IANA Coordination Group Members Representative of ICANN Communities, but Work Could be Slowed, Some Say
The list of those for ICANN’s Coordination Group to develop a community proposal for the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) from the U.S. to a global multistakeholder body is representative of the myriad communities within the ICANN organization, but could be hampered in finding agreement on questions on the Domain Name System (DNS), said ICANN stakeholders in interviews Monday. ICANN released (http://bit.ly/1j2mQDS) Thursday the names of 18 of the 27 group members, which included Milton Mueller, Syracuse University information studies professor, as one of the three Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) representatives. ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade and ICANN board Chairman Steve Crocker had downplayed the group’s role in determining the future of IANA oversight and stewardship (CD June 24 p7).
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Not submitted were ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (two members), which requested five group members (CD June 27 p7), the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (four members), the At-Large Advisory Committee (GAC) (two members) and a remaining GNSO candidate, said an ICANN document (http://bit.ly/TUDGc2). The group’s first meeting is in London July 17-18; the deadline for candidate submissions was July 2, said the release. ICANN will continue posting candidate selections as it receives them, said a spokesman.
The group is charged with creating a proposal acceptable to NTIA’s criteria (http://1.usa.gov/1d33FkM) based on separate proposals from ICANN’s “names, numbers and protocol communities,” said Mueller in an interview. “The DNS is always the point where people find it hard to reach consensus,” because of “the politics and money” at stake, he said. The stakeholders with the most interest in the DNS include registries, registrars and non-commercial stakeholders, he said. “It’s hard to see” how the communities will sort out their differences on the DNS, said Mueller. The “key fact” about the group is that it’s “overweighted towards the technical community,” he said. The influence of the technical community is “good in some ways,” because they “tend to have a less politicized view” of the issues, he said. The technical community “sometimes” has an “absence of the understanding” of “politics and economics” of the DNS, which “makes them insensitive to the institutional choices regarding the DNS,” he said. Mueller will be watching to see if the ICANN board accepts its “non-decisional” role with the group and doesn’t interfere.
The ICANN “community has selected its own people,” said Michele Neylon, CEO of Irish domain registrar Blacknight Solutions, in an interview. ICANN needs to allow the group to work in a “bottom up” fashion without “getting in the way,” he said. The GAC request for more members is “messy,” because one wouldn’t want a particular group to be given “disproportionate” representation, he said. ICANN “has come under the spotlight” due to the IANA transition, said Neylon. The reaction from Capitol Hill in the U.S. (CD June 23 p9; June 9 p10; June 2 p8) has given way to significant “tension” and “a lot of conflation” related to the transition, he said. Some are “pitching” the transition as if the U.S. is “giving up control of the Internet,” he said. “That has nothing to do with what’s going on.”
ICANN communities have “distinct cultures” and the group will try to “knit all of that together” for the transition, said CEO Nao Matsukata of FairWinds Partners, a domain consultancy. The “biggest concern” is that an individual “might shy away” from the group “because they don’t have time,” he said, saying many of the selectees are experts in their respective areas and did have the necessary time. The group’s activities will be a “significant time commitment” and “most” of the group members “have day jobs,” said Neylon. The group has afforded a “positive feeling” about the ICANN community’s role in the transition, said Matsukata. He hoped the group would use July to “organize themselves” and “set realistic expectations” that will “hopefully” be exceeded.