[registrars] Registrars Teleconference

["Timothy Denton" <tim@tmdenton.com>]

Friday, April 26, at 3:00 PM GMT (5:00 PM Paris, 11:00 AM New York, 10:00 AM
Chicago, 8:00 AM San Francisco).

Half an Hour away!


Issue: Your thoughts on ICANN reform

We will discuss how the registrars should respond to proposals for the
reform of ICANN.

ICANN operates under a contract with the US Department of Commerce, which is
renewable annually in September. There is a reasonable chance that the the
US Government could remove ICANN from its functions and replace it with
something else. The curent US Administration has no commitment to ICANN.

We are living in an evironment of high uncertainty regarding survivial of
the institution whose decisions affect us.

ICANN has obviously received word from on high to DO SOMETHING to fix its
problems. That is the political background and it is unchangeable by
registrars.

Within that context we have to shape our responses.

I have attached an analysis of the Lynn proposals, which brings the
discussion up to date.
Essentially, since the Lynn proposals were published,
- the proposal to involve states in the choice of members of the Board has
sunk;
- the relationship of ICANN to country codes is now left to a future time,
-the self-perpetuating self-selecting aspects of the nominting committee and
the Board are in trouble
 and the main subjects remaining are
- the reform of the DNSO and
- the elimination of the elected Board seats .

I remind you that we may be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if we are
solely concerned with the seats on the Board or the composition of the DNSO.



I think registrars are agreed we need an ICANN - a private sector
organization, rather than a state-based treaty organization like the ITU,
which have no place for registrars in its decision-making processes.
Governments and very large firms alone have influence in the ITU. Registrars
would not have an effective voice in that organization.

Registrars want to live in a predictable environment.

Registrars want to be able to solve their business problems with other
registrars or registries.



1. The future of the DNSO

In brief, what the Lynn proposals call for as regards the DNSO is the
ability of the Board and the new nominations committee to load the future
DNSO (relabelled the names policy steering group) with five appointees. The
same cast of interests still sits on this policy steering group. Only this
time it has no power to bind the Board of ICANN, but merely to advise.

The policy steering group would consist of at least 4 users, one registry,
one registrar, and five appointees.

The total number of people on this policy steeering committee is not
defined.

Its functions are not defined.


2. The Board

Lynn's proposals eliminate elected Board seats and have a nominations
committee nominate Board members.



3. ICANN has published the questions found below as a way of channelling
discussion on Staurt Lynn's paper.

Tucows has published a document called the Heathrow Declaration
(www.byte.org/heathrow) and on that page you can see the comments of others
on Stuart Lynn's proposals.



ICANN asks:



1) What is or should be ICANN's mission? In this regard, please use the
recent staff posting
(http://www.icann.org/general/toward-mission-statement-07mar02.htm)
 as your starting point, and tell us (a) which if any of the activities
listed there should not be part of ICANN's mission, (b) whether there are
additional activities not listed that should be part of ICANN's mission, and
(c) what mechanisms are available, once ICANN's mission statement is
finalized, to minimize the risk that ICANN will stray beyond those
boundaries.

(2) Are the issues raised in Stuart Lynn's report a correct perception of
the problems facing ICANN? If not, why not? What are the real problems?

(3) Are the specific suggested reforms set forth in that report appropriate,
and likely to be workable and effective? If not, why not? What are your
ideas for workable and effective alternatives?

(4) Assuming you believe that structural and procedural reforms are
necessary to ensure that ICANN carries out its mission, what transition
mechanisms or approaches should be used to migrate from the status quo to
the future environment? Over what time period should this migration take
place?



Timothy Denton, BA,BCL
37 Heney Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1N 5V6
www.tmdenton.com
1-613-789-5397
tmdenton@magma.ca
1-819-842-2238 North Hatley