ICANN's Strategic Plan – Revisited
ICANN has announced that they will soon release "a proposed three year Strategic Plan." ICANN states that the draft Plan "sets the direction and establishes the three-year goal for ICANN's Staff and Operational Functions." ICANN plans two public comment opportunities on the Plan followed by final approval in February-March 2005.

ICANN's Strategic Plan announcement raises an array of questions, particularly regarding the Strategic Plan required by the corporation's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Commerce.

DOC's MOU with ICANN required that the organization provide the Department with a Strategic Plan no later than December 31st of 2003. The purpose of the ICANN Strategic Plan was to set forth "ICANN's goals for securing long-term sustainability of its critical domain name and numbering system management responsibilities, including the necessary corporate structure and financial and personnel resources to meet such responsibilities." The MOU provided extensive detail as to the required elements of ICANN's Strategic Plan and also included a specific implementation timetable.

In response to a FOIA request to NTIA asking for a copy of the Strategic Plan, ICANNfocus received a number of documents including a letter from ICANN's President and CEO to NTIA dated January 19, 2004 regarding the "ICANN Strategic Plan". The ICANN letter stated, "We anticipate sharing this plan with the community in general as part of our public fiscal year 2004-2005 budget formulation process and thank you again for not sharing the document until that time." In their draft budget 2004-2005 budget, ICANN discussed the Strategic Plan prepared under the MOU and explained the centrality of the Plan to their budget by stating that "The budget process this year started with the formulation of the ICANN strategic plan."

Despite ICANN's formally telling NTIA of their intention to release the Strategic Plan as part of the budgetary process and using this "anticipated sharing" of the Plan as the reason why NTIA should not release the document, the corporation did not publish the Strategic Plan as part of their budget process. Now, after the 2004-2005 budget has been finalized, ICANN announces that they will be releasing a "proposed" Strategic Plan. Relevant questions include:

1. Why did ICANN not release their Strategic Plan as they anticipated?
   
   
2. What is the relation between the new proposed three year Strategic Plan and the Strategic Plan ICANN submitted to NTIA? Is it an updated version of the Plan prepared under the MOU or a different document?
   
   
3. Why has ICANN not provided to the public any explanation regarding questions 1 and 2?