Time for ICANN Stakeholders to Engage IANA Transition Pressing Questions, Say ICANN Officials
ICANN stakeholders needs to move beyond the debate over the proposal process for the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and begin engaging the more pressing questions of IANA’s future oversight and stewardship, said ICANN officials at the ICANN 50 conference (http://bit.ly/Tp4IIq) in London Monday. Before the conference, parties told us they expected ICANN 50 to deal more with Internet governance than domain name issues (CD June 23 p10). The U.K. government “strongly” supports the transition, said U.K. Communications Minister Ed Vaizey in opening remarks. London is the largest conference in ICANN history, with 3,343 individual registrations, said ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade.
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"As ICANN has performed the IANA functions over the years, it has matured as an organization and has taken important steps to improve its accountability and transparency as well as its technical competence,” said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling (http://1.usa.gov/1szDZJe) at the high-level government meeting. He said “international support has continued to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” based on the multistakeholder document (http://bit.ly/1nLhMBC) produced at the Internet governance conference NETmundial in Sao Paulo, Brazil (CD April 28 p13). The current IANA contract is to expire Sept. 30, 2015, but it’s not a “deadline,” he said. “We can extend the contract past September 2015 for up to four years,” he said. “Before any transition takes place, the businesses, civil society and technical experts of this community must present a consensus plan that ensures the uninterrupted and stable functioning of the Internet and its present openness.”
If ICANN continues to work on the proposal process and not the issues within the proposal, ICANN could miss a “huge window of opportunity” to complete the transition, said Chehade in response to questions at a news conference. Though changes will continue to be made to the revised transition proposal (http://bit.ly/1q4zTqg), “we need to get going,” he said. The IANA Coordinating Committee (http://bit.ly/SXNJMO) (CD June 13 p12) is “definitely not run by ICANN,” he said. The committee will have its first meeting July 17 in London, he said. “There will be additional demands -- no one will find it perfect -- but I think we need to move on” with the transition, said Chehade. The “next few months” will be spent on “how to do the transition,” he said.
The committee isn’t “where the action is going to be,” said ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker. “It’s not a decision body, it’s a facilitation body.” The “more time we spend on trying to fiddle with the coordination body, the less time we're going” to spend on “substantive discussion,” he said. The multistakeholder community needs to address “stewardship issues,” the “oversight” of “future IANA functions,” and find the “division between policy and execution” for the transition, said Crocker. “Getting that blueprint clear is what needs to be done.”
"ICANN was purpose-built to house the IANA functions, period,” said Chehade. There’s “no need” for “another ICANN,” he said. ICANN “should ensure that the proper mechanisms are in place to address” the “separation of certain functions,” he said. The committee needs to provide guidance on the previous question, but the “scope” of the transition is “clear,” he said.
"The overwhelming majority of the community” seems to accept “that the IANA transition will occur,” said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw, in an Internet Commerce Association blog post (http://bit.ly/1m6pOBI) Monday. “Finalizing” the transition “prior to the development and acceptance of enhanced accountability measures would surrender the only real leverage for improving ICANN’s adherence to community input in the future,” he said.
IANA’s “stewardship” isn’t about “regulation” or “ownership,” but “nurturing the Internet,” said U.K. Communications Minister Vaizey. The transition and its proposal process are about “global cooperation rather than state centered regulation,” he said. “Internet governance has to match the rapid pace of change experienced by the Internet itself."
ICANN signed an agreement with Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority calling for the creation of a regional Domain Name System (DNS) entrepreneurship center in Cairo, said an ICANN news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1lLOjKe). The center will develop DNS expertise in the region, it said. ICANN said it signed an agreement with Qatar to support the “development of the domain name industry and Internationalized Domain Names (such as those in Arabic script) in the region” and “to promote the multistakeholder model of Internet Governance.” The agreements were signed at the High-Level Government meeting Monday, said ICANN.
New Zealand-based consulting firm Westlake Governance was chosen to do an independent review of ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO), said an ICANN news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1uYxo6T). The GNSO is the group responsible for policymaking for generic top-level domains. ICANN said “the review will begin immediately and is expected to conclude in January.”