[ga-full] ICANN's ccTLD Tax - get's bumped

["!Dr. Joe Baptista" <baptista@pccf.net>]

----- Forwarded

From: Mike Roberts <roberts@icann.org>
Subject: [IOZ] Re: Financial Support for ICANN
To: Mike Lawrie <mlawrie@apies.frd.ac.za>
CC: IOZ List <ioz@internet.org.za>

Mike - Nice to hear from you.  I gather that .za has lots of changes
ahead of it in the near future. If we can be of assistance, please
let me know.

As the largest ccTLD in Africa, and the recent host of the meetings
regarding AFRINIC, etc., we appreciate the leadership you are
providing for the Internet in your part of the world.

Even though the process leading to the creation of ICANN has been
going on for several years and has involved extensive consultation
with all parties, I can understand that the complexity of our
organizations might result in some misunderstandings.  Let me make a
few comments about your text below in the interests of clarity and
improved communication.

(1) ICANN has been created to assume responsibility for policy
development and administration of a number of technical management
responsibilities associated with Internet domain names and addresses
and protocols.  We are not a service organization except to the minor
extent required by administration of our policy responsibilities.

(2) The financial structure of ICANN is based on proportionate
contributions to our policy making activities from registries and
registrars - gTLDs, ccTLDs and Address Registries.  The current
contribution shares were worked out last year by a task force
composed of members of the registries and registrars.  They were
publicly discussed and adopted by the ICANN Board last November.  If
you have questions about how the process worked, and what the
detailed recommendations of the task force about funding were, the
report is easily accessible on our web site at
<http:www.icann.org/tff/final-report-draft-30oct99.htm>

(3) The benefit of supporting ICANN fundamentally lies in the premise
that the Internet community and more particularly those organizations
and individuals who are directly involved with domain names and
addresses wish to take responsibility for self-rgulation of this
important area of activity. What the US government previously
sponsored Jon Postel to do is now the responsibility of the
community, including the responsibility to fund the expenses
necessary to carry out ICANN's mission.

I hope that you will agree with me that it is in the interest of .za
to continue to carry forward the public trust relationship it has had
with IANA, even though this now requires a funding commitment to
ICANN.

(4) A number of ccTLDs have suggested that there may be a formula for
allocating the $1.5 million share of our current year expense which
the funding task force allocated to the ccTLDs in a more equitable
manner than the gTLD formula used in calculating your invoice.  I'd
like to emphasize that ICANN remains open to the use of such an
alternative formula, provided that it is broadly supported in the
ccTLD community and can be applied in an equitable manner to all
ccTLD organizations.

Regards,

-Mike

At 15:40 +0200 5/23/00, Mike Lawrie wrote:
 >ICANN
 >
 >I have received your email regarding payment of USD17,520.18 by the
 >ccTLD .ZA (South Africa) for undefined services for the period 1 July
 >1999 to 30 June 2000.
 >
 >It is highly unlikely that payment will be made. The .ZA ccTLD runs
 >without any charging mechanism in place to generate any future income,
 >never mind any arrear income. The admin of .ZA is in transistion, it may
 >be that the new admin might be willing to pay this kind of money to
 >ICANN, for whatever reason either party finds acceptable, but I don't
 >speak for them. I cannot say when the new admin will be in place, nor
 >whom they will be, because the South African government is now proposing
 >to get into the act, some 15 months after a wide consultative process
 >had begun. Be that as it may, I must reject out of hand any attempts by
 >anyone to introduce a charge in arrear - were I to accept that
 >principle, then who knows who would demand payment for all kinds of
 >services dating back to 1990 when .ZA first came into use.
 >
 >Even if there were that kind of money lying around in a .ZA ccTLD
 >budget, it is highly questionable whether the principle of parting with
 >that kind of money would be agreed to without there being a clearly
 >defined benefit to that value being received in return. Your documents
 >don't spell out such benefit - I don't regard vague terms like "build
 >sensible policies and structures to promote the growth and stability of
 >the Internet" as being of direct value to the .ZA administration,
 >although of course I support those concepts.
 >
 >Your documents don't spell out any benefit or service level, but rather
 >they give a somewhat arbitrary figure of 35% of the annual ICANN budget
 >as being "attributable to the ccTLD registries/registrars", all told an
 >amount of USD1,480,974. The only service of any nature that the .ZA
 >ccTLD receives from ICANN is administration of root servers, which I
 >have the greatest difficulty in believing costs ICANN that kind of
 >money. Given that the few changes that I have ever requested for .ZA
 >root server NS entries have taken ages to be implemented, you must
 >allow that I view the service with the greatest sceptcism.
 >
 >The principle of paying the true costs of services received by the .ZA
 >admin, agreed in advance in a contract, is acceptable to me, and I'd be
 >willing to negotiate along these lines. It may well be that .ZA would
 >prefer to return services in kind, eg run a root-level nameserver,
 >rather than pay the amount that ICANN is suggesting. I trust that your
 >minds will be open to this.
 >
 >Regards
 >Mike
 >
 >On Mon, May 22, 2000 at 03:43:50PM -0700, IANA wrote:
 >>  ccTLD Managers:
 >>
 >>  Hi!  This email includes several documents that you will shortly be
 >>  receiving in a postal mailing from ICANN (if you have not received them
 >>  already). Because it may take some time for all the letters to be sent and
 >>  received, we thought it might be helpful to circulate the text of these
 >>  documents via email.  The documents included in this email are the
 >>  following:
 >>
 >>  (1)  Letter from Mike Roberts to ccTLD Managers (in generic form -- the
 >>  letter you receive via postal mail will be personalized and specific 
to your
 >>  ccTLD).
 >>
 >>  (2) ccTLD Budget Contribution Formula and Table of FY99-00 Contributions.
 >>
 >>  Best regards,
 >>
 >>  ICANN
 >>
 >>  =======================
 >>
 >>  LETTER FROM MIKE ROBERTS TO ccTLD MANAGERS
 >>
 >>  May 10, 2000
 >>
 >>  Dear <name>,
 >>
 >>  The purpose of this letter is to ask your assistance with funding 
support of
 >>  ICANN for the current fiscal year, 1999-2000.
 >>
 >>  The ICANN Board and staff have been working over the past year to 
develop a
 >>  funding structure for the organization that is fair and equitable to all
 >>  those who contribute to and benefit from the Internet Domain Name System.
 >>  Although this effort is by no means finished, we believe that sufficient
 >>  progress has been made that it is appropriate at this time to send all
 >>  administrative contacts of country code Top Level Domain organizations a
 >>  package of background materials and an invoice for your current year
 >>  contribution to ICANN.
 >>
 >>  Background.  As the private sector organization charged with technical
 >>  management of the Domain Name and Address System, ICANN must look to the
 >>  name and address registries and registrars for financial support to carry
 >>  out its work.  Last July, the ICANN Board of Directors asked me to form a
 >>  Task Force on Funding (TFF), composed of representatives of the name and
 >>  address registries and registrars. The TFF was charged to review ICANN's
 >>  financial needs and budget and to make recommendations on the most 
equitable
 >>  way of determining allocations of budget support.  The ccTLD community was
 >>  represented on the task force by individuals from Brazil, Japan and the
 >>  United Kingdom.
 >>
 >>  The task force report, endorsed unanimously by its members, was 
delivered to
 >>  the Board in October and posted on the ICANN Website.  Following public
 >>  comment, its recommendations were adopted by the Board at the annual 
meeting
 >>  in November in Los Angeles.  The full text of the report is available at
 >>  <http://www.icann.org/tff/final-report-draft-30oct99.htm>.
 >>
 >>  Invoice for FY99-00 Budget Contribution.  The TFF report recommends 
that the
 >>  ccTLD community contribute a total of US$1,496,000 toward ICANN's 
expenses.
 >>  One of the enclosures to this letter is an invoice for your FY99-00 budget
 >>  contribution to ICANN based on a formula which measures the total 
number of
 >>  assigned names in your individual registry against all of the names 
assigned
 >>  in the ccTLD community.  A description of the formula and a table of
 >>  contributions for all of the ccTLDs is included in the enclosed materials.
 >>
 >>  A number of ccTLDs have made advances to ICANN for the current fiscal 
year.
 >>  If you have done so, the amount of the advance is shown as a credit on 
your
 >>  invoice. If there are specific circumstances which affect your 
organization
 >>  and its budget contribution to ICANN for this year, and you wish to 
discuss
 >>  revision of your invoice amount, please contact me at your convenience.
 >>
 >>  ccTLD/IANA Relationship. In addition to budget support issues, many ccTLD
 >>  administrators are concerned about their continuing relationship with the
 >>  Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), now that ICANN has been formed
 >>  in accordance with the U.S. Government's decision to transfer technical
 >>  management of the DNS to the private sector.  At the present time, 
ICANN is
 >>  continuing the past policies of Jon Postel in administering ccTLDs and has
 >>  published a policy statement, ICP-1, which incorporates the major
 >>  administrative practices of IANA as they were being carried out 
immediately
 >>  prior to the creation of ICANN.
 >>
 >>  While these informal arrangements generally worked well in the past, the
 >>  evolution of the Internet has made it necessary to consider a more formal
 >>  legal framework in which ccTLDs operate.  Indeed, the United States
 >>  Government has indicated that appropriate formal legal relationships
 >>  respecting ccTLDs must be established before it will complete the 
transition
 >>  to private-sector technical management of the DNS.  At ICANN's meeting in
 >>  Cairo in March, various proposals for a legal framework for ccTLDs were
 >>  presented by groups of ccTLD managers, the Government Advisory Committee,
 >>  and others in the Internet community.  We expect that discussions of these
 >>  proposals will continue through the 14-17 July ICANN meeting in Yokohama,
 >>  where possible resolutions will be considered.  In the meantime, we would
 >>  welcome any comments you might have on how to proceed in this area.
 >>
 >>  Next Steps. I realize that you may have a number of questions about the
 >>  ICANN budget and your invoice. There is a substantial amount of 
information
 >>  posted on our website, but please feel free to contact me at
 >>  <roberts@icann.org> or at the phone or fax numbers on this letter. The 
Board
 >>  and I appreciate your support, both financially and with our ongoing 
work as
 >>  a community to build sensible policies and structures to promote the 
growth
 >>  and stability of the Internet.
 >>
 >>  Sincerely,
 >>
 >>  Michael M. Roberts
 >>  President and Chief Executive Officer
 >>
<snip>
 >
 >--
 >Mike Lawrie,                               Phone: +27 12 481-4148
 >Manager:UNINET,                            Fax:   +27 12 349-1179
 >National Research Foundation,             <mlawrie@apies.frd.ac.za>
 >P O Box 2600, Pretoria 0001 South Africa

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