Maybe he is trying to say ICANN is not good enough for him, but as he is about to “leave” ICANN after three turbulent years as CEO and President, Rod Beckstrom delivered a few grenades regarding its performance at the ICANN meeting currently underway in Costa Rica.

Beckstrom was strident in his criticism of conflict of interest rules for directors, noting that “ICANN must place commercial and financial interests in their appropriate context.” He went on to ask “how can it do this if all top leadership is from the very domain name industry it is supposed to coordinate independently?”

But Beckstrom’s stinging criticism was met with a withering criticism by former ICANN staffer Maria Farrell who wrote, “In the long tradition of tenants trashing the gaffe as they’re finally evicted, ICANN’s outgoing CEO seems determined to burn down the house he’s been renting for the past three years.”

“In an effort to salvage his tattered reputation,” Farrell continues, “Beckstrom seems to be following his standard m.o. of shifting attention to the suddenly glaring failings of the organization that’s decided to terminate his employment.”

Beckstrom has form here when he left the National Cyber Security Center at the Department of Homeland Security, he complained “of inadequate funding and cites efforts by the National Security Agency to ‘subjugate’ the NCSC to its control,” according to an ars technica report at the time.

Noting there is a “germ of truth” to his “searing criticisms,” Farrell says he’s been happy to run [ICANN] for the past three years … [where] conflicts are rife, with several industry-sourced Board Directors needing to recuse themselves from discussions or votes on new generic top-level domains. And ICANN’s standing is nowhere near to recovering from the dramatic act of pantouflage of our last Chairman, who went from Chairing the Board meeting that approved new gTLDs to running a new gTLD company within a few weeks.”

Farrell then notes “things are more complicated than they first appear” referring to directors recusing themselves when, in many other organisations, this would not be required.

Farrell concludes that “unfortunately, we can expect more of these ‘bombs’ to be dropped during Beckstrom’s final months, as the CEO and Board Director attempts to paint himself as a courageous contrarian speaking truth to power. But the truth is Beckstrom’s speech was not only inaccurate and mean-spirited, but a transparent attempt to wring personal, tactical advantage at the strategic expense of the organization he still purports to lead. It is a shame that at this point in Beckstrom’s tenure, we have come to expect no better.”

Maria Farrell’s article on the Crooked Timber blog is available in full at crookedtimber.org/2012/03/13/icanns-departing-ceo-burning-down-the-house/

The US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has cancelled the Request For Proposal (RFP) into the role of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), that being the key technical functions supporting the Domain Name System, because they received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community.

In their announcement, while noting no proposals met requirements, the NTIA does not say if they received any bids, even from ICANN. ICANN’s CEO and president, Rod Beckstrom, also refused to comment on if ICANN had submitted a bid at their meeting currently underway in Costa Rica.

The Department says they intend to reissue the RFP at a future date to be determined so that the requirements of the global internet community can be served.

There are some that believe the announcement sends a wake-up call to ICANN that they need to get their house in order. And in particular criticisms have come from those groups that ignored the top level domain consultation process that was ongoing for over five years. These groups such as the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) are now using any available method to lobby the US government to stop the TLD process. And if this means getting their two cents worth of lobbying on unrelated issues to discredit ICANN, then so be it.

“This RFP cancellation, announced as ICANN convenes its March 11 – 16, 2012 meeting in Costa Rica, can only be seen as a clear message to ICANN that it must seriously address concerns by NTIA and multiple global stakeholders. These include federal policymakers, the ANA, Internet security experts, the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO) and other stakeholders that have criticized ICANN’s expansion of the domain name system with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of new generic top-level domains,” said Douglas J. Wood, General Counsel to the ANA, and a partner with Reed Smith LLP.

However despite the lobbying and browbeating of those such as the ANA, “one of the key sticking points is the NTIA’s demand that the IANA contractor – ICANN – must document that all new gTLD delegations are in ‘the global public interest,” reported Domain Incite.

“This demand is a way to prevent another controversy such as the approval of .xxx a year ago, which the Governmental Advisory Committee objected to on the grounds that it was not the ‘the global public interest.'”

“Coupled with newly strengthened Applicant Guidebook powers for the GAC to object to new gTLD application,” Domain Incite continued, “the IANA language could be described as ‘if the GAC objects, you must reject.'”

“NTIA’s cancellation is even more telling because ICANN changed its conflict of interest policy subsequent to Thrush’s departure and the issuance of the RFP. Many people believe the changes ICANN made to its conflict of interest policy were entirely inadequate in addressing NTIA’s legitimate concerns,” Wood went on to say in a statement. “With sixteen directors accountable through no independent oversight, their powers are unrestrained and, as recent decisions illustrate, ignore what the stakeholders want or, more importantly, need.”

For now, the NTIA has reached an agreement with ICANN to continue performing the IANA functions until 30 September 2012.