Wilson's Tenure at ICANN Criticized

A University of Miami computer expert is calling on former Radcliffe College President Linda S. Wilson to resign from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

A. Michael Froomkin, who teaches Internet law at the University of Miami School of Law, is protesting Friday's announcement that the terms of four of ICANN's original nine directors have been extended.

Wilson will now serve as an at-large director until at least November 2002--and if a replacement is not selected, Wilson could remain a director indefinitely.

A non-profit private organization that was formed in 1998, ICANN was created with a nine-member initial board that included Wilson. ICANN is a global body that oversees the technical management of World Wide Web domain names, IP address space, root server management and other administrative Internet tasks.

ICANN now operates with a 19-member board. Nine of the directors are part of the at-large membership, which was intended to replace the initial board.

The elections for five of the at-large positions have just concluded, with one member selected from each of five regions (defined as Africa, Asia/Australia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean and North America). Any Internet user with an e-mail address and a physical address was eligible to register to vote.

In addition to his other complaints, Froomkin claimed that the selection process was not public.

"It's not a legal issue, it's a question of what's right," he added.

The allocation of the remaining four positions will be determined after a study of the election process, which had some technical problems with voter registration.

At a public forum in mid-July, some organizations raised concerns that the at-large directors would number only four from 2001 to 2002.

To remedy this problem, the nine original directors selected four of their members to continue their terms. According to ICANN minutes, only one current director objected to this idea.

Froomkin said that now that ICANN has tested the global online election, it should hold another election for the remaining four slots.

"ICANN is always changing the rules," Froomkin said. "They promised us nine. They took that away, and now they've entrenched themselves."

Froomkin said he hoped that Wilson, who is well-known and respected within the academic community, would oppose these policy changes.

Froomkin--who has dubbed the four "board squatters"--said that after the newly elected members are seated, Wilson will be the only woman among the at-large directors.

Nine additional directors who are part of the ICANN board are chosen by supporting organizations devoted to domain names, addresses and protocol.

Froomkin said that the initial board was "mistrustful of the [election] process...and not absolutely without reason."

"They didn't know who would get elected," he said.

According to Andrew McLaughlin, chief policy and financial officer of ICANN, Froomkin's argument was rejected at a meeting in June.

"Indeed, the groups that most strongly 'insisted' upon an extension of terms for four of the original nine directors were the public interest groups, including the Center for

Democracy and Technology, Common Cause and the [American Civil Liberties Union], and their counterparts in various parts of the world," McLaughlin wrote in an e-mail message.

"[Wilson] consented to remain, until a plan for choosing her successor is determined, after wide public study and consultation. None of the four remaining directors is anxious to stay on the ICANN Board--they're doing so out of a public-spirited commitment to the ICANN process," wrote McLaughlin, who is also a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "The consensus ...was that the number of At Large directors on the ICANN Board should remain at nine."

Wilson did not return repeated calls at her home in Maine.