Shimkus Objects to ICANN Community's Authority Over IANA Transition
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) is moving ahead with the transition’s original Sept. 30 deadline, despite Congress’ recent passage of a bicameral funding measure that would temporarily prohibit NTIA from using its funds for the transition through the stated deadline. But Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., told us the decision to relinquish the IANA functions rests with the U.S. government, not the ICANN community. ICANN released the ICG’s time table and “assembly” process for the transition Wednesday. Some ICANN stakeholders told us the ICG’s deadlines are likely unrealistic.
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“The United States, not ICANN or its transition working group, will decide if and when the IANA functions are relinquished,” Shimkus said in a statement. “While the funding prohibitions included in the Cromnibus [spending bill] offer a short-term delay, I’ll be reintroducing a version of my DOTCOM Act to officially prohibit the IANA transition until GAO finishes their review and reports to Congress on the advantages and disadvantages of the change and the national security concerns raised by relinquishing U.S. oversight,” he said.
"The Appropriations bill does not impact the effort of the multistakeholder community to develop proposals on the transition and enhancing accountability,” said Jamie Hedlund, ICANN vice president-strategic programs. “The private sector continues its work unencumbered,” he emailed.
Based on the public statements of NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling, it appears NTIA is "investigating what actions they are allowed to take and prohibited from taking, and that [Strickling] is still looking forward to a timely transition,” said Kurt Pritz, Domain Name Association executive director. It’s “appropriate for the ICANN staff and community members to continue work,” he emailed. “Halting the work now would cause a severe setback to the long-anticipated transition to a community operated DNS and the effort would be difficult to re-start,” Pritz said. “With the funding issue in Congress then it’s going to be increasingly hard for NTIA to put resources into this process and that is bound to slow things down,” said Michele Neylon, managing director of Blacknight, an Ireland-based domain registrar. Neylon was speaking on his own behalf.
The ICG’s time frame requires the IANA Cross Community Working Group (CWG) to have its proposals submitted by Jan. 15. The ICG will review those proposals through Feb. 15 to ensure that the proposals meet a number of request for proposal requirements, including fulfilling NTIA’s stated criteria for the transition.
The ability of the IANA CWG to submit a complete proposal on naming functions by Jan. 15 is highly unlikely, said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw. “I do not see how that proposal can be considered complete when the time constraints dictated by the ICG prevent the CWG from posting that proposal -- which does not exist as of today, one week before the deadline -- for additional public comment,” he said. “The CWG can certainly not claim any evidence of any community consensus for its proposal without additional comment and reply, and it is not in any way coordinated with the separate proposal for enhanced ICANN organizational accountability since that first draft won’t be delivered for months,” Corwin said.
“I’ve always felt that the timing of the IANA transition project was very aggressive,” Neylon said. “While having an aggressive timetable helps to bring focus it should not be allowed to force a fast decision purely to meet a deadline,” he emailed. “A lot of us in the ICANN community are having a hard time keeping track of all this, the accountability activities, as well as the current crop” of public development processes, Neylon said. “The disparate interests in the CWG have resulted in different proposals regarding the transition,” Pritz said. “Despite holding several two-hour calls each week, the CWG proposals' complexity and divergence will make it difficult to develop a consensus plan by 15 Feb.,” he said.