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For an organization that repeatedly promises to improve its accountability and transparency, ICANN remains dangerously comfortable with providing only the barest details of a crucial software failure it suffered this week.

Literally the day that it was due to close applications on its flagship program to create potentially thousands of new Internet extensions, the organization announced it was suspending its online application system due to "unusual behavior".

Since then the company's COO Akram Atallah has put out a daily update. Other than these few short paragraphs of basic detail, however, the organization has refused to provide any further information, despite global negative coverage.

There are two ways to handle a situation where your computer system may have been hacked.

You can start from the worst case scenario, investigate, and work backwards - this is the process that most companies (with the notable exception of Apple) have learnt from experience is the best way to go.

Alternatively, you can assume the best, investigate, and be forced to constantly re-evaluate how bad the situation really is. This is the approach that inexperienced companies take, and it is the one that ICANN is following with the news that there has been "unusual behavior" in its application system for new gTLDs.

The glitch couldn't have happened at a worse time. The organization was just about to close applications for its flagship program and that same day it had received mainstream media coverage, putting a spotlight on it.

And what it says about the organization that it didn't

Last week ICANN approved its "digital archery" plan for splitting up new gTLD applicants into batches.

With between 1,000 and 1,500 applications expected, the batching process is going to be incredibly important, especially since, as one commentator has pointed out with some frustration, ICANN has given no indication of the time gap between batch processing.

If we take the assumption that it will be six months between batches (likely since ICANN has already agreed it will not add more than 1,000 extensions per year) - that means if you are in the third batch, your competitors will have a 12-month headstart. And that could mean the difference between success and failure.

No one can accuse Rod Beckstrom of not speaking his mind. Although ICANN would probably be much happier if he didn't.

Adding to the long list of "what's he done now?" moments, the organization's outgoing CEO choose the opening ceremony of the ICANN Costa Rica to tackle the issue of conflicts within ICANN at the highest level.

As Board members winced and community members rolled their eyes, he used the last five minutes of his speech to repeatedly attack his own Board, as well as ICANN's Nominating Committee (NomCom) - which chooses eight of the Board's 21 members.

I am delighted to announce significant progress in the negotiations for my country's move toward democracy through the Regional Armaments Agreement.

We recently provided a summary of negotiations with the United Nations' special envoy. We have had many meetings with the envoy, in face and on the telephone. A huge amount of work has been done and I am delighted to say that we have been working well and hope to reach agreement very soon.

Of course, no negotiation is a simple process. At times it has been contentious. And it would be remiss of me not to note that it is also an extremely complex situation. We are dealing with a very diverse group. These things take time. And I don't want to sacrifice quality for speed.

I would also like to note that during this process, we have been extremely critical of ourselves. In fact, I reached out to my tribe and I told them: "Tell me what you think. Are we doing enough? Are you happy with where we are?" We had a very open discussion, and I was surprised to find no disagreement at all.

Costa Rica is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever ICANN meetings with anywhere between 1,500 and 75,000 people expected to attend.

Over five days, between 100 and 5,000 sessions will be held in 600 different meetings rooms (or possibly 12). A huge range of topics will be covered - anywhere up to 2,000. It depends. We'll let you know once it over.

Imagine if you went to a supermarket and looked at the price next to the apples: "Fresh Granny Smiths: buy now for between 25 cents and $12.50." You complete your shop. That'll be $3,271.50, please. Sorry, I meant $65.43.

This is the world according to ICANN. It opened applications for new gTLDs on 12 January; it will close them on 12 April. In the meantime, it knows exactly how many applications for particular Internet extensions there are.

And yet for reasons that continue to elude those not living on Planet ICANN, no one is allowed to know what that number is.

Lies, damn lies, and TAS registrants

What we do have is the number of registrations in the application system. But isn't that the same thing? Well, no. Each registration allows for up to 50 actual applications, ICANN keeps reminding us. Some people will apply for one string; some for 50.

But that's not all: multiple applicants are also registering separately for different applications. Some of the time. So there may be overlaps. Then again, there may not. We don't know, but ICANN does.

Starting tomorrow and for three days, a self-selecting elite of Internet governance specialists will meet in Geneva to review what happened at September’s Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi and decide what should happen at the next one this November in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The group will tell its personal echo chamber, located in Room XVIII at the Palais des Nations, that things are progressing well. And it will tell itself that improvements can always be made but that the IGF serves an extremely useful purpose in the overall governance and functioning of the Internet.

The truth however is that the organization has no money, it remains leaderless, and it continues to wilt under the angry gaze of its United Nations overseer.

The other sad truth is that those in a position to reverse the decline will this week expend more energy protecting their special status than in developing ways to save what was once looked like a possible future of global decision-making.

Money problems

Integrated Policy Impact Assessment was first introduced among OECD countries and has been recognized by many International Organisations and Governments as a primary means of examining and measuring the likely benefits, costs and effects of new or changed regulations and policies. It has for example been embraced as a standard by the European Union and the UNDP, and best practices and guidelines are now widely available.

This approach basically brings together all the evidence that underlines a policy decision into one document, structured according to agreed guidelines to ensure consistency and completeness. Potentially, this offers the opportunity to improve the transparency and accountability of policy processes, and to provide a strong evidence base for policy making. Using Integrated Policy Impact Assessments according to explicit guidelines could dramatically increase transparency and hence confidence in the way ICANN takes decisions.

Innovation and stakeholder issues