[discuss] Host country

Mon Mar 17 21:42:15 UTC 2014

John,

On Mar 17, 2014, at 11:06 AM, John Curran <jcurran at istaff.org> wrote:
>> There is one case where it is not possible: when the requester and the IANA functions operator reside in the same country.  In all other cases, if the interaction is performed in an open and transparent manner, the lack of action by the IANA functions operator would indicate interference of one form or another.
>> 
>> Of course, this would imply that requesters be open and transparent in the submission of their requests...
> 
> Agreed, but presumes that the requests actually go to the IANA.  

If they don't, are they requests?

> For example, I do 
> not know if discussions regarding country code redelegations go to IANA or ICANN, 

Hmm. IANA is a set of functions (currently) performed by ICANN so I'm not sure I understand your distinction. However, redelegation request are considered confidential (at the historical request of the requesters IIUC) -- this was the reason for the my comment above.  I personally believe this should change, but I suspect that'll require some sort of policy action.

> and whether such discussions would be inhibited by the potential for OFAC issues 
> in some cases. 

AFAIK, OFAC-based sanctions apply to actually performing services, not discussions.

> I imagine some folks would be concerned if that were the case (whereas some might 
> not care), but either way the important principle is that the effect that any host 
> country's laws have on the IANA registries need to be readily apparent to the entire
> Internet community. It is only by having visibility into such effects that there 

> can be any meaningful consideration of the situation by the global community.

Agreed, although the fact that the laws keep changing adds a bit of complexity. It appears every country has lows similar to those that OFAC enforces (e.g, a couple of websites of random countries that have been mentioned in various recent threads: http://www.mfa.is/foreign-policy/sanctions/ & http://www.seco.admin.ch/themen/00513/00620/00622/index.html) so I'm not sure relocating the IANA function operator outside the US will address this particular concern.

Regards,
-drc

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