[discuss] Dear ICANN - Feedback

Tue Apr 15 02:43:33 UTC 2014

Hi Suzanne,

I am talking specifically about what you call "root zone management"  (or 
more accurately a part of it), what Paul Vixie used to refer to as the "root 
zone authoritation (sic) role", what George is referring to as "ticking the 
box", what Parminder would call "IANA oversight", and what NTIA calls a 
"clerical role".  (No wonder people are confused!)

My personal belief - which many of my colleagues disagree with - is that 
"oversight" is unnecessary, and it can end with the NTIA involvement. In 
fact, I believe everything that NTIA did can just be scrapped. Providing of 
course, that properly constructed consultative processes are in place before 
someone gives the "final tick".

You don't have to convince me of that, but you do have to convince the 
European Union, most nations, probably a majority of civil society and 
academics involved in these debates,  and at least some business and 
technical community interests.

That can only happen through a process of constructive engagement, not by 
setting up a steering committee excluding these stakeholders, and certainly 
not by leaving out events such as the Internet Governance Forum.

My belief is that a process which is not inclusive here will fail - and that 
is the worst result we can get. It may be tedious having to deal with 
political types and governmental types, but they are real, and they need to 
be involved in decision making on this. (and from ICANN's point of view, 
they need to be seen to be involved).

I note the draft statement for NetMundial includes some of these thoughts - 
so that you can be sure this is not just one errant non technical type 
making these statements, here as some quotes (note this is a document in 
progress, but this is an advanced draft emanating from the organisers after 
consultation with stakeholder group representatives).

BEGIN QUOTE

" In the follow up to the recent and welcomed announcement of US Government 
with regard to its intent to transition the stewardship of IANA functions, 
the discussion about mechanisms for guaranteeing the transparency and 
accountability of those functions after the US Government role ends,  has to 
take place through an open process with the participation of all 
stakeholders extending beyond the ICANN community.

The IANA functions are currently performed under policies developed in 
processes hosted by several organizations and forums. Any adopted mechanism 
should protect the bottom up, open and participatory nature of those policy 
development processes and ensure the stability and resilience of the 
Internet.

This transition should be conducted thoughtfully with a focus on maintaining 
the security and stability of the Internet, empowering the principle of 
equal participation among all stakeholder groups and striving towards a 
completed transition by September 2015."

END QUOTE

PS. My committee suggestion is advanced as one practical way to meet these 
concerns, and facilitate active involvement. I am happy to see another 
method of achieving this.

Ian Peter

-----Original Message----- 
From: Suzanne Woolf
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 11:37 AM
To: Ian Peter
Cc: George Sadowsky ; discuss at 1net.org ; ianatransition at icann.org
Subject: Re: [discuss] Dear ICANN - Feedback

Ian,

I'm not George, but I think I understand his question. Sadly, I'm one of 
those "technical people," so I may be even more puzzled than he is.

Since the IANA functions *are* technical functions, I'm somewhat confused as 
to what decision making is left for the "business, governmental, and civil 
society representatives who don't attend ICANN/technical community meetings" 
when you've declared that the day-to-day operations of IANA are not 
interesting to you and can be left to the "technical community" committee 
ICANN is already proposing.

The only specific thing I can find in this thread that you've said you're 
interested in is *who* performs the stewardship of these technical 
functions. But I'm not sure why you're interested, given that you're not 
interested in the technical functions of IANA. So I'm asking a couple of 
questions here.

Do you think the scope of this "everyone but the technical community" effort 
would be "oversight" of the IETF's or the RIRs' policy processes for 
providing direction to IANA? "Oversight" of ICANN's decisions and processes 
about what goes into the root zone? "Oversight" of decision-making in other 
aspects of IANA's or ICANN's work?

In the course of this discussion on-and-off over many years, it seems that 
often when people talk about "IANA", they really mean the policy processes 
around the part of IANA generally referred to as "Root Zone Management," 
which is quite specific to a very small set of technical activities but is 
closely coupled with ICANN's most prominent policy activity by far. If 
that's the case here, it makes sense for us to be clear about it.

In particular, I can agree it makes sense to keep any effort to revisit 
ICANN's policy activities around the contents of the DNS root separate from 
those technical functions that don't interest you (but are nonetheless 
fairly important to the actual functioning and growth of the Internet). In 
fact I think that's been one of the things we've largely agreed on, even 
when disagreeing in significant ways over other aspects of the issues at 
hand.

Is DNS root zone policy (what names go into the DNS root, operating rules 
for registries) what you intended as the scope of this wider effort to 
provide a plan for oversight?

If not, I admit I'm still puzzled. It's not immediately obvious to me what's 
left to provide "oversight" *for* if it's not the IANA technical functions 
and it's not root zone policy.

thanks,
Suzanne

On Apr 14, 2014, at 8:14 PM, "Ian Peter" <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

> whatever, George...
>
> Remove the word evolution if it doesnt work for you. My main point here 
> (speaking to you as an ICANN director) is that you must involve the 
> community who don't attend ICANN /technical community meetings in decision 
> making here - including business, governmental, and civil society 
> representatives (and yes we could spend the next five years deciding how 
> to select them or just do it). As you already have a committee of 24 - 
> close to an unworkable size, and with a wider agenda it would seem - I am 
> suggesting a separate group to consider the specific "oversight"  issue 
> from a more focussed stakeholder perspective.
>
>
>
>
>
> Ian Peter
>
> -----Original Message----- From: George Sadowsky
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 9:09 AM
> To: Peter Ian
> Cc: ianatransition at icann.org ; discuss at 1net.org
> Subject: Re: [discuss] Dear ICANN - Feedback
>
> Ian,
>
> I’m trying to get away from the generalities that may sound nice but don’t 
> help us to get at ways of leveraging change.
>
> Are you suggesting a committee to “examine how this function evolves,” the 
> function being ticking the box?  I had thought that we were looking at 
> ways in which this function could be acceptably transferred.  Thjat’s a 
> necessary condition, and it may be sufficient.
>
> When you talk about evolution, that’s an entirely different matter.  What 
> is your time frame for this evolution?  20 years?  If so, the internet 
> will be a very different place, and I would question anyone’s ability to 
> predict what the management and governance issues would be at that time. 
> So I have the following follow-up questions:
>
> 1. Why are you concerned about evolution rather than focusing on transfer?
>
> 2. Are there any boundaries on your consideration of such evolution?  If 
> so, what are they, and how do they contribute to solving the current 
> problem, i.e. a transition of the IANA function away from the US 
> Government, based upon the constraints laid out by NTIA?  If not, why is 
> this not just futuristic intellectual exercise that will not contribute to 
> the current discussion?
>
> 3. What would the terms of reference of the committee be?  What expertise 
> would the committee have to have in order that its recommendations would 
> be consistent with the current continuation of stable, secure, and 
> resilient Internet functioning?
>
> Regards,
>
> George
>
>
> On Apr 13, 2014, at 9:45 PM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:
>
>> George,
>>
>> I would not describe it an an operational function myself. Nothing 
>> operational is involved. NTIA checks to see that appropriate policies 
>> have been followed. And, as you say, ticks the box. Then the change 
>> occurs. I don't call that operational, but maybe that is just semantics. 
>> Many people call this the "oversight" function, but that is not a good 
>> description either.
>>
>> In any case, who performs this  previous NTIA role under new structures 
>> (if anyone)  is the question of broader interest. Which is why I suggest 
>> a committee with wider involvement to examine how this best evolves.
>>
>> Your statement below is a little confusing to me, but to be clear I am 
>> only suggesting a committee to examine how the function evolves and make 
>> recommendations. I am not suggesting a committee to perform the 
>> "oversight" function.
>>
>> Ian Peter
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: George Sadowsky
>> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 11:26 AM
>> To: Peter Ian
>> Cc: ianatransition at icann.org ; discuss at 1net.org
>> Subject: Re: [discuss] Dear ICANN - Feedback
>>
>> Ian,
>>
>> I want to probe your response below somewhat further.
>>
>> At the moment, the IANA operational function that NTIA performs is, in 
>> the case of any new delegation or redelegation of any entry in the root 
>> zone file. NTIA checks to see that the appropriate policies have been 
>> followed. If they have, IANA checks the box, and the change occurs.
>>
>> Is this the function that you suggest should be delegated to a separate 
>> committee involving wider representation from the wider multistakeholder 
>> community involving a much wider range of governmental, civil society and 
>> business interests?
>>
>> If not, could you please be precise in describing exactly which other 
>> functions are to be replaced by this wider group?
>>
>> George
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 13, 2014, at 8:58 PM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear ICANN,
>>>
>>> You have asked for feedback on your proposal, so here is mine.
>>>
>>> Firstly, I now think your Steering Committee is fine for most of your 
>>> initial tasks. I originally did not, as it is narrowly constricted to 
>>> the technical community rather than the wider multistakeholder community 
>>> involved with internet governance issues. However, as I can see from the 
>>> scattered discussions occurring here and on other lists, there seem to 
>>> be quite a few people wanting to talk about the minutae of day to day 
>>> operational matters, and your steering committee will serve to bring 
>>> some focus and structure to those discussions. I would suggest your 
>>> first task might be to examine which if any of the current functions, 
>>> each of which seem to have been performed well for over a decade, might 
>>> need to be re-examined.
>>>
>>> But for most of us, these discussions are beyond our level of interest, 
>>> and hence you will notice on this list and on others the number of 
>>> people who have just stopped engaging.
>>>
>>> However, there is one issue on which many of us to maintain some 
>>> interest, and that is the oversight function which was the subject of 
>>> the NTIA announcement. This has been described as simply clerical, some 
>>> of us have seen it as largely symbolic, but whatever the reality is, 
>>> this function has been the subject of contention for over a decade and 
>>> will continue to be – not so much in the narrow steering committee of 
>>> the technical groups, but in the wider multistakeholder community 
>>> involving a much wider range of governmental, civil society and business 
>>> interests.
>>>
>>> Which is where my main suggestion lies. I think you need a separate 
>>> committee to look at this particular issue, and one which involves 
>>> representation from wider stakeholder groups not directly associated 
>>> with the technical community – because, in the end, they will make or 
>>> break any proposal for change here. I urge you to look at the 
>>> appropriate way to engage this wider stakeholder group – as well, 
>>> perhaps you could engage this wider and more representative group with 
>>> involvement at eg the Internet Governance Forum, a notable absentee from 
>>> your calendar of events.
>>>
>>> One more suggestion and word of caution. There seems to be a prevailing 
>>> thought that it doesn’t matter how long it takes to resolve this, and if 
>>> it goes beyond September 2015 so be it. I disagree. If ICANN and 
>>> associated bodies cannot come up with a structure for a simple 
>>> governance function in 18 months – a task any government or corporation 
>>> could do in less than three months – it will be widely perceived as 
>>> being incapable and inefficient. People will lose patience and begin to 
>>> look at other alternatives. So I do suggest that you add some firm 
>>> timelines to your deliberations.
>>>
>>> I hope this input is useful to you. I look forward to some more 
>>> structured discussion in the future, and to a recognition that the sorts 
>>> of matters largely being discussed here are in many cases not the 
>>> matters that concern the wider community of interests beyond the 
>>> technical community. You must structure your activities to engage those 
>>> wider interests positively.
>>>
>>> Ian Peter
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> discuss mailing list
>>> discuss at 1net.org
>>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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