Like, ICANN GAG the IGF, dude.
In the Who Should Run the Internet department, reading articles like “A plaything of powerful nations” makes me mental. Largely because the warning is quite realistic: Fix the ways things are run or they will be taken over and run worse.
I am an Open advocate. Open source, Internet, governance… you name it. I believe everything should be wide-open and transparent. It just makes everything fair and advancements procede quite nicely.
However, when you have an opague Board doing things in an ad hoc manner, like ICANN, it can easily fall prey to criticisms from governments in the West or East, which makes it vunerable to all out attacks like the China/Russia-lead International Code of Conduct for Informational Security, or the more insidious “fixes” from the West which created abusive, unConstituional nightmares like the USA PATRIOTC ACT.
I think the key is to enshrine its openness and democracy in Constitutional form, and make it a functioning and fully defensible body respected for its policies.
Only secretive meetings and deals done on the dark can be attacked. One of the big problems that will occur (if not already) is the potential for becoming a bought and paid for compromised body for private interests, rather than public good. Kind of like the Olympics selection judges, who can simply be sold to the highest bidder. The Internet must not be governed that way. If it hasn’t already occurred, it certainly could. When you allow opagueness, you set yourself up for Masonic-styled Secret Society New World Order corruption and craziness.
They can circumvent the entire abuse of powers circus by putting their We the People-ism intentions in writing and opening their doors and windows to the world.