The new agreement, called a Joint Project Agreement (JPA) is a cosmetic response to the comments received by NTIA during its Notice of Inquiry in July 2006. Public responses expressed widespread support for a DNS governance regime that was free of dominance by one government and indeed, any government. At the same time, various interest groups for many different reasons asked for a more accountable and representative ICANN and often expressed reservations about freeing ICANN from governmental oversight until suitable reforms in its processes and accountability were made.   more »

The London School of Economics Public Policy Group finally released its long-awaited assessment of the GNSO, ICANN's representative organ for making global domain names policy. The impartial X-ray the LSE group administered on the GNSO is, on the whole, excellent as an analysis of how things are. Many of the recommendations are good, too. But on the most critical issue of all the distribution of voting power among GNSO constituencies the LSE has put forward recommendations that cause serious concern.   more »