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<p>BC members may have some interest in an article I published yesterday on NTIA's cancelation of the IANA RFP. Comments, as always, are welcome ---</p>
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<p><a href="http://internetcommerce.org/NTIA_IANA_Cancel">http://internetcommerce.org/NTIA_IANA_Cancel</a></p>
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<h1 class="title"><font size="4">NTIA: ICANN Not Qualified to Be Awarded IANA Contract – And Therefore Shall Keep Running IANA for the Present</font></h1>
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<div class="submitted">Submitted by Philip Corwin on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 17:40 </div>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">The ever-sunny skies over San Jose, Costa Rica were darkened by a dark cloud from Washington on the morning of March 10<sup>th</sup>, the opening day of activities at ICANN’s 43<sup>rd</sup> Public Meeting. The pall was cast
by a notice posted by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) stating that it had canceled the Request for Proposal (RFP) to administer the contract to operate the authoritative DNS root server per the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The brief NTIA notice stated that the cancelation occurred “</span><span style="COLOR: #000000">because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community”. The NTIA statement can
be found at </span><a href="http://ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2012/notice-internet-assigned-numbers-authority-iana-functions-request-proposal-rf"><span style="TEXT-DECORATION: underline">http://ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2012/notice-internet-assigned-numbers-authority-iana-functions-request-proposal-rf</span></a><span style="COLOR: #000000">
.</span></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">One of the applicants which failed to meet those requirements was ICANN, which currently administers the IANA functions – and will continue to do so until at least the unknown future time when NTIA reissues the RFP and decides
there is a qualified applicant. The current contract under which ICANN administers IANA was set to expire at the end of September 2011, but had been extended by NTIA for six months while the RFP was in progress.</span></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">NTIA’s announcement apparently caught ICANN’s Board and senior staff by surprise, and its timing seems more than coincidental – indeed, it seems quite a deliberate shot across ICANN’s bow. When queried at a meeting between the
Board and ICANN’s GNSO policymaking body as to whether he had any comment on the development, ICANN Chairman Steve Crocker responded with a terse “No”, adding that the Board had not yet had time to fully digest the unexpected development.
</span></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">The NTIA noted that:</span></p>
<br>
<p><em><span style="COLOR: #000000">Based on the input received from stakeholders around the world, NTIA added new requirements to the IANA functions’ statement of work, including the need for structural separation of policymaking from implementation, a robust
companywide conflict of interest policy, provisions reflecting heightened respect for local country laws, and a series of consultation and reporting requirements to increase transparency and accountability to the international community.</span></em></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">ICANN’s submission apparently fell short on one or more of these criteria, and will need to be beefed up when the RFP is revived if it is to retain the IANA function.</span></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">Three not altogether incompatible theories are swirling around the San Jose meeting as to the real reason for NTIA’s IANA cancelation:</span></p>
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<ul>
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<li><span style="COLOR: #000000">· NTIA wants to keep pressure on ICANN to build a higher wall between policy development and technical implementation, strengthen its conflict of interest rules, cooperate more with law enforcement and other national
legal authorities, and give greater deference to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on policy matters generally and acceptable new gTLD applications in particular.</span><br>
</li><li><span style="COLOR: #000000">· ICANN thought its re-awarding of the IANA contract was a foregone conclusion and failed to prepare an application that sufficiently “checked the boxes” on the new NTIA qualification criteria.</span><br>
</li><li><span style="COLOR: #000000">· NTIA wanted to conclude the next contract with ICANN’s new, yet-to-be-announced CEO, who will succeed Rod Beckstrom at the June meeting scheduled in Prague.</span></li></ul>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">We have no idea what the full rationale for NTIA’s action was. And it is still expected that ICANN will eventually be re-awarded the IANA contract, as shifting it to another party could be a mortal body blow to the organization.
However, at a time when the new gTLD program is rolling forward (with speculation in San Jose that once the applicants are announced in May multiple lawsuits may ensue – both between applicants and against ICANN) and the International Telecommunications Union
(ITU) is maneuvering to supplant ICANN as the primary DNS operator, the U.S. declaration that ICANN is unqualified to operate the root zone function that is the technical foundation for its policymaking role further weakens its reputation and adds to uncertainty
over the future of Internet governance. It also provides ammunition to those ICANN critics who assert that such U.S. actions, even when exercised to provide greater leverage to the GAC, nonetheless illustrate that ICANN remains too closely tied to U.S. laws
and policy aims. </span></p>
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<p><span style="COLOR: #000000">None of this is welcome news for domain investors and the Internet community at large, and we can only hope that the situation will be resolved soon and satisfactorily. While ICANN is far from perfect, it continues to evolve
and the multi-stakeholder governance model it embodies is preferable to any that gives governments alone the ultimate power over the future of the Internet. </span></p>
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<p><strong><font color="#000080">Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal</font></strong></p>
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<p><strong><font color="#000080"></font></strong> </p>
<p><em><strong><font color="#000080">"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey</font></strong></em></p>
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