RE: [council] NDNHC summary of comments in response to Draft 6

[tony.ar.holmes@bt.com]

Harold
As someone who's worked in the ITU for the last 10 years (and still does) I
was surprised to learn there's growing support within the NCDHC for the ITU
to assume greater responsibility. You say those arguing these positions say
ITU intergovernmental groups generally are more responsive to NGO and Civil
Society concerns than ICANN. The reality is that in ICANN these groups at
least have the opportunity to represent their views in the debates first
hand, its not necessarily the case in the ITU. The ITU TSB cannot dictate
policy on their own, it has to come through the Member State mechanisms,
however the work is actually done in the ITU Study Groups. The focus for
ICANN/Internet naming and addressing  issues in the ITU is ITU-T Study Group
2. That Group is primarily concerned with PSTN/ISDN (telephone) numbering
issues and is therefore made up of large commercial organisations, mainly
telcos, who discuss and set the policy which is then channelled through the
higher level committees. Its worth pointing out that within SG2 there are
only a handful who understand, or even have first hand experience of,
Internet matters. Would your members really be happy in handing them greater
responsibility???

There are also other issues to consider. Speaking from a European
perspective most European Governments convene national co-ordination
mechanisms to agree input into the ITU at the national level e.g. how to
vote on key issues. Certainly they maintain the right to veto the consensus
and vote their own way, but the reality is they rarely do. In most cases, to
attend a national co-ord meeting you have to be an ITU member (you have to
represent an organisation that has joined and paid its membership fees to
the ITU), for most NCDNH that rules them out of the decision making process.

There are also other issues to consider. Some European Governments (Germany
is a good example) have very limited ability to take any formal decisions
related to the Internet. Its considered a non-regulated environment so their
statutory powers and Directives limit their ability to get involved in a
manner that that could dictate input into the ITU.

You also referred to the thorny issue of US domination and the
'international' nature of the ITU. That's an issue that's been raised very
forcibly in some of the wider discussions and workshops convened by the ITU.
It tends to generate an emotive response from representatives of certain
countries, but again this isn't always positive if you're looking to move
things forward. The issues aren't just limited to the political dimension
either, there's just as much concern over infrastructure, (the geographical
position of the root servers in particular). Some parties involved in that
debate would like to see all progress on other Internet issues stopped until
that's been sorted out. Others just view the increasing power of the
Internet as a threat to existing core revenue streams, particularly those
that underpin large portions of their GDP gained through telephony
accounting rate mechanisms engineered through the ITU. Voice over IP has the
potential to erode this very quickly!

If any supports is going to be expressed for the ITU to become more involved
its really important that all these dimensions are fully understood,
otherwise the results may well be quite different from what was perceived.

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: Harold J. Feld [mailto:hfeld@mediaaccess.org]
Sent: 23 April 2002 22:16
To: Names Council (E-mail)
Subject: [council] NDNHC summary of comments in response to Draft 6


I am still compiling the comments received into a draft, but to 
facilitate discussion (and in case I can't finish in time), I will 
summarize broad trends that have arisen from my consultations with 
NCDNHC and individual members who have contacted me.

1)  NCDHC continues to support a Board structure where at least half of 
the directors are elected by the internet user community.  There is no 
support for an ombudsman alternative.  There is some agreement with the 
idea that governments can act in the same role of providing 
accountability, but those supporting this believe that governments 
should assume a greater role in managing ICANN.

On a related point, there is growing support within NCHDHC for the ITU 
or ITU-T to assume greater responsibility.  This ranges from arguing 
that ITU should help ICANN draft the mission statement (as per the 
recent letter from the ITU to ICANN) to eliminating ICANN and or making 
it a subgroup of ITU and having ITU assume these functions.  

This is by no means a consensus position of NCDNHC, but it is an 
important trendline because it represents a fundamental shift in 
position of a number of members.  Those arguing these positions argue 
that: 1) ITU -- in intergovernmental groups generally -- are more 
responsive to NGO and civil society concerns than ICANN; 2) ITU is more 
international and not subject to US domination; 3) ITU has greater 
expertise.

2) There is concern in allocating to ICANN policy for ccTLDs, 
Addressing, and Protocols.  Several commentors observed that, at 
present, ICANN _coordinates_ policy for PSOs, RIRs, and ccTLDs, but does 
not _dictate_ policy or decide among competing policies.  I will attempt 
to introduce specific language addressing these concerns.

2a) Some commentors expressed concern that ICANN should not set gTLD 
policy beyond a minimum necessary to comply with UDRP.  In particular, 
concern was expressed that market forces, rather than top-down 
regulation, should dictate gTLD policy.  Countering this, is concern 
that registries may engage in anticompetitive practices as regard their 
registries and subsidiary registrars.  This is a particular concern 
vis-a-vis Verisign.  There is no consensus on these issues within NCDHC, 
but I present the views of individual commentors for consideration in 
this discussion.

3) ICANN's consumer protection role should be limited to problems that 
arise out of ICANN's management of the DNS. e.g., issues pertaining to 
name transfers between registrars.  ICANN should not become involved in 
general consumer protection.

4) There is great concern that ICANN not exercise policy in the area of 
security.  This should be limited to DNs and should be limited to 
coordination, not ultimate authority over policy.

5) There is support for creating a list of areas outside ICANN's 
perview.  To what does ICANN authority not extend?  Where can ICANN make 
no rules?

Harold Feld