[CWG-RFP3] Contract re-bidding at regular intervals or permanent mandate?

[Guru Acharya]

Would your concerns about stability arising from operator hopping be
addressed if the contract term is longer - say 7 or 10 years?

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:58 PM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>
wrote:

> While we consider all these options, I will ask that we also consider
> whether it's better to concentrate on an organisation with the aim of
> improving it's operation OR we keep on moving from one incomplete
> organisation to the other in the name of keeping the previous/current
> operator accountable.
>
> We should in this process determine whether there is significant
> improvement in the current operator of IANA and also whether there is room
> for further  improvement. Stability cannot be maintained if the operator
> itself is not stable.
>
> My 2 cents.
>
> Cheers!
>
> sent from Google nexus 4
> kindly excuse brevity and typos.
> On 13 Nov 2014 18:03, "Guru Acharya" <gurcharya at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree with Milton that the IANA contract should be for a limited time
>> period (say 3 or 5 years). The oversight body should be responsible for
>> deciding the new IANA operator at the end of the contract term. This is the
>> most effective way of ensuring accountability.
>>
>> However, I disagree with the mechanism of "Open Bidding" that Milton
>> seems to be suggesting for determining the new IANA operator. The term Open
>> Bidding seems to suggest financial reverse auctions. The mechanism should
>> instead be in the form of a transparent beauty contest wherein open
>> applications are invited from all interested parties. The judging
>> parameters for the beauty contest should be mostly technical. In this
>> beauty contest, the incumbent IANA operator should get extra marks in case
>> of a good record in the previous contract term, the measure of which should
>> be in the form of objective service level criteria.
>>
>> If the IANA contract is perpetual or with termination clauses based
>> solely on service levels then, in case of serious dissatisfaction with the
>> incumbent IANA operator, the process of changing the IANA operator may be
>> subjected to a lot of litigation and arm-twisting. The current transition
>> arrangements need to have the foresight to avoid such problems.
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 7:03 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Bertrand de La Chapelle [mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com]
>>>
>>>     view, accountability was also exercised on a regular basis, through
>>> the monitoring of performance, the possibility of audits and, actually,
>>> also the role of NTIA as RZM process administrator (on each modification).
>>> In this regard, moving the contract somewhere else, as "nuclear option",
>>> was the ultimate accountability stop but not the alpha and omega of the
>>> accountability system.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> MM: True. Those forms of accountability are complementary. But most of
>>> the proposals on the table for a new contracting authority also include
>>> these other forms of monitoring.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Furthermore, ultimate accountability does not need to come from a single
>>> point of authority. It can be more distributed. For instance, if the
>>> different user communities of the IANA functions were to establish separate
>>> agreements with ICANN (or recognize that it plays this role for them) with
>>> the capacity to cancel this agreement on the basis of specific criteria
>>> (including performance), the capacity to "pull the trigger on a contract"
>>> would be fulfilled.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> MM: This is a very interesting idea and I hope you pursue it and make it
>>> more concrete. As a future scenario it is highly likely that IANA’s
>>> performance might satisfy one or two of the operational communities but not
>>> the other one. Furthermore, as you suggest, it is safer to distribute this
>>> contracting authority rather than having it concentrated.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The question of accountability should not be limited to the single model
>>> of replacing the NTIA by another single structure (to be created),
>>> continuing without question the practice of re-bidding that was the result
>>> of circumstances as much as a voluntary choice, and focusing on the
>>> "nuclear option" as the most important aspect, neglecting on the way more
>>> continuous accountability dimensions.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> MM: Well, I do not want to neglect more continuous accountability
>>> dimensions, but after 16 years of experience with the ICANN environment I
>>> have a pretty strong conviction that nothing short of periodic renewal can
>>> provide the foundation for all the other forms of monitoring and
>>> accountability.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> All I argue for is that we should include in our thinking the following
>>> option: what would be the accountability mechanisms appropriate IANA were
>>> permanently managed by ICANN?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> MM: No, there is definitely a contradiction between “being accountable”
>>> and a grant of “permanent management” rights. While there can be some
>>> additional supervisory or oversight mechanisms, insofar as the grant is
>>> permanent it massively increases the slack that the operator has against
>>> its principals. If the assumption is, “I will always be the contractor” you
>>> can issue all the stern warnings and bad reports you like, the incentive to
>>> change is drastically weakened. This seems obvious to me.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Cwg-rfp3 mailing list
>>> Cwg-rfp3 at icann.org
>>> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-rfp3
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Cwg-rfp3 mailing list
>> Cwg-rfp3 at icann.org
>> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cwg-rfp3
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cwg-rfp3/attachments/20141113/81715c00/attachment.html>