ICANN’s search for a successor to retiring CEO Fadi Chehadé “is proceeding well,” though little other information on the search is available, ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker said in a blog post Monday. Chehadé is to resign from ICANN March 12, after the nonprofit corporation’s planned March 5-10 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco. “It’s clear Fadi has a full run up to his final day and [the Marrakesh meeting], managing the organization and being its representative in key arenas,” Crocker said.
The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) is “likely” to adjust its timeline for completing its final proposal on changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms based on feedback it receives from ICANN’s six chartering organizations, ICANN said in a blog post Friday. CCWG-Accountability had planned to submit its final proposal to the ICANN board by the end of January, but stakeholders have considered further delays likely given the significant amount of controversy on some aspects of the current proposal (see 1601080054). CCWG-Accountability has sought feedback by Jan. 21 from the six organizations on whether they support the working group’s current proposal. The Country Code Names Supporting Organization, Generic Names Supporting Organization and the Governmental Advisory Committee are preparing comments, ICANN said. “When feedback is received from all six Chartering Organizations, the CCWG-Accountability will be in a better position to judge how much additional work may be needed to finalize the report and will adjust its timeline.” GAC’s feedback has been seen as particularly important given the controversy over how the ICANN board should handle GAC advice following the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition.
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé urged the U.N. Tuesday to continue bringing together all Internet governance stakeholders to solve issues as part of a “polycentric approach” to Internet governance. “The Internet is the great equalizer in [a] world where inequality is still a key challenge,” he said. Chehadé was among the Internet industry executives addressing the U.N. as it began its two-day high-level meeting on its 10-year review of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+10). A draft WSIS+10 outcome document circulated before the U.N.’s high-level meeting endorses the central tenets of multistakeholder Internet governance and recommits to WSIS' Tunis Agreement. The draft document would also extend the Internet Governance Forum's mandate for another 10 years, as expected (see 1511200063).
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé urged stakeholders to press on with work on the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, citing the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s posting Monday of the latest draft of its proposed set of changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms. The CCWG-Accountability draft proposal included expected consensus language (see 1511270048) on handling advice from the Governmental Advisory Committee after the IANA transition that will allow the ICANN board to reject any GAC consensus advice via a two-thirds majority board vote, provided the board then works with GAC to find a mutually agreeable solution. Final submission of ICANN’s IANA transition plan to NTIA is still months away but the time before then “will be critical to the success of the multistakeholder proposals,” Chehadé said in a Monday blog post. “Once again, I ask you to finish out the last few steps of this journey with as much passion, dedication and hard work as you've put in to it.”
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, now a partner at consulting firm RiceHadleyGates, led an off-the-record roundtable event Monday on the national security and geostrategic implications of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, stakeholders told us. The event, at the Atlantic Council’s Washington office, was aimed at civil society Internet governance stakeholders but also included State Department officials, an industry official said. The event was also an opportunity for invited stakeholders to learn what they “can do in the critical coming months, as ICANN prepares to present” the IANA transition proposal and a related set of proposed changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms to NTIA for final approval, an invitation to the roundtable said. The roundtable is “really another in a long series of events we’ve participated in to raise awareness among” Washington-based parties about the IANA transition as planning for the transition has continued to progress, said ICANN Vice President-Business Engagement Chris Mondini. The roundtable was a follow-up to a similar off-the-record Atlantic Council event earlier this year. ICANN has participated in “dozens of these smaller roundtables,” including events at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mondini said. ICANN’s presence at the off-the-record roundtable raised concerns among some stakeholders amid a push for ICANN to increase its transparency, though an industry lobbyist said hosting organizations -- rather than ICANN -- typically dictate whether such meetings are on or off the record. The Atlantic Council and Hadley didn’t comment. This roundtable specifically focused on general security issues on how international pressure in the Internet governance space might lead to balkanization of the Internet along national borders, Mondini told us. The session wasn’t being held in connection with recent concerns about government stakeholders’ demands for revisions to the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s (CCWG-Accountability) proposed ICANN accountability mechanism changes, Mondini said. CCWG-Accountability hasn’t reached consensus on whether to propose amending ICANN’s bylaws to require the ICANN board to find a “mutually acceptable solution” when the Governmental Advisory Committee provides advice that’s supported by GAC member consensus. CCWG-Accountability is also grappling with a proposal from Brazil and several other GAC members to resurrect a 2014 proposal to amend the ICANN bylaws to require two-thirds of the ICANN board to vote to be able to reject consensus GAC advice (see 1511160047).
NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling urged participant nations in the Internet Governance Forum Tuesday to “step up in support of the free and open Internet and the multistakeholder process that has led to its success.” The U.S. remains committed to multistakeholderism as it continues to work with ICANN to plan the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, Strickling said during the opening ceremony of IGF’s meeting in João Pessoa, Brazil. “This work is tiring, sometimes contentious, perhaps exasperating,” he said, but “the process is working and I am confident it will be successful. It will be a testament to the strength of the multistakeholder process when the transition is completed.” Strickling warned against governments’ attempts to restrict the Internet via data localization laws and restrictions on data transfers. “Such proposals do far more harm than good,” he said. “Restricting data flows and competition between firms increase costs for Internet users and businesses, retard technological innovation, and may curb freedom of expression,” he said. IGF and other multistakeholder forums are “imperative” to “make a case for policies and practices that encourage the development of an open and innovative Internet,” Strickling said.
ICANN’s CEO search committee has begun interviewing perspective candidates to succeed current CEO Fadi Chehadé “and will continue for the next couple of months,” with the aim of developing a set of recommended candidates by the end of the year, ICANN said Tuesday in a blog post. Applications for candidates to replace Chehadé were due Sept. 30. Chehadé said in May that he plans to leave ICANN after the nonprofit corporation’s March 5-10 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco (see 1505220051). Ninety-three percent of the more than 100 candidates who applied to succeed Chehadé are male, ICANN said. Forty-one percent of the initial CEO applicants were from North America, while 27 percent were from Europe and 16 percent from Asia, ICANN said. Nine percent of applicants were from Africa and 7 percent were from Latin America and the Caribbean, ICANN said. “Winnowing a large list of candidates is relatively easy at the beginning of the process, but becomes increasingly more difficult as the process continues, since the candidates being eliminated from consideration are increasingly experienced and well qualified,” ICANN said. The CEO search committee is “therefore moving somewhat more slowly in its deliberations, in order to assure that the decisions made are in the interests of obtaining a CEO that is best suited to leading ICANN.”
NTIA “will continue to monitor the work” of the ICANN stakeholder community to complete an Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition proposal that fully meets NTIA-established criteria, the agency said its Q4 report on the IANA transition process. The report, released Monday, covers IANA transition planning developments only through Sept. 30 and therefore doesn’t include the results of work at ICANN’s October meeting in Dublin or post-Dublin progress on transition planning. The IANA Transition Coordination Group has finalized almost all elements in its IANA transition proposal but can’t submit its final proposal to the ICANN board until the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) finalizes its own proposal on changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms that are critical to the IANA transition (see 1510290058). CCWG-Accountability reached a high-level consensus during the Dublin meeting on several controversial provisions in its proposal, but isn't expected to have a final proposal ready until late January (see 1510220053). NTIA said it continued emphasizing to ICANN stakeholders that the IANA transition plan “must support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet governance, i.e., it should be developed by the multistakeholder community and have broad community support. We will not accept a transition proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.” Once NTIA receives a final IANA transition plan proposal, the agency will “work within the interagency process to provide a thorough review of the proposal across government agencies. NTIA is also organizing internally to undertake a rigorous review of the community proposal.”
ICANN and the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) encouraging further cooperation between the two organizations on strengthening multistakeholder Internet governance in Europe, ICANN said Wednesday. The MOU, signed by ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé and EuroDIG Managing Director Sandra Hoferichter during ICANN’s meeting in Dublin last week, formalizes ICANN’s involvement in EuroDIG activities. EuroDIG will include ICANN in its outreach to European stakeholders and ICANN will “contribute its expertise in technical and logistical matters such as remote participation and capacity building,” the groups said in the agreement. ICANN will also increase its existing involvement in EuroDIG’s annual conference.
ICANN’s Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Transition Coordination Group (ICG) said Thursday that it has completed almost all elements of its final proposal for the IANA transition plan but is still awaiting a final proposal from the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability). Major portions of the ICG’s plan derived from a proposal submitted by the Cross Community Working Group to Develop an IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal on Naming Related Functions are dependent on CCWG-Accountability’s set of proposed changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms. CCWG-Accountability reached a high-level consensus on several additional items in its proposal during ICANN’s meeting in Dublin last week, but the working group’s proposal won’t be ready to submit to the ICANN board until late January (see 1510220053). ICG said in a news release that it will need to “secure confirmation” from CCWG-Accountability that its accountability proposal will meet NTIA requirements before ICG will send its own proposal on to the ICANN board. Portions of the ICG’s plan derived from proposals by the Consolidated Regional Internet Registries IANA Stewardship Proposal team and the Internet Engineering Task Force’s IANAPLAN working group “are complete, ready for implementation, and have no dependencies on the work of [CCWG-Accountability] or other remaining processes,” ICG said.