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Dear Jordan,<br>
<br>
for all the +1s that you have received and all of the respect that I
hold for you, and the fact that I find your chronology helpful, I do
have to strongly disagree with what its contents imply.<br>
<br>
NTIA has never asked for ICANN to go through an ICANN Accountability
process.<br>
NTIA has launched a transition of stewardship of the IANA functions
- ONLY the IANA functions. It is the ICANN Community that has
decided to link the CWG's work with the CCWG's work because it was
felt in the CWG that the transition of Stewardship of the IANA
functions required new processes in ICANN, perhaps a new structure,
for the Policy component of the IANA functions to be separated from
the Operation of the functions.<br>
That separation existed in the IETF & RIRs since ICANN was
carrying out the IANA Functions Operator. That was not the case for
ICANN.<br>
<br>
The CWG's proposal therefore required work to be undertaken by the
CCWG. Initially, it was thought that this work should be minimal;
that the additional accountability processes needed to be kept as
simple as possible. Isn't this what Larry Strickling has repeated
every time he has had a chance to do so? Yet this was ignored by the
CCWG as some felt "This is the *last chance* we have at making ICANN
accountable, because of the pressure to carry out the transition".<br>
To me this has all the markings of trying to pass these
recommendations by the Board under duress.<br>
<br>
So consider this alternative scenario: the Board refuses to agree to
ratify the CCWG Accountability report (that's, of course if *all*
SOs & ACs ratify it, which might not be a given), NTIA loses
patience, takes the CWG's proposal already integrated in the ICG
proposal, decides to proceed forward with the transition of
stewardship, leaving all of the ICANN Accountability work on the
side, so it can continue without a deadline. But NTIA proposes a
review in 5 years at which time it keeps the option of still being
able to tell ICANN what to do. In other words, it loosens up the
leash around ICANN, but doesn't let go of it yet... until it has the
last piece of the puzzle in hand and is happy with it.<br>
The CCWG will then have 5 years ahead to find a consensus with the
ICANN Board re: ICANN Accountability.<br>
<br>
Kind regards,<br>
<br>
Olivier<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 09/10/2015 01:19, Jordan Carter
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAK2bTy8LSdpPshqXS6C1mGxZVhkx3G9iOuC2FiEKgJoXFD6scQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
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<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Hi
all,</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Apologies
for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a
bit of work trying to make sense of all the events in
the ICANN accountability debate. I wrote up a chronology
of that, which is available attached to this post. A
blog post with my reflections is below. </font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Whatever
part of the community you are from, and whatever your
view on the substance of the debates we are having in
the CCWG, I hope you can stand up in support of the
multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There
is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails,
and the risk of that is not high but it is increasing. </font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">See
many of you in Dublin next week!</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">cheers</font></div>
<div><font style="font-weight:normal" size="2"
color="#000000" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Jordan</font></div>
<h1 style="margin:40px 0px
0px;font-size:2.6rem;font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';line-height:30.42px;padding-bottom:9px;border-bottom-style:none;padding-left:0px"><font
color="#000000">ICANN Accountability - the chronology
and Dublin thoughts</font></h1>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">9 October - at <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-thoughts"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-thoughts">https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-thoughts</a></a> </p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">You’ve probably had
an experience in your life of being part of a difficult or
complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or
after months or years you find it hard to remember the
order of significant events.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Well, the debate
regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not
complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a
participant in it as a member of the Working Group
representing country-code domains since December 2014, and
even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">To help me, and
possibly you, I decided to pull together a short
chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of
proposals, significant moments in the project, and so on.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">You can review (and
critique) the chronology here:</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf"
style="color:rgb(255,0,122);text-decoration:none;background:transparent"
target="_blank">.pdf</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx"
style="color:rgb(255,0,122);text-decoration:none;background:transparent"
target="_blank">.docx</a></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">I didn’t expect that
seeing this story in one short place would trigger some
new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did.
Here are some of them:</p>
<ul
style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px;padding-left:20px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham
Rounded SSm A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">
<li><strong>Astonishing progress:</strong> since the end
of last year, and the demise of ICANN’s resistance to a
community-led accountability process, the Cross
Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress.
It assessed previous suggested accountability
mechanisms; built requirements for a new settlement;
devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good
faith and worked together to overcome problems exposed
in public debate. The Second Draft Proposal of the group
is workable, though it does not enjoy consensus in the
ICANN community yet.</li>
<li><strong>Consistent resistance and delay:</strong> the
powers-that-be at ICANN have resisted community-driven
accountability reforms throughout this process. The
multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks
volumes. The group’s work would have concluded next week
in Dublin if we’d had the few more months back in 2014.
I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear where
responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint:
the CCWG isn’t responsible.</li>
<li><strong>The rightness of multistakeholderism: </strong>the
community has followed a true multistakeholder process.
Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a willingness to
compromise and think outside the box – all these have
been central to the work of the group. That work process
is hard to maintain and has been seriously challenged by
the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert “red lines”
into part of the debate – on the critical matters of
enforcement. <span
style="font-size:13.008px;line-height:1.538em">Those
interventions place the credibility of the
multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the
ICANN Board isn’t only putting the accountability
reform process under pressure it doesn’t need, it is
delaying the group’s ability to complete its task
(others have more forceful views - see the note by
William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG appointed by
the Public Experts Group last year, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/006410.html"
style="color:rgb(255,0,122);text-decoration:none;background:transparent"
target="_blank">here</a>). The follow on
consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is
delayed, a consequence only a very few people would
celebrate (and I am not one of them). </span></li>
</ul>
<ul
style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:10px;padding-left:20px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham
Rounded SSm A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">
<li><strong>Proof of need:</strong> looking over the short
history of the current debate gives ample evidence of
why the reforms demanded by the community are required.
Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship
transition, this opportunity would never have opened up.
We should be grateful to the Obama administration for
the chance provided to build a long term, responsible
framework for ICANN accountability.</li>
<li><strong>Some welcome flexibility:</strong> a year ago,
if you’d thought you would hear ICANN saying it would
welcome binding arbitration, the ability to remove Board
directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes –
many would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d
suggested a community group working in open
multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the
quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and
laughs. But both have happened. Things have moved.</li>
</ul>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Everyone involved
with or watching this process will have different
insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with
mine. I offer them up in public as part of my own
commitment to accountability: it is reasonable for people
involved in the conversation to share their thinking. In
any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue
– not with solitude.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">ICANN is on the
verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The
Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process
through gritted teeth and very keen for the transition to
go ahead, can hopefully celebrate what is happening. With
ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names community
(policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been
no alternative to making accountability improvements now.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">(To my technical
community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind
about why we need change – review the chronology, remember
the pushback, remember what you guys faced early this
year.)</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">We’re all close to
the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are
crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are
at the end of reasonable commitments of time and energy.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">The imperatives now
are to see things through: to stick with the
multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives
but gives nobody a right of veto; the accountability
framework the community requires to accept the transition
going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that will
flow from a new accountability settlement. </p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Dublin is a week
away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and
the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to
crystallise accountability powers) will need to be
resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">My preference is of
course for the product of the multistakeholder process,
the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the
involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I
am not proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it
is the “what,” the requirements and ability to meet them,
that matter. </p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">The “what” is
ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through
ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with
hundreds of staff, hundreds of millions of dollars, tight
links with the American government, a monopoly ability to
extract rents from the domain name industry, and a natural
institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can
– can hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance
of power, knowledge, resources that tilt the playing field
of accountability entirely in ICANN’s favour.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Beyond the
"elephant," there are lots of other details that need to
be sorted out. It all matters – NTIA have been clear the
proposal has to be bullet proof.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">In the end though,
if there isn’t an accountability settlement that achieves
consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet
proof or not.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">No accountability
proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No
transition proposal – no transition.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">No transition? All
those risks the transition is designed to head off come
back to life. And the multistakeholder approach
discredited to boot.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px
10px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham Rounded SSm
A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Those are the stakes
on the table as we head to Dublin.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;color:rgb(45,48,49);font-family:'Gotham
Rounded SSm A','Gotham Rounded SSm
B';font-size:14px;line-height:25.2px">Two final thoughts:
where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old
high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not
optional.”</p>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
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</div>
</font></span></div>
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-- <br>
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<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:small">Jordan
Carter<br>
<br>
Chief Executive <br>
<b>InternetNZ</b><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:small"><br>
+64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob)<br>
Email: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jordan@internetnz.net.nz"
style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">jordan@internetnz.net.nz</a> <br>
Skype: jordancarter<br>
</div>
<div style="font-size:small">Web: <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.internetnz.nz"
target="_blank"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.internetnz.nz">www.internetnz.nz</a></a> </div>
<div dir="ltr" style="font-size:small"><br>
<i>A better world through a better Internet </i></div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</div>
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