[CCWG-ACCT] CCWG - Proposed Responses to questions on Draft Bylaws

[Andrew Sullivan]

Dear colleagues,

Many apologies for missing calls this week, but as I noted in
Marrakesh this week is the IETF meeting and I have approximately no
time.

Anyway, I have some remarks.  I'm sorry these are lengthy.

    Q1

On the Mission, q1, I think it is extremely unfortunate to agree to
remove the restriction of "in the root zone".

I reject unequivocally the argument, "It is not true that ICANN
coordinates assignment ONLY in the root zone, as such term is
currently understood. ICANN’s gTLD registry and registrar agreements
and policies deal substantially and primarily with issues relating to
assignment of names at the second (and in some cases lower) levels of
the DNS."  ICANN's gTLD registry and registrar agreements an policies
deal susbtantially and primarily with how _those registries and
registrars_ coordinate assignment in zones outside the root zone.
That is, ICANN's agreements are a meta-requirement on how other people
do co-ordination in the DNS, and do not actualy perform the
co-ordination

I know that this seems like a fine distinction.  But it's important to
keep it in mind because the language that have been in the bylaws
historically, and that the CCWG has agreed to restore, is the very
basis on which various people around the Internet mistake ICANN for
the Internet Police.  By removing the restriction to the root zone, we
are once again freeing ICANN to assert control down the DNS -- a
control that is very much inconsistent with the distributed authority
design of the DNS.  

    Q3

It might be worth observing also that, since the requester is the
person who asked for the transcripts and recordings, presumably the
requester could be asked about certain redactions due to the issues
outlined.

    Q6

The proposal for the community just to endorse whatever the board
decides here strikes me as potentially risky.  Supposed the community
replaces a recalled board member with a new one that is less
accommodating of a prevailing majority of the Board.  The Board would
be able to remove that new director with a 75% majority.  If the EC
does not have the ability to reject the Board's decision to remove,
then there could be a procedural deadlock that could only be
ameliorated by a complete replacement of the Board.  That seems
undesirable.

    Q17

I believe the requested addition is overspecification.  It will simply
yield disputes about whether a given recommendation is limited in the
relevant way.

    Q25

The document says

    Initially, “solely” was added to tie the Petition Notice to the
    GAC Consensus Board Resolution. For example, the ICANN Budget is
    an amalgamation of many different inputs. If a particular
    expenditure is tangentially related to GAC advice, then the GAC
    should not be removed from voting on that petition.

I don't understand this argument.  There are two possibilities: either
the expenditure is solely related to GAC advice (in which case,
whether it's "tangential" is irrelevant) or it is not.  If it is not,
then the GAC exclusion is not entailed.  If it is solely related to
GAC advice, then I don't get the claim above that the GAC should not
be excluded -- that's the whole point of the "carve out".

I hope these remarks are useful.  Please see also the remarks that I sent in collaboration with my colleagues on the IAB.

Best regards,

A



On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 06:30:14PM -0400, Bernard Turcotte wrote:
> All,
> 
> Co-chairs and rapporteurs have reviewed and proposed answers to all
> questions some based on the results of the Tuesday April 5th meeting of the
> CCWG-Accountability.
> 
> These are attached in preparation for the Thursday April 7th meeting of the
> CCWG-Accountability on this topic.
> 
> The CCWG-Accountability Co-chairs Mathieu, Thomas and Leon


> _______________________________________________
> Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list
> Accountability-Cross-Community at icann.org
> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community


-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com