[discuss] Roadmap for globalizing IANA

Thu Mar 6 12:39:17 UTC 2014

As it has been brought to my attention that my comments and question were
not clear enough to some, here is another way of stating my concerns
quoting from the original text (with a reiteration of my comments in square
brackets and caps).

<quote>

The DNSA would require a binding contract with ICANN regarding the
conditions under which

it would agree to implement changes in the root zone or other associated
databases to reflect policies

emerging from ICANN's policy development processes [WHO WILL BE THE
ENFORCER IN ODER TO MAKE SUCH CONTRACT BINDING?]. The contract should
ensure that the DNSA

has no policy authority but merely implements valid requests for additions
or deletions emerging from

ICANN's policy process [NOTED!]. DNSA would promise to abide by ICANN
policy directives on the

condition that ICANN's policy decisions related to the root not be used to
impose requirements on

registries, via registry agreements, to regulate content or otherwise
locally lawful behavior of registrants.

The existence of this contract would provide the opportunity for developing
an additional accountability

check on ICANN [HOW SO? AGAIN WHO IS THE AUTHORITY THAT WOULD MAKE THIS
SO-CALLED "ADDITIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY" EFFECTIVE?]. For example, if the
contract was not in perpetuity but was renewable every five

years, diverse entities might compete to replace the existing ICANN as the
policy development

authority [SO HERE IS THE CRUX: YOU SEEM TO BE SUGGESTING THAT ONE OF THOSE
PARTIES, THE DNSA, IS IN A POSITION TO AWARD THIS CONTRACT TO THE OTHER,
AND SO IT MIGHT AT SOME POINT WITHDRAW IT FROM THAT OTHER PARTY AND AWARD
IT TO ANOTHER -- NOT UNLIKE THE POSITION THE USG WAS IN WITH ICANN. DO YOU
UNDERSTAND THE TENSION? AT THE VERY LEAST THERE IS A GAP IN YOUR EXPLAINING
REGARDING THE FULL MECHANISMS OF THIS CONTRACTING, BUT YOU CAN'T JUST SAY
DNSA HAS NO POLICY AUTHORITY WHILE IMPLYING IT MIGHT TAKE THE CONTRACT AWAY
FROM ICANN (SINCE YOU HAVEN'T EXPLAINED WHERE ELSE THE AUTHORITY FOR DOING
THAT WOULD LIE IN THAT RELATIONSHIP OR GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE.] As for the
DNSA, as a private association of incumbent registries, any attempt by it to

manipulate root zone management to thwart competition or discriminate
against eligible members would

be easily challenged by competition law authorities in Europe, the U.S., or
elsewhere

</quote>

 =====================================
Mawaki Chango, PhD
Founder and CEO
DIGILEXIS Consulting

m.chango at digilexis.com | http://www.digilexis.com
Twitter: @digilexis | @dig_mawaki | Skype: digilexis
======================================

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:

> Milton,
>
>
> [Note: Sorry for coming late in this conversation and yet not reading all
> the previous comments and answers due to limited connection. So I am
> posting the following after reading the paper and drafting this off line.
> Apologies for any unintentional repetition.]
>
>
> Thank you and Brenden for putting together this innovative attempt to
> solving the challenges of the evolving institutional field for Internet
> governance, and for sharing it. I have two points about your proposal.
>
>
> First, it is not clear to me how combining the IANA functions (which your
> proposal define as clerical) with the Root Zone Maintainer functions (which
> I would think are technical, with no more decision making power than the
> IANA functions) in a new entity provides that entity with the authority you
> seem to be giving it.
>
> Indeed, it sounds like you're proposing to end the _political_ oversight
> from USG by replacing it with the industry (DNSA) oversight. You say the
> existence of a contract between ICANN and the DNSA provides check and
> balance to ICANN and that other entities may even compete to replace ICANN
> if that contract were to (as it could) be made renewable every 5 years for
> instance, etc. In other words, this contract doesn't seem like a contract
> between peer organizations with each just having specific different roles
> toward the other, but a contract between a principal and an agent, or in
> any case between an entity that has (a higher) authority over the other
> since the former can put an end to the raison d'etre of the latter and give
> it away to a competitor.
>
>
> While I understand the incentive-based rationale for the membership of the
> DNSA, I fail to see where you make the case for such larger authority as
> you attribute to it, again merely by combining the IANA functions with the
> Root Zone Maintainer functions. What is the source of the DNSA authority
> which makes it competent to exercise an oversight that matches the previous
> political oversight (since removing the term "political" from "oversight"
> doesn't seem to narrow it to only the clerical and technical roles DNSA is
> supposed to carry out in the new governance structure) and competent to
> decide to grant or not to grant ICANN its contract?
>
>
> I think clarifying this will also help resolve the question as to whether
> political considerations (in the larger sense of political) need to be
> brought to bear in deciding who should be part of the DNSA - which can be a
> decisive factor for the success or failure of this proposal.
>
>
> My second point is much shorter and concerns your reference to a treaty,
> at last twice. I don't seem to find anywhere in the text an explanation
> about what the purpose of a treaty would be within the framework of this
> proposal. Would you mind elaborate on that?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Mawaki
>
>  =====================================
> Mawaki Chango, PhD
> Founder and CEO
> DIGILEXIS Consulting
>
> m.chango at digilexis.com | http://www.digilexis.com
> Twitter: @digilexis | @dig_mawaki | Skype: digilexis
> ======================================
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 6:52 AM, Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mar 5, 2014, at 2:57 AM, Shatan, Gregory S. wrote:
>>
>> > Adam:
>> >
>> > Don't worry, I haven't dismissed the proposal out of hand.  I'm still
>> chewing on it.
>> >
>> > You mention the concern about "predictable and reliable service" -- do
>> you know of any instances where the current set-up has failed to provide
>> that?
>> >
>>
>>
>> For a period of about 12 months before David Conrad joined as IANA
>> General Manager in 2005 I understand IANA was not working well.  David
>> fixed things.  David or ccTLD managers on this list could explain and
>> clarify/correct my clumsy words.  IANA now has another very capable
>> manager, Elise Gerich.  But yes, I believe highly unreliable service for a
>> while.  Not quite the current set-up but within the general current
>> arrangement.
>>
>>
>> > I think the point about diversity of registries is an important one.
>>  In addition to those you mention, there are the ".brand" registries as
>> well, who would provide yet another voice.  (I assume these would be
>> included, even though they are not mentioned specifically in the proposal.
>>  To the extent these are "single registrant" gTLDs, the "weighting" issue
>> is interesting.  (Of course, there may be non-.brand single registrant TLDs
>> as well (I think I saw a couple of applications where the users were not
>> really "registrants" of SLDs ).)
>> >
>>
>>
>> Diversity can be a great protector: interests and motivations may not
>> align, etc.
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Greg
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Adam Peake [mailto:ajp at glocom.ac.jp]
>> > Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 12:32 PM
>> > To: Shatan, Gregory S.
>> > Cc: 'joseph alhadeff'; discuss at 1net.org
>> > Subject: Re: [discuss] Roadmap for globalizing IANA
>> >
>> >
>> > Hi Greg,
>> >
>> > On Mar 5, 2014, at 1:49 AM, Shatan, Gregory S. wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> The popular term for this might be "the fox guarding the henhouse."
>>  Of course, if it is merely "operational," then perhaps the concern is
>> overblown.  But if these functions are merely operational, why not just
>> leave them at ICANN?
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > Not sure about "fox guarding the henhouse"...  These functions are
>> essential to the registries' business.  As Milton keeps reminding us, it's
>> operational, they need predictable and reliable service.
>> >
>> > The diversity of registries is quite positive, very different business
>> models (from com to new community tlds), different stakeholders and
>> particularly sponsoring entities (for profit, ccTLD, government, IGO, NGO),
>> geographic diversity (though even with around 25% ccTLD not as balanced as
>> we'd hope), even language.
>> >
>> > I think it's worth looking at the merits of the proposal.
>> >
>> > Best,
>> >
>> > Adam
>> >
>> >
>> >> Greg Shatan
>> >>
>> >> From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On
>> >> Behalf Of joseph alhadeff
>> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 9:55 AM
>> >> To: discuss at 1net.org
>> >> Subject: Re: [discuss] Roadmap for globalizing IANA
>> >>
>> >> While I am not as well versed in these issues and their history of
>> some of the more frequent commentators, it would seem that accountability
>> is often benefited by and predicated on a separation of duties in
>> oversight.  The new organization seems to rely on self-interested parties
>> having an alignment of interest with the public good as opposed to the more
>> traditional concept of separation of duties/interest in oversight.  Am I
>> missing the checks and balances?
>> >>
>> >> Best-
>> >>
>> >> Joe
>> >> WOn 3/3/2014 9:43 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>> >> Nii, thanks for your questions. Most of them are actually answered in
>> the paper itself, but I will answer your questions directly.
>> >>
>> >>> Why is removing USG not mean just that? End of contract
>> >>
>> >> First, it would be the end of 2 contracts, not one. ICANN and
>> Verisign. You cannot just end the IANA functions contract.
>> >>
>> >> Second, both contracts contain serious accountability measures.
>> However wrongly conceived the idea of unilateral U.S. oversight is, how do
>> we ensure that the root zone is managed properly and what is the recourse
>> if the root zone managers are either negligent, incompetent or corrupt?
>> What do you replace the IANA contract with?
>> >>
>> >> The reason for a DNSA is that registries have the strongest incentive
>> to get root zone management right. It is their data that the root zone
>> contains. To ensure impartial administration we create a nondiscriminatory
>> right to own DNSA to all registries?
>> >>
>> >>> What problem is being solved by combining functions from other
>> >>> organizations to create another entity dnsa?
>> >>
>> >> As noted above: 1) accountability problem; 2) incentives problem. To
>> which we can add: not letting ICANN get too powerful.
>> >>
>> >>> The proposed Dnsa is potentially a consortium of 1000+ registries and
>> how would this work.
>> >>
>> >> Not that many companies involved. More like a few hundred; lots of
>> companies have multiple TLDs. Ownership shares might be based on some
>> metric of size, such as names under registration, etc.
>> >>
>> >> How does GNSO work? How does ccNSO work? How did Intelsat work?
>> (consortium of ~200 national telecom operators). How did Nominet work?
>> (shared ownership by many registrars) How does IEEE work? (hundreds of
>> thousands of members).
>> >>
>> >>> Is this different from creating another ICANN
>> >>
>> >> Very different. ICANN is for making policy. It involves representation
>> >> of diverse stakeholders and a complicated process for developing
>> >> consensus on policy and approval by the board. DNSA is for operations.
>> >> Most people I have talked to agree that we need to keep those things
>> >> separate. So, we separate them
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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