IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, 31 July 2015
ICANN's Plan to Take Control Over the Internet - Call for Public Comment
On 31 July 2015, the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) released the Draft Proposal for the transition of the stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions from the U. S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to the global multistakeholder community and, on 3 August 2015, the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability made its "CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations" available for public comment. Both, the "IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal" and the "CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal" are open to public comment for a period of 40-days. This presents a seminal opportunity for the public to evaluate the Draft Proposal as a whole and how it meets the criteria established by NTIA.
Background
The transition of IANA’s stewardship represents an important Internet governance milestone. The proposal for how to carry out the transition is the result of a tremendous undertaking by the global multistakeholder community, including the operational communities with direct operation or service relationships with the IANA functions as well as global business, civil society, governments, and Internet users. These geographically diverse groups came together to work on this process shortly after NTIA announced its intent to transition its stewardship role in March 2014. The proposal was developed through a transparent community-led process, open to and inclusive of all interested stakeholders.
IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal
The Draft Proposal combines components related to the three categories of IANA functions:
- domain names,
- Internet numbering resources, and
- protocol Parameters.
Each of these functions have already been thoroughly and publicly vetted.
- New Legal Entity: Post-Transition IANA (PTI)
The Draft Proposal establishes a multistakeholder IANA Function Review process (IFR) to conduct reviews of Post-Transition IANA (PTI).The domain names community proposed to form a new, separate legal entity, PTI, as an affiliate (subsidiary) of ICANN that would become the IANA functions operator in contract with ICANN. The legal jurisdiction in which ICANN resides is to remain unchanged. The proposal includes the creation of a Customer Standing Committee (CSC) responsible for monitoring the operator’s performance according to the contractual requirements and service level expectations.
- Compatibility and Interoperability
"The ICG identified a potential compatibility issue regarding the IANA trademarks and the iana.org domain name. The numbers proposal detailed specific requirements related to IANA intellectual property, whereas the other two proposals are silent on this issue. As long as the other two communities can accommodate the specified requirements as part of their implementation, then the implementation of the proposals will be compatible."
(IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, Executive Summary, para X013)
"The three proposals together include appropriate and properly supported Independent accountability mechanisms for running the IANA functions, relying mostly on the right of each operational community to select a new entity for the performance of the IANA functions."
(IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, Executive Summary, para X014)
Despite various differences, "the ICG regards the three proposals as individually and collectively workable. Verisign currently serves as the Root Zone Maintainer and performs the Root Zone Management functions pursuant to a cooperative agreement with NTIA. Since there is currently no agreement between the Root Zone Maintainer and the IANA functions Operator for the Root Zone Management process, some form of agreement between These organizations will be essential when NTIA withdraws from the Root Zone Management process."
(IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, Executive Summary, para X015 and X016)
The IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal finds that all proposals meet the NTIA criteria:
Broad Community Support
Support and Enhance the multistakeholder model
Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS
Meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA Services
Maintain the openness of the Internet
Does not replace NTIA role with a government or inter-governmental organization
Next Step: ICG Recommendation
"After the conclusion of the ICG public comment period and the finalization of CCWG Workstream 1, the ICG will make a final determination about whether to recommend that NTIA approve the transition proposal. Based on the outcome of the evaluation described in Part 0, Section IV below, the ICG is planning to recommend that NTIA approve the transition proposal, pending the resolution of the outstanding items highlighted in that section."
(IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, Executive Summary, para X026)
Accountability
In parallel to the ICG, a Cross Community Working Group (CCWG-Accountability) was formed to facilitate the process of developing enhancements to ICANN’s accountability in light of the transition away from the U.S. Government. The CCWG-Accountability made its 2nd Draft Proposal available for public comment on Monday, 3 August 2015. The public should direct comments about the Enhancing ICANN Accountability proposal to the CCWG-Accountability and comments about the IANA Stewardship Transition proposal to the ICG.
Call for Public Comment
The ICG is now asking the public to review the IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal and submit comments by the deadline of 8 September 2015 at 23:59 UTC here:
https://www.ianacg.org/calls-for-input/combined-proposal-public-comment-period/
After the conclusion of the public comment period, the ICG will make a final determination about whether to recommend that NTIA approve the transition proposal.
(Ga)
IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal, 31 July 2015
CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations, 3 August 2015
IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal: Call for Public Comment
