Takes jab at Donuts hiring Atallah — NTIA chief

Redl suggests cooling off period between ICANN employment and working for domain firms.

David Redl, who heads the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, took an apparent jab at the outgoing President of ICANN’s Global Domains Division in comments today.

In his prepared comments, Redl stated:

While the community has greatly improved ICANN’s accountability through the IANA stewardship transition process, there are still improvements to be made.

As one example, we need safeguards to ensure that ICANN staff and leadership are not only grounded ethically in their professional actions at ICANN, but also in their actions when they seek career opportunities outside of ICANN.

One potential fix could be “cooling off periods” for ICANN employees that accept employment with firms involved in ICANN activities and programs. This is an ethical way to ensure that conflicts of interest or appearances of unethical behavior are minimized.

The timing of the comments suggests that this is in reference to Akram Atallah leaving ICANN to run fresh top level domain firm Donuts. Donuts hired Atallah following former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé’s private equity group purchased Donuts.