Did former ICANN Board Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush damage the organisation by joining a new gTLD consultancy firm as soon as he left the Board?

If calls by a US Senator for more ethics at ICANN are anything to go by, the answer may very well be a resounding yes.

Ron Wyden, a democrat representing Oregon, has sent a letter to Acting Commerce Department Secretary Rebecca Blank and NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Agency) boss Lawrence Strickling in which he warns about the possibility for favouritism the "Dengate precedent" sets.

Obviously, the IANA contract that is currently up for renewal is the US government's main mechanism for putting pressure on ICANN. "I urge you to put in place guidelines that ensure any future IANA has clear ethics rules and conflict of interest requirements in place," Wyden wrote in his letter.

The Senator's press release also talks about his "concerns about the potential for bias and unfair favoritism stemming from a revolving door between internet regulators and the multi-million dollar domain name industry they formerly regulated."

So does ICANN have an ethics problem? In my opinion, it's the way the Board works at the moment that's the real concern. 

Perhaps current research into whether the Board should be paid might help...