Here is the reply from Bruce Tonkin, ICANN Board member who’s also on the Accountability CCWG. ICANN is saying there is ‘confusion’ between the annual contract update and the one-time transition process underway. Bruce’s reply is helpful, but doesn’t address concerns that Milton Mueller reported (below). Hello Steve DelBianco, In response to your post on the subject of the IANA transition. The MOU between ICANN and the IETF dated 1 March 200 with respect to the IANA functions already includes a termination clause. From: https://www.icann.org/resources/unthemed-pages/ietf-icann-mou-2000-03-01-en " This MOU will remain in effect until either modified or cancelled by mutual consent of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or cancelled by either party with at least six (6) months notice" There is no refusal to continue to provide services to the IETF under the current arrangements. There is a supplemental agreement between ICANN and the IETF that defines the commitments, services, and tasks ICANN undertakes to fulfil the IANA services on behalf of the IETF: http://iaoc.ietf.org/documents/2014-ICANN-IETF-MoU-Supplemental-Agreement-Ex... This agreement is subject to annual review. My understanding is that the IETF has asked to incorporate some changes as they relate to termination following the discussions within the IETF on the IANA transition. The ICANN staff feel that some of the changes are in conflict with the current agreement been ICANN and NTIA, and should happen after the NTIA has considered the final proposals from the community. I think there are two scenarios after the NTIA considers the community proposals: (1) The NTIA agrees to transfer stewardship to the community - and we start working on the various legal arrangements to support that (2) The NTIA wants to retain stewardship – in which case we may request changes to the NTIA contract based on the community proposals and then adjust existing arrangements accordingly As far as I am aware – the response so far has been to wait until the process is complete, before changing legal arrangements. In terms of operational improvements – they should continue to be improved based on feedback from the users under the current arrangements, and these improvements could be incorporated into the supplemental agreement. The bottom line is that ICANN will continue to provide and improve its services to the IETF as it has for the past 15 years, and if the IETF is unhappy they already have the right to terminate with 6 months notice. There seems to be confusion between the annual process to update the existing supplementary agreement between ICANN and the IETF - with the overall IANA stewardship transition process. Regards, Bruce Tonkin From: Steve DelBianco Date: Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 2:16 PM To: BC List Subject: Ominous update on the IANA transition On today’s BC call, several of us talked about Milton Mueller’s post regarding resistance from ICANN legal when it came time to implement the numbers and protocol transition plans. (post is here<http://www.internetgovernance.org/2015/04/28/icann-wants-an-iana-functions-m...>, Milton’s email is below) Bill Woodcock just posted a reply to Milton’s post, clarifying his role in the meetings with ICANN. (link<http://www.internetgovernance.org/2015/04/28/icann-wants-an-iana-functions-m...>). Bill concludes with a confirmation of the troubling trend that Milton reported: Those particulars aside, the rest of your description of the situation seems accurate to me. The IAB minutes that you cite are particularly worthy of note: that ICANN is _refusing to renew_ the MOU under which they provide Protocol Registry services to the IETF, because it contains a termination clause, I find very disturbing. I have to admit that if I were in the IETF’s shoes, I might very well just take ICANN at their word and go on my merry way, if they say they don’t want to renew the agreement. Let’s assume we will encounter the same resistance when it comes time to ‘negotiate’ implementation of CWG and CCWG proposals. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Milton L Mueller <mueller@syr.edu<mailto:mueller@syr.edu>> Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 2:27 PM Subject: Ominous update on the IANA transition To: NCSG-DISCUSS@listserv.syr.edu<mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@listserv.syr.edu> Dear NCSG: It’s now official: ICANN doesn’t even want to let the IETF have a choice of its IANA functions operator. Those of you who read my blog post on ICANN’s interactions with the numbers community<http://www.internetgovernance.org/2015/04/28/icann-wants-an-iana-functions-m...> will already know that ICANN is refusing to accept the consensus of the numbers community by recognizing its contractual right to terminate its IANA functions operator agreement with ICANN. In that blog, I referred to second-hand reports that IETF was encountering similar problems with ICANN. Those reports are now public; the chairs of the IETF, IAB and IETF Administrative Oversight Committee have sent a letter to their community<http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ianaplan/current/msg01680.html> noting that ICANN is refusing to renew their supplemental service level agreement because it includes new provisions designed to facilitate change in IANA functions operators should IETF become dissatisfied with ICANN. These are truly shocking moves, because in effect ICANN’s legal staff is telling both the numbers and the protocols communities that they will not accept the proposals for the IANA transition that they have developed as part of the IANA Stewardship Coordination Group (ICG) process. In both cases, the proposals were consensus proposals within the affected communities, and were approved by the ICG as complete and conformant to the NTIA criteria. Thus, ICANN is in effect usurping the entire process, setting itself (rather than ICG and NTIA) as the arbiter of what is an acceptable transition proposal. The key point of conflict here seems to be the issue of whether ICANN will have a permanent monopoly on the provision of IANA functions, or whether each of the affected communities – names, numbers and protocols – will have the right to choose the operator of their global registries. Separability is explicitly recognized by the Cross community working group on Names as a principle to guide the transition, and was also listed as a requirement by the CRISP team. And the IETF has had an agreement with ICANN giving them separability since 2000 (RFC 2860<https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2860>). Yet despite the wishes of the community, ICANN seems to insist on a monopoly and seems to be exploiting the transition process to get one. Of course, a severable contract for the IANA functions is the most effective and important form of accountability. If the users of IANA are locked in to a single provider, it is more difficult to keep the IANA responsive, efficient and accountable. Given the implications of these actions for the accountability CCWG, I hope someone on that list will forward this message to their list, if someone has not noted this event already. Milton L Mueller Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor Syracuse University School of Information Studies http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/ Internet Governance Project http://internetgovernance.org<http://internetgovernance.org/> _______________________________________________ Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org<mailto:Accountability-Cross-Community@icann.org> https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/accountability-cross-community