While much of ICANN’s activity is focused on (and their funding comes from) domain name registration, through IANA they’re also responsible for things like IP address allocation, URI scheme registration, MIME type registration, etc.

Figuring out how to allow such a huge, widely distributed, diverse constituency control ICANN’s policies is an unsolved problem.

Andrew…. registries and registrars I belive are constiutents, but so are the domain owners. You are correct though…. registries and registrars should not equal the whole…that is certain.

However, if equal voting share/power, or however that is defined, is given then there might just be checks and balances as Gerry in the post above said was lacking.

These are all points that I have been trying to drive home for the past couple of years.

From ICANN on down to the domainer there is very little accountability. Along with accountability comes responsibility.

We have seen very little of this from ICANN, the registrars, and the drop catchers.

ICANN and it constituents (the registrars) have very little time left to clean up its acts and to show that it can act responsibly.

The truth is they wield a great deal of power because of very little oversight from outside judiciary. There are no checks and balances in place to reign them in.

The time for self-examination is now and the time to hold registrars and registries accountable to adhering to policy is now.

Otherwise, yes…ICANN may end up being a shell of itself once the Department of Commerce enters into the picture.

Thanks for the post, Andrew.