ICANN GAC Requests More Spots on IANA-Related Coordination Group
ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) requested more slots on the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)-related Coordination Group and asked some questions of the New gTLD (generic top-level domain) Program Committee (NGPC), in its London communiqué (http://bit.ly/1jo8xUW) Wednesday. Thursday was the final day of the ICANN 50 conference, which stakeholders had expected to be dominated by discussions on the IANA transition and Internet governance (CD June 24 p7).
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The GAC requested five slots, including the GAC chair, on the Coordination Group. The coordinating body (CD June 13 p12) originally slotted two of its 27 spots for the GAC (http://bit.ly/1q4zTqg). The deadline for candidate nominations for the coordinating body is July 2.
Two is a “difficult number” for the GAC, said GAC Chairwoman Heather Dryden in a live text-stream provided by ICANN Thursday. Dryden said there was a “high expectation” that the coordination body would share information with the GAC. It’s “sensitive when governments are put in the position of having another government speak for them,” and “we have wanted to expand out our numbers,” said Dryden. The GAC understands that this is a “coordination group and that there will be that opportunity” for the GAC to “contribute fully” and “develop” its “views wherever possible on these issues,” she said. “The GAC is committed to engaging with the current processes dealing with transition of US Government stewardship of IANA; and strengthening ICANN accountability,” said its communiqué.
The “accountability gap left by the NTIA is interdependent with” ICANN’s “accountability process,” said Milton Mueller, Syracuse University information studies professor, in a live text-stream Thursday. “Unless” the IANA transition “comes up with an adequate substitute for that kind of accountability,” the transition “must not and should not happen,” he said.
The ICANN board should ask the NGPC to provide the GAC with a “comprehensive and satisfactory response” to “legitimate concerns” raised in past GAC communiqués, said the London communiqué. Those issues include: “The process for verification of WHOIS information;” “proactive verification of credentials for Registrants of domain names in regulated and highly regulated industries (the Relevant Category 1 strings);” “proactive security checks by registries;” “Public Interest Commitments Dispute Resolution Process (PICDRP), which is not defined as to Length of procedure or outcome;” and “discrimination in restricted TLDs,” it said. The GAC asked ICANN’s board to “provide its responses to GAC advice at least four weeks prior to ICANN meetings in order to give sufficient time to the GAC to assess and provide feedback on these complicated matters.” (jmcknight@warren-news.com),