[CCWG-ACCT] FW: Fwd: FW: ICANN Board Comments on Third CCWG-Accountability Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Malcolm,


>>  Do you simply want a nice, short, simple Mission for "marketing and communications" purposes? If so, I see no particular difficulty. I can see that it might be helpful in some contexts.

The concept is that a mission statement should be simple statement that is unlikely ever to be changed.  

The scope of responsibilities was intended to set out the current scope of responsibilities within its mission as agreed with the community.  I expect these would be fundamental bylaws, but could be changed or refined over time in accordance with the process for changing fundamental bylaws.   We constantly review ICANN's organization with AoC reviews, structure reviews etc - and in future some of these reviews may recommend changes.

As part of the mission statement, we may get asked to manage different sets of identifiers that is consistent with the mission.   We would check with the community to see if it is within the current scope of responsibilities.  If not - any proposal to move forward would need community approval via the fundamental bylaws process.

An example of a new function that ICANN took on in 2011 was the Internet time zone database:

See:  https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/press-materials/release-14oct11-en.pdf

This is outside of any contract with the NTIA, and was outside of sets of parameters managed for the IETF at the time.   We took on that task - and it is probably within the scope of responsibilities that we have laid out.   If it wasn't then there is a clear process for fundamental bylaws change that could enacted.


When making a change - we wouldn't scare the world by saying that ICANN is changing its mission - we would simply be taking on an additional  responsibility that is consistent with the mission as agreed with the ICANN community.


Using an analogy - you could say that NASA's mission is to explore space, but its current scope is unmanned missions to visit planets and other objects in our solar system.   IN future the scope could be to send ships to visit distant stars, or build a colony on Mars .   The mission doesn't change - but the scope does change.   Some years ago the "vision" of NSASA was to put people on the moon.   This vision was achieved but the mission is the same.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin