[CWG-Stewardship] Responses to ICG Questions

[Mueller, Milton L]

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> Maybe I should have chosen a better word than 'solve':  "this might be a
> problem better COORDINATED by the ICG in its role."  It seems to me that it is
> exactly the ICG's role to collaborate with the parties involved and it seems
> clear that there are more parties than just the CWG.

I agree with Andrew Sullivan that the ICG cannot develop (or 'coordinate') a proposal about RZM. Our whole model for the transition was to allow each operational community (names, numbers protocols) to develop their own institutional arrangements, and we would look after their completeness, compatibility, workability, and achievement of consensus. 

There is no question that the issue we are discussing now is entirely a names operational community issue. It pertains to the contractual or other kind of relationship between ICANN as names policy maker, PTI as names IANA, and the names RZM. It's all about names. 

The only other relevant party is NTIA, and it's role is abundantly clear: it must modify the Verisign Cooperative Agreement in whatever way is required by the final names proposal. But CWG has to provide some kind of proposal regarding how PTI's root zone modifications are implemented by the RZM. Otherwise NTIA does not know what to do (or, worse, NTIA rather than the names community decides what to do, in ways that inevitably reflect USG interests and priorities rather than the interests and priorities of the global MScommunity).

Here are some basic questions that need to be answered:
 - Does PTI contract with the RZM, or does ICANN? Or does someone else? 
 - Who is the principal and who is the agent of this contract?  
 - If ICANN is the principal, can it decide to give the contract to someone besides Verisign? On what time frame? On what criteria?
 - What are the basic terms/elements of this contract? Does the RZM get paid?

At risk of being repetitive, let me say that CWG cannot just throw up its hands and say, "whatever touches Verisign is NTIA's problem, not ours." The RZM is a generic role that will outlive the NTIA cooperative agreement and possibly even Verisign. If the CWG has no idea how ICANN and PTI relate to the RZM structurally and permanently, it hasn't done its job. 

--MM