[CCWG-ACCT] Mission/Contract

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

As usual, offering these observations in a friendly way, while
recognizing I've not been through all the deliberations (so I'm not
trying to impose a view or rehash previous discussion).

On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 12:09:21AM +0000, Burr, Becky wrote:

> While there is strong consensus that (1) ICANN’s mission is limited and (2) ICANN should act only in furtherance of its mission, strong and divergent perspectives on the proposed language itself remain.

I think an important change since some of the earlier meetings is that
people appear to have converged on mission text itself that is more
limiting than what (at least in my opinion) was there before.  I
wonder whether, in light of that more limited description, the
specific limitations are still necessary.

I can see an argument in either direction.  In favour, there is the
point that ICANN could still undertake regulation of content or
services by using its leverage over delegations.  Since we all agree
that ICANN should not be a quasi-regulator of content and services on
the Internet, it would be good to add the restriction.

I nevertheless feel the argument against the specific limitations may
be stronger.  The more limited mission statement restricts (or is
supposed to) ICANN to the root zone of the DNS rather than all
name-type unique identifiers.  ICANN still needs to ensure the "stable
and secure operation", also.  Those two points ought to combine to
restrict ICANN's freedom of movement on any particular content or
service, because the only option ICANN would have would be to remove
the delegation from the root zone.  Since that would have negative
consequences for many names other than the targetted one, ICANN would
be failing in its mission of stable and secure operation; therefore,
ICANN would not be free to take this action.  So, the specific
limitations do not add anything to the mission or values and can be
omitted.  Perhaps more practically, if we add to the mission all the
things we want ICANN not to do (but where we think, perhaps on
historical grounds, there may be a risk), the mission will get a very
long list of specific exclusions.

The change could be justified with respect to previous public comment
because of the revised, simplified, and overall narrower mission
statement language.  I think it could be yet another case where
simpler and more accurate language benefits everyone by being easier
to understand and still comprehensive.

I hope this is helpful; and again, I'm not trying to butt in, so
please feel free to tell me to take a long walk into the changing tide!

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com