The loss of openness and transparency in ICANN has been a death by a thousand cuts. Everytime someone asks to speak off the record or close a committee meeting, we all lose an important part of the organization.

We're having a meeting of the GNSO Council here in Wellington to talk about new gTLDs, and ten minutes into the introduction Paul Twomey asks if he's being recorded and can talk off the record. Huh? I can understand the need for confidentiality when it comes to legal issues or personnel issues, but going off the record on the subject of new gTLDs in the middle of a policy discussion? No, you can't talk off the record. This subject is core to ICANN's mission. Everything has to be on the record. ICANN's culture of closed meetings flies in the face of its bylaws and the principles on which it was built. We all have to be aware of this. We have to make it in an issue at every juncture.

It may not seem like a big deal. After all, isn't it just one small comment in the middle of a larger discussion? But it is a big deal. The alternative is that ICANN becomes opaque by the addition of a thousand translucent scrims.