we have discussed later in this profile, questions about community participation remain open.

     Directors

As of January 2003 the ICANN Board comprised -

• US businessman Vinton Cerf (Chair), selected by the PSO - homepage here
• Mexican academic Alejandro Pisanty (Vice-Chair), selected by the DNSO
• EU lawyer Amadeu Abril i Abril, selected by the DNSO
• Karl Auerbach - homepage here
• Brazilian businessman Dr Ivan Moura Campos
• US businessman Lyman Chapin, selected by the ASO and former IAB Chair
• Canadian lawyer Jonathan Cohen, selected by the DNSO
• Mouhamet Diop
• Japanese businessman Masanobu Katoh, At-Large Director from the Asia-Pacific region - homepage here
• Netherlands businessman Hans Kraaijenbrink - who died towards the end of 2003
• Korean academic Dr Sang-Hyon Kyong, selected by the ASO
• Dr M. Stuart Lynn (ICANN President & CEO) - succeeded later in 2003 by Paul Twomey, former CEO of the Australian government National Office for the Information Economy
• German journalist Andy Mueller-Maguhn, At-Large Director from Europe - homepage here
• Japanese academic Dr Jun Murai, an initial appointment
• Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, At-Large Director from Africa - homepage here
• German businessman Helmut Schink, selected by the PSO
• Francisco A. Jesus Silva
• US academic Dr Linda Wilson, an initial appointment

Former Directors are US entrepreneur Esther Dyson (Chair until November 2000), French academic Jean-François Abramatic, Netherlands researcher Robert Blokzijl, French businesswoman Geraldine Capdeboscq, US businessman George Conrades, former Australian businessman Greg Crew, UK businessman Philip Davidson, US businessman Frank Fitzsimmons, Canadian businessman Ken Fockler, US academic Michael Roberts (President/CEO until March 2001), Eurocrat Dr Eugenio Triana and Hong Kong businessman Pindar Wong.

     Review

ICANN has grappled somewhat uncertainly with questions of internal and external review.

US academic Ethan Katsh comments that the organisation's former bylaws featured chartering an independent review panel (IRP), with a requirement in December 2002 for establishment of an ICANN ombudsperson. In 2004 ICANN announced that the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) - a division of the American Arbitration Association - had been appointed as the organisation's IRP, based on the 1999 Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Independent Review.

The intention is that the IRP will

provide a meaningful check on the powers and actions (or inactions) of the ICANN Board of Directors. The mission of the Independent Review Panel will be to compare contested actions of the ICANN Board to the Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation, to declare whether the ICANN Board has acted consistent with the provisions of those documents, and to do so in an open and efficient manner.

In November 2004 Frank Fowlie was appointed as the first ICANN Ombudsman under the organisation's constitution.

The announcement indicated that

The principal function of the Ombudsman shall be to provide an independent internal evaluation of complaints by members of the ICANN community who believe that the ICANN staff, Board or an ICANN constituent body has treated them unfairly. The Ombudsman shall serve as an objective advocate for fairness, and shall seek to evaluate and where possible resolve complaints about unfair or inappropriate treatment by ICANN staff, the Board, or ICANN constituent bodies, clarifying the issues and using conflict resolution tools such as negotiation, facilitation, and "shuttle diplomacy" to achieve these results.

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