Toward a Business
Constituency Position on ICANN Restructuring and Evolution
Rapporteur: Marilyn Cade, mcade@att.com
Background
On February 24,
2002, the President of ICANN, Dr. Stuart Lynn, posted “ICANN – The Case for
Reform”. This document was followed on March 10, 2002, by the final version of
“Toward a Statement of the ICANN Mission”. These two documents, taken together,
form the basis for consideration by the ICANN board and the community for
restructuring and refocus of ICANN.
The board
Committee on ICANN Evolution and Reform, has the overall responsibility for
monitoring community discussion, and evaluating and making recommendations to
the board on restructuring proposals. The chair of the board Committee has
noted that proposals should be received before late April; however, there will
be other mechanisms for input which the BC may provide comments to.
ICANN is well
into its fourth year. From the BC
perspective, ICANN’s efforts to introduce competition into the domain name
registration business, the successful creation of the UDRP to deal with
collisions between domain names and trademarks, and the introduction of the
first generic TLDs mark significant achievements. As evolution of ICANN is
considered, it is important that its progress and achievements are built on.
The BC is in
large part in agreement with the Case for Reform in its identification of the
challenges facing ICANN; however, the BC believes that the proposed solutions
require additional work in order to maintain consistency with the original
principles of stability, competition, private bottom up coordination and
representation. The BC supports
evolution of the global private sector model.
Guiding Concepts and Principles for ICANN Evolution
and Restructuring:
1. Maintain consistency with the White Paper
principles. Efforts at restructuring
ICANN must support the original principles of the White Paper:
Ø stability,
Ø competition
Ø private bottom up
coordination and
Ø representation [including geographic diversity]
2. Reform
ICANN by evolution not revolution. The BC strongly prefers an evolutionary
approach to improving ICANN’s functioning, while addressing the critical areas
of needed improvement first – funding and key stakeholder relationships.
3. Maintain ICANN’s Current Functions: The BC supports
maintaining the current functions which ICANN manages, as described in “Toward
a Statement of the ICANN Mission.”
4. Continue Advisory Role of Government. The BC recommends that the GAC outreach to other governmental colleagues to
support ICANN’s private sector leadership role in the technical coordination
and management of the DNS. The GAC
chair, or an elected representative from the GAC could be added to the board in
an ex officio, non voting role.
5. Improve and Accelerate the Consensus Bottom up
Policy Development Process:
Ø Ensure that
policy development remains a consensus, bottom up process, with all
stakeholders represented.
Ø Provide staff
support to all parts of the policy development process.
Ø Avoid elevating
general policy development to the Board or to the staff. However, in the event
of a policy failure, or urgent situation which threatens the stability of the
Internet, the BC can support an exceptional process which provides a mechanism
for Senior Staff and/or Board requests to the staff for drafting of policy
recommendations, and a fast track community review/comment process
Ø The BC recommends
that we should seek first to improve the present process of policy development.
Where, and
Ø if alternative
mechanisms [such as forums] are considered for policy development the BC
recommends these mechanisms also follow a consensus based, bottom up process.
Ø Examine the
proposed “forum” structure to determine any improved benefits to the
functioning of policy development over the existing constituency model of the
DNSO.
Ø Examine whether
the GA can support structured discussion forums on policy issues to ensure
diversity of input.
Ø Establish a
formal means of exchanging ideas and informational discussions between the GAC
and the existing SOs/or their counterparts through a scheduled “dialogue”
session at each ICANN meeting.
6. Improve
and Strengthen ICANN’s key
relationships: In keeping with the
core mission of ensuring the stability of the Internet, ICANN needs stronger
relationships with the ccTLDs, RIRs and Root Server Operators:
Ø Support the role
of the ccTLDs as participants within the ICANN process, and ensure an effective
consultation mechanism for collaboration on policy areas of mutual impact with
the gTLD domain name entity/SO.
Ø Work to achieve
effective and mutually agreeable, models for the RIRs, Root Server operators
and technical community, to participate in ICANN.
7. Establish and support key Standing
committees: The BC supports transparent standing committees on key
functions such as security, root server operation, etc.
8. Ensure representative Board selection:
Ø Enable the
existing supporting organizations, or other entities selected for
representation, to determine the selection of their board representation,
following an election process if appropriate and self managed.
Ø Provide a
mechanism to include as ex-officio members the chairs of advisory bodies that
are created in the restructuring. [GAC, etc.]
Ø avoid functional
segmentation by ensuring that key stakeholder categories, not sub-categories,
participate [e.g. technical community, RIRs, gTLD community, ccTLD community,
etc.]
Ø Develop model for
board size and composition which ensures the board can function while
reflecting the establishment of the ccTLD as an entity separate from the gTLD
entity
Ø Support the
opportunity for the At Large to self organize and meet key benchmarks for
participation; defer election as means to select board members to give time to
self organize and develop stable base of funding and collaboration. Examine
effective mechanisms for board selection process.
Ø Preserve the
existing five at large seats either by 1) extending existing five elected
members or 2) having an interim appointment process to fill those seats.
Ø Better define the
purpose of any nominating committee and its scope of contribution to any of the
key stakeholder groups.
9. Transparency:
Given the
importance of developing an effective mechanism for independent review, give
consideration to the creation of a combined committee which could include: the
GAC chair, the IAB chair, two board members or past board members, and an
appointed and paid ombudsman
10. Funding
and Stability
Ø Develop and
support the concept of a gTLD user fee which is part of the registration of a
gTLD domain name, collected by the Registry and Registrar at the time of
registration and renewal, which forms the majority of ICANN’s funding. After
subtracting a not to exceed cost administration fee, the payments would be
aggregated and paid to ICANN to make up the majority of their funding. This model in effect builds on existing
practice.
Ø Maintain
contributions from ccTLDs and RIRs.
Ø Do not seek
government funding, other than cost recovery for administrative services
provided to the GAC, such as meeting fees, secretariat, etc.
Being part of the solution: Many BC members
helped to found ICANN because we believe strongly in the White Paper
principles. The BC reaffirms our
commitment to those principles, to ICANN’s role as the global private sector
entity responsible for the technical coordination and management of the DNS,
and to the successful evolution of ICANN’s structure and procedures to ensure
ICANN’s success in fulfilling its global mission.