Newly appointed ICANN director Rod Beckstrom did not waste any time in replying to European Union pressure to cut ties between ICANN and the US government.

Technology news broadcaster OSnews.com summed up the message of Besckstrom's first media conference as "the internet works fine, so there's little need for change."

Only weeks before, the European Commission (EC) had called for "an open, independent and accountable governance of the internet," lending support to suggestions from EU commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding, who, in a video blog on her site, had called for a "globally responsible, privatised ICANN."

Both  the EC and Reding called for "multilateral accountability," including the set up of what Reding called "G-12 for Internet Governance." This organisation was to be "a small, independent international tribunal" that would oversee the working of ICANN and that would include two representatives from each North America, South America, Europe and Africa, three representatives from Asia and Australia, as well as the Chairman of ICANN as a non-voting member.

Beckstrom, who is a former director of the US National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), was quoted by OSnews.com as saying that 80 countries were already represented in the Governmental Advisory Committee, an ICANN advisory body.

"Clearly, everyone at ICANN hopes that all the nations in the world will come and participate in that, and it is a vital group that feeds directly into the board, which is the policy decision-making body of ICANN," OSnews.com quoted Beckstrom as saying.

"So there is already a mechanism there for international participation," he said.

Reason for the European Union calls for changes was the opportunity that would appear when the current joint project agreement between ICANN and teh US department of commerce runs out on September 30 2009.
Beckstrom, however, said he believed the agreement should be renewed, OSNews.com said, simply because the current set-up worked out so well.

"The system on whole is healthy, but also strained, and part of the strains are natural and part of the democratic process. The process may be noisy, but a stable Internet is what has come out of ICANN," OSnews.com quoted Beckstrom as saying.

According to Beckstrom, the naming and addressing system that ICANN oversees has worked with "an incredible record of reliability and phenomenal scaling."