[CWG-Stewardship] ICANN Board as "regulator" (was: A liaison from the Board to CWG)

[Milton L Mueller]

Hi, Andrew
Fiona Alexander of NTIA has made a frequent point of telling us that .int is currently in the IANA contract (C.2.9.4) and a complete proposal will have to decide what to do with it. 

I personally believe that ICANN and/or IANA should get rid of this function. It's not central to their missions and I'd like to maintain a clean line between the root zone registry and TLD registry operators. 

By the same token I think the stakes are pretty low on this one and if we just said "it stays with ICANN" most planets would remain in their orbits. 

A better middle ground might be to specify, as part of the transition, that ICANN will come up with a plan to divest itself of it within 2 years.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org [mailto:cwg-stewardship-
> bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 9:30 AM
> To: cwg-stewardship at icann.org
> Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] ICANN Board as "regulator" (was: A liaison
> from the Board to CWG)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 01:18:07PM +0000, Lindeberg, Elise wrote:
> >
> > We can discuss the conditions around ICANNs administration of .int today,
> but responding to your comment : "I don't believe ICANN/IANA is in any
> competition with anyone to operate the int registry, because the USG
> specifies the operator and, as far as I know, hasn't put the operation out to
> bid"
> > - I think it is expected from the community, at least from the GAC side,
> that the CWG discuss and have thoughts on what we see as the best
> solution for the .int post transition  - that is when US GOV no longer have
> the possibility to specify/change through a bid.
> >
> 
> I am prepared to believe that lots of people think the specification of the
> operator of int is covered in this transition, but I don't actually see that in
> any of the materials.  The current NTIA-ICANN agreement is for the
> _operation_ of the int zone, but not for the _policy_ of it.  That seems to me
> to be different from the root zone, where the policies governing the root
> zone (all the co-ordination and so on) are also vested in ICANN's policy side.
> 
> In other words, ICANN is performing the technical functions for int, but not
> the registry operator function broadly construed.  This is rather like (for
> example) org: PIR is the registry operator, and it contracts to Afilias to
> perform the technical functions.  PIR could pull that technical operations
> contract and give it to someone else.
> Contrast this with (say) info, where ICANN has delegated operation of that
> namespace (including policy) to Afilias.
> 
> I am entirely prepared to be wrong about this (I'm often wrong), but if I am
> then I'd like a pointer to the text that shows it.
> 
> I am not, please note, suggesting that int isn't a problem.  I'm just noting
> that it might be a problem that we don't have to solve in order to undertake
> the transition.  Any burden we can shed at this late date is an advantage to
> us, I suggest.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
> 
> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
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