[council] Re: ICANN's mission

[Cary Karp <ck@nic.museum>]

Quoting J. Scott:

> My problem with the wording from the ICANN document is that it
> does not clearly state that ICANN's mission include coordinating
> the technical and policy functions of the Internet. I think it is
> important that ICANN's mission clearly articulate that ICANN's
> mission is to coordinate both the technical and policy functions
> of the DNS.

Coordinating the technical and policy functions of the DNS is by no
means the same thing as coordinating the technical and policy
functions of the DNS. The lack of precision with which ICANN's role
is variously stated and perceived has caused a lot of trouble. The
NC needs to be utterly meticulous in its own choice of words about
this. Our statement might benefit from explicit mention of the
critical need for ICANN's documentation to use terminology that is
clearly focused toward the specific end of minimizing the
possibility of its misinterpretation.

> "ICANN's mission is to coordinate technical and policy functions
> of the DNS in order to promote a safe, stable and commercially
> viable domain name system, promote competition, and achieve broad
> representation of global Internet communities."

ICANN has little influence over, nor likely interest in, the
technical platforms used and policies applied by the bulk of the
name servers operated at the perifery of the DNS.

Suggested change:

"ICANN's mission is to coordinate technical functions of and
maintain the policy basis for the top-level of the DNS ...."

or

"ICANN's mission is to coordinate high-level policies and technical
functions of the DNS ...."

> order to promote a safe, stable and commercially viable domain
> name system, promote competition, and achieve broad representation
> of global Internet communities."

The Internet and DNS were purring away like kittens long before
notions of commercial viability entered into the discussion.
Although the latter concern certainly deserves mention in present
context, there is a large segment of the Internet user community
that would not regard this as the primary attribute of a
well-functioning Net. Although I don't have exact words to suggest,
I think that we should include the notion of public benefit
somewhere here. If reference to "broad representation of global
Internet communities" isn't enough to cover commercial interests, it
isn't enough to cover non-commercial interests, either.

/Cary