XXX Litigation Looms

Today ICM Registry announced that it would file a reconsideration request with ICANN and a judicial appeal to challenge redactions and omissions from the internal US government documents released to it under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. These could prove to be opening moves in a more extended round of litigation.

In connection with its judicial appeal, ICM Registry released 88 pages of internal US Commerce Department documents obtained under the FOIA showing how the U.S. handled its application. A summary and review of the documents is available on the IGP website here [PDF].

Even with the major redactions, the documents show how US supervision of ICANN was influenced by domestic political pressure. They leave no room for doubt that the US altered its policy toward ICANN in response to this pressure, and that it worked with ICANN to conceal the nature and significance of US governmental oversight of ICANN from the public and the media.

The documents themselves can be reviewed on the IGP web site at this
Link [PDF]

By Milton Mueller, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy

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Comments

Milton Mueller – May 19, 2006 10:48 PM

ICM Registry has just posted the entire set of FOIA documents at this URL. We only had access to the original 88 it released when writing up the IGP summary. the URL for the entire set is here:

http://www.icmregistry.com/documents.html

# 1 Reply | Link | Report Problems

Chris McElroy – May 22, 2006 9:31 PM

Hi Milton. Unfortunately lawsuits seem to be the only thing that might get ICANN’s attention.

# 2 Reply | Link | Report Problems

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