[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] [renamed] Key early questions

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

I'm slightly concerned that we are forgetting in this discussion why
we _need_ an RDS in the first place.

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 10:59:29AM -0400, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
> 
> ICANN has business interests in defining what data to collect, accessible by
> whom and under what conditions. It also has business interests, from within
> its remit, in the data relationship with its contracted parties.
> However, ICANN’s contracted parties reside within national jurisdictions,
> and the relevant data is hosted within national jurisdictions, so ICANN
> cannot unilaterally define what constitutes legitimate data policy within
> its business interests.

All of the above is something I agree with, but there's another
important point.  For good, sound, plain old technical reasons, it's
important that operators be able to contact each other outside of the
Internet, so that when stuff breaks it's at least logically possible
that one could try to fix it.

The key point is that this is not some peculiar business interest of
ICANN, but instead a fundamental interest of anyone who uses the DNS
(i.e. approximately anyone who uses the Internet).  It's basic to why
we have ICANN at all.

None of this is an argument that _all_ the information in any
particular RDS policy is what ought to be in the RDS.  But at the same
time, it seems to me that some views about RDS treat every data field
as if it's a simple matter of political negotiation or something like
that.  They're not all that way.  As an operator of actual technical
infrastructure, I need to be able to contact someone who is causing
problems on my network, and that ability to contact had better not
depend on the Internet since the problem in question is likely to
result from some sort of interoperation failure in the first place.
Therefore,

> Some will brand this as the “fracturing of the Internet”. It is in fact
> other jurisdictions taking responsibility for Internet governance outside
> ICANN’s remit, but within their remit.

I don't think that all of this is just about "Internet governance",
any more than (say) port number allocations are a matter for Internet
governance.  Some of it is just a fundamental part of having an
Internet at all.  Remember, it's an inter-net because of the network
of networks part.  Interoperation is a fundamental part, not something
you get to choose or not from a menu of available policy options.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com