ICANN Board member Susan Crawford has decried the organisation's “low point” in voting against .xxx on Wednesday night in a blog post.
Having been silenced by a motion taken at the same meeting that landed a 48-hour gagging order on all Board members in talking publicly about the decision, Crawford used her own website to reveal what she said.
“ICANN’s current process for selecting new gTLDs, and the artificial scarcity this process creates, continues to raise procedural concerns that should be avoided in the future,” she argued, saying that the process “relies heavily on relatively subjective and arbitrary criteria, and not enough on the technical merits of the applications”.
This approach “generates conflict and is damaging to the technically-focused, non-governmental, bottom-up vision of ICANN activity”, she continued.
Answering the reasons put forward by ICANN CEO Paul Twomey as to why the Board reversed its previous position and suddenly voted against .xxx, Crawford warned: “Policies as to the use of domain names, as opposed to the registration of domain names, are not appropriate subjects for ICANN decisionmaking.”
And in response to the extensive criticism levelled at ICANN by observers and the EU that the whole decision came about due to pressure by the US government, which had itself been heavily lobbied by right-wing Christians, Crawford added: “We should not run the risk of turning ICANN into a convenient chokepoint for the content-related limitations desired by particular governments around the world. Governments have many powers within their territories, and are free to use them there.”
In a blog post the previous day, Crawford has revealed her frustration at the 48-hour gagging order, stating that: “I am concerned that the full picture of the decision is not made available to the public, and I hope we can find a way to make this possible in the future.”
Another Board member, who also voted for .xxx, Veni Markovski, defied the gagging order by espressing his opinion about the registry on his blog but without providing his statement or covering what was discussed in the meeting.
“I believe my vote was not on the controversial issue about content (and ICANN should not deal with content), but on the simple issue if the agreement is good to be accepted. I also wrote on April 22nd in this blog that ICM at least are trying to prevent harmful content reaching our children. I prefer that, than just saying, '.xxx is bad, abolish it'. OK, we did that. Now what?”
Markovski also appeared irritated with the pressure brought to bear by the United States government. “I hope that our decision will not be interpreted as governments dictating ICANN what to do,” he said. “If the community believes that should happen, then we need a change in the by-laws.”
He concluded: “Running away from the problems will not help ICANN, will not help the ICANN community, and will not help the Internet users.”
ICANN itself has yet to release its official statement or what the other Board members statements were. However, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey made it clear in a press conference last night that he now considered the matter closed.
It may not be that simple though. ICM Registry, which has spent millions of pounds chasing its .xxx proposal round in circles, is furious and has said it will not simply walk away from the matter.
Twomey's comments have also come under scrutiny, and investigations into the sudden change in behaviour of several ICANN Board members, including its chairman Vint Cerf, who had previously expressed support for the registry, are raising eyebrows.
A series of exhanges between ICANN and the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Commerce and other governments, as well as the right-wing Christian groups at the heart of the controversy, threaten to Twomey's assertion that suggestions of undue US government interference were “unfounded and ignorant”.
His reliance on a series of letters sent in the five days leading up to the decision to explain ICANN's vote, despite the fact that the process had been going on for over a year and the Board has already approved elements of the registry bid, has also added to strong suspicions that Twomey had masterminded a careful exit from the controversy issue.
With the Department of Justice reportedly reviewing an equally controversial decision by the ICANN Board just two months ago to hand VeriSign control of the dotcom registry in perpetuity on the grounds that there may have been undue influence in the decision, the suggestion of shady deals at the very top of the Internet is growing increasingly strong.