Nine additional directors who are part of the ICANN board are chosen by supporting organizations devoted to domain names, addresses and protocol.

Froomkin said that the initial board was "mistrustful of the [election] process...and not absolutely without reason."

"They didn't know who would get elected," he said.

According to Andrew McLaughlin, chief policy and financial officer of ICANN, Froomkin's argument was rejected at a meeting in June.

"Indeed, the groups that most strongly 'insisted' upon an extension of terms for four of the original nine directors were the public interest groups, including the Center for

Democracy and Technology, Common Cause and the [American Civil Liberties Union], and their counterparts in various parts of the world," McLaughlin wrote in an e-mail message.

"[Wilson] consented to remain, until a plan for choosing her successor is determined, after wide public study and consultation. None of the four remaining directors is anxious to stay on the ICANN Board--they're doing so out of a public-spirited commitment to the ICANN process," wrote McLaughlin, who is also a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "The consensus ...was that the number of At Large directors on the ICANN Board should remain at nine."

Wilson did not return repeated calls at her home in Maine.