ICANN just published its annual report for 2008. Much of it is devoted to the comings and goings of board members and administrative updates, but buried in the report is an update on how the regulator has handled compliance issues -- a hot-button topic that haunted ICANN throughout the year.
In a simple chart on page 73, the report details the compliance statistics for 2008. Complaints reported from January to October 2008 were up more than 60 percent from 2007, and that figure does not include any complaints ICANN from the last few months of 2008. The chart also notes that 10 registrars were de-accredited, almost half as many as have been de-accredited in the past 10 years.
ICANN has come under fire for its enforcement of its own policies, and the text that accompanies the chart above may explain why: ICANN has only five compliance staff who are responsible for 945 registrars scattered across the globe. The report indicates that ICANN has (or had) plans to increase the number of compliance staff, including adding two auditors and a manager to oversee whois-related complaints. If ICANN follows through, that should help the organization deal with the huge volume of complaints -- and improve compliance efforts in 2009.
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