http://news.excite.com/news/zd/000405/20/is-icann-the By Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet News TORONTO -- Critics of the International Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Wednesday called on the board to develop a charter with a bill of rights that would spell out specifically what the board can and cannot do. In one of the few sessions not devoted to privacy at the Computers Freedom and Privacy 2000 conference here, panelists lambasted ICANN -- the non-profit, private body in charge of doling out domain names and numbers -- for its wide-ranging actions so far, actions that include tackling intellectual property rights and trademark issues. "Our concern is that ICANN could end up making significant content and policy decisions," said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). For example, the board is mulling who should have access to the Whois database -- the directory of Web site ownership -- and Congress is working on a bill that addresses a ".xxx" top-level domain for porn sites, domains that ICANN would distribute, said Berman Though ICANN board members have repeatedly protested that they handle only narrow technical matters, it's been impossible for them to avoid sticky political situations surrounding intellectual property issues as more and more money is at stake on the Internet. The Center for Democracy and Technology -- which keeps close tabs on ICANN -- already has been working on convincing the group to limit its charter. Last month the CDT successfully urged ICANN to elect many of its at-large board members directly. Before that, ICANN had favored an elaborate and confusing process that involved letting general members elect a group who would then hand pick the members. Open ICANN meetings applauded To its credit, the panelists pointed out, ICANN has opened up its meetings, which were once held behind closed doors without any public input. Even so, panelist Richard Sexton is worried that ICANN is under the influence of big business, which he said has sent powerful lobbyists to ensure that they would have power over ICANN's decisions regarding who gets certain domain names. Sexton said he isn't optimistic that ICANN will succeed. "I suspect it's going to implode like a black hole," he told the audience. Karl Auerbach, a senior researcher at Cisco Systems Inc. speaking on his own behalf, criticized the board for not acting more quickly to create more top-level domains. Auerbach said the network has the ability to support millions of new top-level domains. He panned ICANN for its plans to create only a handful. "It's just an invitation for people to come and hoard names," he said. The only panelist who was also an ICANN member -- Barcelona-based attorney Amadeu Abril I Abril -- called in via conference call in an attempt to defend some of the board's actions. "ICANN is what people want it to be," he said, prompting the audience to snicker and some panelists to whisper "what?" under their breaths. Still, he said the process has to start somewhere. "ICANN is a tool. We can use it to evolve in the direction we want."