ICANN suffers from regulatory capture, mostly to the benefit of US-based corporations.
To cite the main episodes:
• Capture of International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP) (1998): The process
by which the Internet community was to design ICANN was captured by powerful
industry and technical stakeholders. They boycotted public meetings and successfully
proposed their own secretly-written bylaws for ICANN.
• Capture of ICANN Board (2002): The same industry and technical interests
eliminated user representation on the board. (This remains the case today.)
• Capture of the Internet Society (2002): In 2002 ISOC revised its bylaws to ensure
that the society would be governed by its largest corporate members. This has led to
two derivative acts of capture:
o Capture of .ORG registry. This registry is now managed by ISOC.
o Capture of ICANN’s At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). Nearly 60% of
certified user-related organizations in ICANN are chapters of ISOC.
• Capture of .COM by Network Solutions. This US corporation has extended its very
profitable control of the most popular domain name.

The goal of legitimate private governance of the Internet has not been met. Powerful
stakeholders are able to bend rules in their favor, while the influence of users and civil
society groups has been minimized.

Hans Klien makes a solid arguement that ICANN needs to have a clear government charter and a judicial review process. The problem is that no one has the political legitimacy to establish this. I continue to beleive that this global taxonomy idea is going to come crashing down.

ICANN Reform: Establishing the Rule of Law