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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">As outlined in Akram’s blog below, ICANN has published the RZMA and.COM Registry Agreement Amendments today.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">The RZMA can be found here: <a href="https://www.icann.org/iana_imp_docs/63-root-zone-maintainer-agreement-v-1-0">
https://www.icann.org/iana_imp_docs/63-root-zone-maintainer-agreement-v-1-0</a>. This agreement is posted for a 30-day public review period before it will be signed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">In addition, ICANN has published the Proposed Amendment to .COM Registry Agreement for a 43-day public comment period. The public comment page is here:
<a href="https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-2016-06-30-en">https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-2016-06-30-en</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">and the public comment will run through 12 August 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:black">From: </span></b><span style="color:black">&lt;accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org&gt; on behalf of Grace Abuhamad &lt;grace.abuhamad@icann.org&gt;<br>
<b>Date: </b>Tuesday, June 28, 2016 at 7:27 PM<br>
<b>To: </b>CCWG-Accountability &lt;accountability-cross-community@icann.org&gt;<br>
<b>Subject: </b>[CCWG-ACCT] Root Zone&nbsp;Management Transition Update: Preservation of Security,&nbsp;Stability&nbsp;and Resiliency<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">Original link: <a href="https://www.icann.org/news/blog/root-zone-management-transition-update-preservation-of-security-stability-and-resiliency">
https://www.icann.org/news/blog/root-zone-management-transition-update-preservation-of-security-stability-and-resiliency</a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;background:white"><b><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Root Zone&nbsp;Management Transition Update: Preservation of Security,&nbsp;Stability&nbsp;and Resiliency</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">On March 4, 2015, the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) officially requested that&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;and Verisign work together to develop a proposal on how best to transition theNTIA&nbsp;administrative
 role associated with root zone management in a manner that maintains the security and stability of the Internet’s domain name system.&nbsp;NTIA&nbsp;previously announced that the transition of this aspect of its administrative role was a process separate from but parallel
 to the&nbsp;IANA&nbsp;stewardship transition.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Verisign and&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;submitted a proposal to&nbsp;NTIA&nbsp;that contained two primary elements.&nbsp;First, the teams would build and test a parallel root zone management system that would simulate root zone management functions
 without&nbsp;NTIA’s current authorization role.&nbsp;That system is now approaching the completion of its 90-day defect free testing phase.&nbsp;Second, in anticipation of the release of Verisign from root zone management obligations by&nbsp;NTIA&nbsp;under the Cooperative Agreement,
 the teams began work on a commercial agreement between&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;and Verisign for the continued performance of root zone management functions.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">We are pleased to announce that&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;and Verisign have completed the discussions and negotiations for the root zone maintainer services agreement (RZMA).</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Since the early days of the Internet, Verisign has been providing “registration services” under its Cooperative Agreement with&nbsp;NTIA, which was broadly defined to include root zone management functions and Top
 Level Domain registry services.&nbsp;NTIA&nbsp;recognized that root zone management aspects of the&nbsp;IANA&nbsp;functions contract are “inextricably intertwined” with the Cooperative Agreement. Given the unified nature of the present Cooperative Agreement, much of the root
 zone infrastructure itself is “inextricably intertwined” with Verisign’s&nbsp;TLD&nbsp;operations for .com: the servers that provide root services are hosted at every .com resolution site (over 100 locations).&nbsp;These servers share bandwidth, routing and monitoring with
 the .com operations, and the servers use the same code base as the .com&nbsp;TLDname servers and are operated and maintained by the same operation and engineering group.&nbsp;On the provisioning side, the root zone’s provisioning system is derived from the .com Shared
 Registration System (SRS), using the structure, schema, and software used for .com provisioning operations.&nbsp;Verisign builds and signs the root zone today using the same cryptographic facilities used for .com as well as signing software derived from that used
 for signing .com.&nbsp; Importantly, Verisign’s root zone operations are also within the .com’s Denial of Service attack detection and mitigation framework including independent internal and external monitoring and packet filtering at all layers. A key component
 of ensuring security of the root operations was making sure that those operations continued to benefit from its historic association with the .com operations.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">The RZMA is intended to maintain stable, secure, and reliable operations of the root zone not only for direct root zone management service customers (Registry Operators, Registrars and Root Server Operators),
 but also to maintain the security and stability of the Internet’s domain name system.&nbsp;This was achieved by a simple extension of the .com Registry Agreement to coincide with the term of the new RZMA.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Regarding the RZMA, some of the key features include:</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Requiring Verisign and&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;to work together in good faith to preserve the security, stability and resiliency of the root zone and root zone management system consistent with
 the security and stability of the Internet.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Detailing&nbsp;ICANN’s responsibility to authenticate, verify, and submit to Verisign changes to the service data comprised in the&nbsp;Root Zone&nbsp;File.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Establishing service level requirements for Verisign to process, edit, generate and publish the&nbsp;Root Zone&nbsp;File, including an accelerated path to update the service data in the&nbsp;Root
 Zone&nbsp;File in cases of emergency.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Describing&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;and Verisign’s key-signing obligations, which are to be performed in a secure, transparent and accountable manner.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Providing that the integrity of the service data of the&nbsp;Root Zone&nbsp;File and the Verisign systems performing the root zone maintainer function will be operated under a business continuity
 plan with the same product support level as maintained by the .com&nbsp;DNS&nbsp;resolution service and .com&nbsp;SRS, respectively.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Setting forth that Verisign will participate as a member of the future&nbsp;Root Zone&nbsp;Evolution Review Committee.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Providing for continuity of the security and stability of the root zone through a one-year transition process which may be initiated by a community driven process under which Verisign
 continues to perform the root zone maintainer function while&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;implements a public RFP process to identify and onboard a new provider.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:11.25pt;margin-left:51.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2;background:white">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Setting out the development of an emergency transition process for extraordinary events.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">?<span style="font:7.0pt &quot;Times New Roman&quot;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">Requiring&nbsp;ICANN&nbsp;and Verisign to meet quarterly to prioritize potential changes and updates to the services, including service levels and to prioritize a roadmap for implementation
 of such changes that may be effected through a built in change control process.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<span style="font-family:Helvetica;color:#333333">What’s left to be done? Soon, we will post the RZMA for public review and the .com registry agreement amendment for public comment, after which our respective boards of directors will be asked to approve the
 agreements. The .com extension will be sent to&nbsp;NTIA&nbsp;for review and approval according to their processes.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;color:black">--&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Grace Abuhamad</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;color:black">Manager, Public Policy</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;color:black">&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:7.5pt;color:black">ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;;color:black">801 17th Street NW, Suite 400 |&nbsp;Washington, DC 20006</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:7.5pt;color:black">Direct: &#43;1 202 249 7545 |&nbsp;Mobile: &#43;1 310 200 7638</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;color:black">&nbsp;</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black">Interested in the IANA Stewardship Transition?&nbsp;</span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black"><a href="https://www.icann.org/stewardship-accountability"><span style="color:blue">LEARN MORE</span></a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icann.org/stewardship-accountability#status"><span style="color:blue">STAY
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