ICANN Accountability Working Group Releases Draft Transparency Recommendations

The Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability’s draft recommendations for improving the organization’s transparency drew early praise Wednesday in interviews. The draft recommendations, released Tuesday, are part of CCWG-Accountability’s work on a second set of recommended changes to the organization's accountability mechanisms (see 1610030042). CCWG-Accountability’s transparency work had already been seen as progressing smoothly, even as the working group’s exploration of how to address ICANN's post-Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition jurisdiction was raising U.S. stakeholders' eyebrows (see 1701030021). Comments on the draft transparency recommendations are due April 10, ICANN said.

CCWG-Accountability’s draft recommendations include improvements to ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. They would include limiting the exceptions ICANN can claim for denying a document request. CCWG-Accountability proposed requiring ICANN staff to “create and maintain full and accurate records, in an accessible form, so as to be able to be used for subsequent reference, containing adequate and proper documentation of the office or authority’s organization, functions, policies, decisions, decision-making processes, procedures, and essential transactions.” Changes to the DIDP should also include capping ICANN’s extensions of time for responding to a document request to a maximum of 30 days beyond the normal 30-day timeline.

The draft transparency report also recommends ICANN report lobbying activities beyond what’s required under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, including all lobbying of state and foreign governments. The disclosures should include information on the identities of any persons engaged in lobbying on ICANN’s behalf and the topics discussed in engagement with policymakers, CCWG-Accountability said. The working group recommended improvements to ICANN’s anonymous whistleblower hotline, including clear online posting of information on the hotline and expanding the scope of reportable issues to include “all issues and concerns related to behavior that may violate local laws and conflict with organizational standards of behavior.”

The recommendations would also limit the ICANN board’s ability to prevent the release of information on board deliberations on “factual information, technical reports or reports on the performance or effectiveness of a particular body or strategy, as well as any guideline or reasons for a decision which has already been taken or where the material has already been disclosed to a third party.” ICANN should also revise the bylaws to allow the board to remove material from its minutes only where that material could qualify for a DIDP exception. Removed material would be required to be restored to board documents “after a particular period of time, once the potential for harm has dissipated,” the draft recommendations said.

The draft transparency recommendations appear to be a “pretty robust document” that, if adopted, “would really go a long way toward improving ICANN’s transparency,” said Phil Corwin, principal of e-commerce and IP law consultancy Virtualaw. Fixes to ICANN’s transparency are critical to the accountability changes that the organization implemented ahead of the IANA transition and to the working group’s forthcoming second set of recommended fixes because stakeholders “can’t hold the organization accountable if you don’t know what’s going on,” Corwin said: “These recommendations would shine a lot of light on things that are in the shadows right now,” including changes to DIDP.

Several ICANN stakeholders said they hadn't been able to fully review the draft transparency recommendations by our deadline Wednesday but noted their impressions that CCWG-Accountability’s work on that issue had been largely positive. One industry executive pointed to the importance of making changes to ICANN’s transparency rules given some stakeholders’ ongoing concerns about the role of the organization’s Governmental Advisory Committee. The executive also highlighted the need for stakeholders to get more than a “homogenized view” of the ICANN board’s deliberations.