[CWG-Stewardship] NTIA's Role in Root Zone Management

[Jordan Carter]

Hi Seun,

On 17 December 2014 at 18:21, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jordan,
>
> My response inset
>
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 5:24 PM, Jordan Carter <jordan at internetnz.net.nz>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all, Seun:
>>
>> On 18 December 2014 at 05:07, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Jordan Carter <jordan at internetnz.net.nz
>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Giving both the right to operate the IANA functions, and the
>>>> responsibility for operating the Root Zone, to the same entity would be far
>>>> worse in respect of accountability and creating a new massively centralised
>>>> power structure in Internet Governance than even the current idea of simply
>>>> transferring IANA to ICANN in perpetuity.
>>>>
>>>
>>> The implementation of the names related IANA functions is largely the
>>> operation of the Root Zone, so i am not sure i understand why/how you have
>>> counted this as double rights?
>>>
>>
>> Because today, there are two agreements and three parties:
>>
>> NTIA which essentially "owns" the DNS, and offers two
>> contracts/agreements:
>> - to ICANN to be the IANA functions administrator
>> - to Verisign to be the Root Zone Maintainer
>>
>> If I read your suggestion right, you seem to think folding all that into
>> one organisation would be OK.
>>
>
> Please note that VeriSign role is simply executing rootzone instructions
> from ICANN (which currently gets channelled through NTIA to VeriSign), so
> VeriSign by process has no control to independently make any change without
> authorisation.
> If we both have that understanding then i hope we can then agree that
> there is no double rights in that.
>

I am afraid you're not getting the point. That contractual and
organisational separation is very important. It is the *fact* of that
separation between entities and managing relationships by contract that
allows us all to feel comfortable.

I genuinely can't understand why you think that adding it into one
organisation and removing all that is OK - or even more concerningly, that
you don't seem to understand how big a change that would be.


>
>
>> I can't imagine how that would be OK. It would be a giant concentration
>> of power in one place and would create an all-powerful central institution
>> for names management (absent massive cultural and structural changes at
>> ICANN).
>>
>
> From my explanation (how i understand it) above, i hope you agree that its
> not in anyway a new thing and like i said, if Verisign is willing to
> continue maintaining (which i expect has cost implication) then one would
> envision an agreement between ICANN and Verisign that ensures the
> authorisation source remains single as it currently is.
>

No, we don't agree - as above.


>
>
>> Even if ICANN transitions to a more accountable organisation in terms of
>> what it does, that doesn't balance out the very far-reaching change you
>> seem to have suggested of putting all the pieces in one basket.
>>
>
> The way i understand it, there has always been a basket, just that the
> basket gets sighted by another party i.e NTIA (without NTIA changing its
> content) before it arrives Verisign who then load the content of the basket
> in the store.
>

What if one person controls the whole process, as you are proposing? That's
the nub of my concern.

Jordan

-- 
Jordan Carter

Chief Executive
*InternetNZ*

04 495 2118 (office) | +64 21 442 649 (mob)
jordan at internetnz.net.nz
Skype: jordancarter

*To promote the Internet's benefits and uses, and protect its potential.*
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