[wg-review] [CONSENSUS] " ICANN head pledges consensus "

[Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>]

Yes... "consensus", but there's still no definition... and there's even talk of 
community input, no mention of *which* communities though.  Also, the very 
last line is quite interesting.

ICANN head pledges consensus 
By Reuters 
25 January 2001   


The new head of the Internet's naming body says his main goal will be to 
build consensus for policy decisions by involving Internet users worldwide. 

M. Stuart Lynn, new president and chief executive of the Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, also said his lack 
of experience in ICANN policies would make him more impartial in dealing 
with the controversies that have riven the group in the past and continue to 
dog it. 

"I've followed ICANN for the past several years and have a sense of the 
major issues," said the British-born Lynn, whose appointment to the high-
profile two-year position was announced this week. 

"It's less important where I stand than how I am able to bring people 
together." 

ICANN was established by the US government in October 1998 as a non-
profit group to oversee management of Web domain names, a task 
previously handled by the government. 

Besides overseeing policy and technical aspects of handing out new Web 
domain names, it is also the final arbitrator on disputes involving the 
ownership of Web site names. 

"ICANN, as I see it, takes its lead not from me but from the Internet 
community as a whole," Lynn, a 63-year-old former mathematics professor, 
said in a conference call with journalists. 

"The Board of Directors of ICANN sets the policy but the policy is based 
very much on community input." 

Lynn, who officially takes over March 13, was formerly the chief information 
officer for the University of California system, with 10 campuses and more 
than 150,000 students, until his retirement in 1999. His salary will be 
US$245,000 per year, and his two-year contract can be extended an extra 
year. 

Lynn has held a number of other executive positions with computing 
organisations, and said his "geek credentials" include writing his first 
computer program 43 years ago. 

But ICANN has at various times been accused of being an ineffectual group 
too beholden to corporate interests at the expense of ordinary Internet users, 
as well being too US-centric. 

Outgoing President and CEO Mike Roberts said he did not expect the new 
administration of President George W. Bush to oppose ongoing privatisation 
of domain name management duties from the government to ICANN. 

"The basic principles of privatisation adopted by the Clinton administration 
are very bi-partisan goals," he said. 

"As long as we are following the roadmap set by the government, we should 
be fine." 
 


Sotiris Sotiropoulos
          Hermes Network, Inc. 


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