ICANN Stakeholders Propose Minor Changes to Post-Transition IANA Governing Documents
ICANN stakeholders proposed relatively minor changes to proposed governing documents for the Post-Transition Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (PTI) in comments through Sunday. Stakeholders told us that reflects a consensus that ICANN’s proposed framework is an acceptable compromise for administering IANA in the immediate post-transition period. Comments on PTI’s bylaws, due Thursday, are expected to also garner calls for only limited revisions, stakeholders said. The governing documents reflect language in ICANN’s IANA transition-related plans that would form PTI as a legally separate subsidiary that would be governed by a majority ICANN-selected board. ICANN and PTI could choose to fully separate at a later date under the plan ICANN adopted in March (see 1603100070).
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The Cross Community Working Group to Develop an IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal on Naming Related Functions (CWG-Stewardship), which helped draft the IANA transition plan, suggested ICANN clarify that the threshold for adopting changes to PTI’s articles of incorporation is four of the PTI board’s five members. The Registry Stakeholder Group also urged ICANN to clarify the PTI articles' “vague” amendments threshold language. CWG-Accountability proposed other minor modifications aimed at better mirroring ICANN’s own language on conflicts of interest and tightening up language in PTI’s governing documents to better reflect the subsidiary’s role in administering the IANA functions for ICANN.
The Generic Names Supporting Organization’s Business Constituency urged ICANN to modify PTI’s standards of conduct to allow “clear policies, guidelines, and procedures” to show that “sexual harassment must not be tolerated.” ICANN’s policy for addressing sexual harassment complaints came into focus after an incident at its March meeting in Marrakech, Morocco (see 1603250060). The BC said it “believes that all members of the ICANN community … must treat each other in a professional manner and behave professionally while participating in ICANN, both in-person and online.” The BC said it wants the conduct language to include “examples or supporting material to help individuals from cultures around the world come to a common understanding of what is expected.” BC said the proposed conduct language lacks “any procedure for aggrieved individuals (including a procedure for immediate intervention), which is an especially critical element in addressing sexual harassment or other forms of harassment.”
The Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group cautioned ICANN to tighten up language on what activities PTI is allowed to engage in to allow only for administering the IANA functions. “Any other activities” including those that might be “reasonably related to or in furtherance of its stated purposes” would be out of scope and outside the narrow purpose and mission of PTI, NCSG said. The stakeholder group urged ICANN to provide some flexibility in PTI’s articles of incorporation to allow for any future changes in the subsidiary’s future membership. “The numbers and protocols Operating Communities (OCs) contract with ICANN for the IANA services (which in turn contracts with PTI) and ICANN is the sole member of PTI,” the NCSG said. “It is not inconceivable that in the future this arrangement may change and that there may be additional members.” NCSG urged ICANN to modify language on distribution of PTI’s assets after a possible future dissolution of the subsidiary to reflect that the IANA functions aren’t a distributable asset “given the ongoing discussion among some interested parties” on whether the IANA functions are government property.
The relatively minor changes stakeholders proposed to PTI’s articles and other governance documents show the documents accurately reflect the framework ICANN called for in the adopted IANA transition plan, despite some stakeholders’ continued view that PTI’s structure is an “odd arrangement,” said IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group member Milton Mueller. There was a “huge struggle” during the drafting of the transition plan on how IANA would relate to ICANN post-transition, said Mueller, a Georgia Tech communication and information public policy professor. “What we ended up with was this middle ground in which IANA is nominally independent from ICANN but ICANN controls [PTI’s] board.”
PTI’s bylaws should generate similarly minor alteration suggestions, Mueller said: “There are lots of things you could complain about” on PTI’s governance structure “but the issue at this point is whether the bylaws reflect the community’s consensus. At this stage I think they do.” A domain names industry executive said any suggestions for changes to the bylaws are likely to be “minuscule” and highly technical in nature. “I’m not aware of anyone who’s setting off alarm bells about the bylaws at this point,” the executive said.