“Another criticism of the new agreement is that it was negotiated between ICANN and DOC in secret, even as the agreement calls on ICANN to be accountable and transparent to the public and to use a bottom-up decision-making process.
“Whatever deliberation occurred prior to the approval of this ‘affirmation of commitments’ was entirely secret — except for those favorite friends ICANN chose to invite into the smoke-filled room, or to whom the deliberations or decisions were leaked,” Edward Hasbrouck, a travel blogger and ICANN critic wrote on ICANNwatch.org, an ICANN watchdog site.
“In fact, the completely secret, nontransparent and unaccountable way in which these ‘commitments’ were adopted is clear and compelling evidence of ICANN’s continuing ‘lack’ of any actual commitment to these principles, or indeed to any transparency or accountability; its continuing commitment to lie — as loudly and as prominently as it can — about its lack of accountability and transparency; and the continuing need for ‘real’ transparency and accountability,” the blog post continued.”
excerpt from another article at PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172986/new_icann_agreement_runs_into_criticism.html
Yes, it's strange, was there anything in the media leading up to this decision? If not, it lends credence to Hasbrouck’s claims.
One possible problem with this (imho) are trademark problems for US businesses. Large corporations won't have any problem, as most are international conglomerates anyway, but middle and small US businesses could have big problems. Am I interpreting this correctly?