19 May 2006

ICANN and the US Dept of Commerce

A debate over independent governance of the internet took place in the period leading up to WSIS/Tunis, as has been reported widely and discussed earlier on this blog (see this item, for example. Based on documents recovered in relation to the .xxx debate, Milton Mueller concluded:
... the documents show how US supervision of ICANN was influenced by domestic political pressure. They leave no room for doubt that the US altered its policy toward ICANN in response to this pressure, and that it actively worked in tandem with ICANN to conceal the nature and significance of US governmental oversight of ICANN from the public and the media.

Do you think the ICANN critics were justified at WSIS? Do you think governance needs to be revisited now?

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