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A Brief History of ICANN and Community Reviews 

It’s easy to think of the Internet as a single network operating somewhere in the cloud. However, the Internet is actually comprised of hundreds of thousands of networks that connect billions of devices all around the world. Devices that connect to the Internet are assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address, such as 192.0.43.7 which designates the virtual location of the device on the network. However, when people access content on the Internet, they use easy-to-remember words, brands, names, or phrases, such as www.icann.org. The Domain Name System (DNS) translates between the numerical IP addresses computers use and the text-based names people use to connect to the Internet.  

ICANN is the primary organization tasked with managing various technical aspects of the Internet’s unique identifiers, including the DNS and IP addresses. For most of its own history, ICANN has operated under the oversight of the US Department of Commerce. In 2016, oversight transitioned to the global multistakeholder community. 

In 2009, ICANN and the US Department of Commerce entered an agreement called the Affirmation of Commitments (AoC), which was one of the first steps towards formally limiting US oversight. One important term in the AoC established independent review panels to periodically assess certain activities of ICANN. These review panels allowed members of the community to provide input and recommendations into ICANN’s policies and processes, with the goal of improving them over time while ensuring accountability and transparency.

 Table 1: Community Reviews under the Affirmation of Commitments (2009) and ICANN Bylaws (2017)

The AoC Reviews traditionally covered four key areas (see Table 1). In March 2016, when the US government successfully transitioned its oversight role to the multistakeholder community, ICANN bylaws replaced the previous AoC Reviews with Specific Reviews. Both the Specific Review Teams and the AoC reviews were coordinated by third party volunteers, and cover the key issue-areas. However, the period between specific review periods has been extended from 3 years (under the AoC) to 5 years (under the new ICANN bylaws). 

Specific Review Teams: How do they Work?  

The Specific Review Teams are governed by ICANN’s Bylaws under section 4.6. The following section highlights some of the important rules around the Specific Review Teams’ operation and process.

• Team Membership and Selection: Specific Review Teams are comprised of 21 members who are nominated by ICANN’s Advisory Committees and Supporting Organizations; third-party groups that advise the board on technical or policy-related issues. ICANN’s board may also designate one team member to serve as a “Director of Liaison”.   Whereas AoC Review Team members were picked by the Board Chair and Chair of GAC, Specific Review Teams are picked by the ICANN community.

• Timeframe and Review Process: Specific Reviews are conducted within a 5-year period from the end of the previous review, and can take anywhere between 3-5 years to complete. The following table summarizes the review process and some of the key activities that take place over this time-period. A more detailed description of the review process can be found here.

Table 2: The Review Process

• Public Comment Periods: Public consultation is an important part of the Review Teams’ process. The findings of the Review Teams are made available for public evaluation and comment at two key intervals: 

1. First Draft Comments: During the first round of public comment, the Review Teams upload a draft report to ICANN’s website to collect feedback on the draft report. The Review teams review the comments and amend the report as necessary, including an explanation on how the public comments were considered, and a summary of the changes made in response to public comments.
2. Final Report Comments: During the second round of public comment, the Review Teams upload the final report to ICANN’s website 6 months before Board consideration.

• Outcomes: Once the second round of public comment closes, the Board will consider the final report and public comments, and approve or reject the recommendations of the review teams.  The outcomes of the Board’s decisions are posted to ICANN’s website. 

Implementation of Review Team recommendations

As noted above, the Board has the ability to reject recommendations, but in practice has generally accepted Review Team recommendations. Once approved, the recommendations are then turned over to staff for implementation.

An exception was the Board’s response to the WHOIS Review, where opinions differed as to whether or not the Board actually approved the recommendations. The ATRT2, reviewing progress after approximately 18 months, concluded that most of the recommendations were in fact being followed closely. 

There are two mechanisms to track implementation of Review Team recommendations:

• ICANN staff provide regular updates on implementation, and over the years the reporting has evolved so that users can drill down to see progress on individual recommendations. 
• Each subsequent Review Team is tasked with reporting on implementation of the previous Review Team’s recommendations.  The ATRT2 Review also reported on implementation of the recommendations of the first SSR and WHOIS Reviews. 

As time has progressed, the transparency around implementation of Review Team recommendations has improved, and the Review Teams themselves are rising to the challenge of creating more readily implementable recommendations. 

However, there is an inevitable tension between independent reviews and the organisation that is being reviewed. This usually plays out in the implementation phase, where opinions about progress can differ.  The follow-up function of subsequent Specific Review Teams, and the oversight of the ATRT reviews in particular, provides a valuable accountability check.