ICANN to Lean on Obama Administration if Congress Tries to Thwart IANA Transition, Says Chehade
LOS ANGELES -- The scope and speed of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition remained a point of contention among stakeholders as ICANN 51 drew to a close Thursday. The conference saw an increase of community consensus around the IANA transition’s corresponding accountability process (see 1410140062), but the substantive work of those proposal processes is just beginning. We asked ICANN’s leadership what course they might take if Congress were to interfere with the IANA transition, assuming the IANA Coordination Group submits its final transition proposal to NTIA by June 30 (see 1410160057).
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ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade told us that “if Congress decides to find a way to stop” the IANA transition next year, Congress will have to “deal with the [Obama] administration,” at a public forum Thursday. ICANN doesn’t have a role to play on that front, he said. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s presence Monday at ICANN 51 should “send a pretty strong signal where the administration stands” on the IANA transition, he said. Chehade said it was the first time a U.S. Cabinet secretary participated in an ICANN meeting. ICANN has the “support” of President Obama and anticipates completing the IANA proposal process in a “timely fashion,” he said. “But more importantly, in a fashion that satisfies this community and the NTIA."
As the accountability cross-community working group (CCWG) begins to develop mechanisms for the IANA transition and broader accountability issues, it would be helpful if the ICANN board responded in “real time” to any legal concerns it has on the CCWG’s proposals, said NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco. That is “far superior” to the alternative of sending proposals to the board only to have them returned, he said. DelBianco also said that it’s up to the ICANN community to “define” the separate tracks for the accountability process, keeping in mind that some of the more expansive accountability issues may have to wait until after the IANA transition.
Board Vice Chairman Bruce Tonkin said he agreed with DelBianco’s communication suggestion for the board and the CCWG. The board will also have a liaison on the CCWG, said Tonkin.
The IANA transition should be “guided by consensus based decisions and serve the public interest with clearly implementable, transparent and verifiable accountability mechanisms that satisfy the requirement of all affected stakeholders,” said the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) communiqué released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lgcieN). “The concept of public interest should be seen as encompassing the larger interest of the different communities affected by Internet Governance processes,” not the interests of particular stakeholders, it said. It’s “crucial” that the accountability process is guided by not only technical issues, but “public policy considerations,” said the GAC. All stakeholders should be involved in the accountability process, including governments, it said
The IANA functions are “really, really boring,” and yet, “we’re seeing a lot of people trying to use the IANA transition as a proxy for opening up … crazy conversations around how the Internet works,” said Michele Neylon, managing director of Blacknight, an Ireland-based domain registrar. Those people need to “step back” and stop trying to “load everything” on the IANA transition, he said. The IANA functions need to be kept “as simple as possible,” he said.
The speed of the IANA transition has been called “aggressive and insane” by some in ICANN’s intellectual property community, said Paul Foody, a domain entrepreneur. Many stakeholders “still don’t know what it is that’s being transitioned,” he said. ICANN should delay the transition until the remaining 60 percent of new generic top-level domains are released and then reviewed, said Foody. That might help the IANA transition from becoming a political issue during an election year, he said.
The GAC elected three new vice chairs Thursday: Olga Cavalli (Argentina), Henri Kassen (Namibia) and Gema M. Campillos González (Spain) (http://bit.ly/1nrZWYD). The new vice chairs are all former GAC representatives. The GAC appointed two additional vice chairs: Wanawit Ahkuputra (Thailand) and Ihsan Durdu (Turkey). ICANN’s Nominating Committee selected Wolfgang Kleinwächter for the ICANN board. Kleinwächter had previously served on the board.