Avri,

I find your message below very helpful.  I haven’t had time to fully grasp your concern regarding ‘oversight’ and what you say below clarifies it a lot.  If I am understanding you correctly, I also don’t believe that day-to-day oversight is required.

I will be curious to see your reaction to  the modified Straw Man 1 proposal that Stephanie sent to the CWG list yesterday.  In particular, I would like to know whether you think it meets your concerns regarding oversight.

Chuck

From: cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org [mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2014 8:43 AM
Cc: cwg-stewardship@icann.org
Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] multistakeholder principle was Re: [] FW: FW: CWG ... 2B

Hi,

Thanks for pulling that all together.  You display one of the best attributes of a list member.

I had read those arguments on the list earlier, though in some cases a few days late, and my view was that we were in the midst of a discussion that had not yet resolved. As far as I could tell we were still early in the discussion and that the few who had weighed in were split on the issue. There is nothing in the quote you sent to show a consensus.

Part of the problem we are getting into here, is that the principles of some seem to presuppose that there will be oversight of the day to day operation of IANA, and are thus proposing principles for oversight and not principles for the transition of Stewardship.  From all of the exegesis of the NTIA contract and practice I have seen to date, NTIA never engaged in day to day oversight of naming or any other operations. I.e. in many of the arguments it is a predetermined solution, one I do not accept, that is presupposing a principle.  I think, on the other hand that in the NTIA mssion the multistakeholder principle is inherent and must be carried through in the principles of a solution.

To put it another way, I think many of the arguments here have the tail wagging the dog.

Therefore I maintain that accepting that the multistakeholder principle is fundamental in our work is essential and cannot be removed by solutionism .  As I said in another hand, if there is a concensus argument that on principle "one stakeholder should be more equal than all other stakeholders," then that should be set down as the principle.  I do not believe I have seen that consensus.

I do agree that there needs to be remedies/redress for SLA issue &c., and this is part of our brief.  But solutions for these issues do not necessarily require day to day operational oversight  in my opinion and we should not use one possible remedy as the explanation for a principle.  I do agree that performance on SLA &c. would be material that was  reviewed at the time of the renewal, but would argue that a multistakeholder group is fully capable of understanding and coming up with an appropriate decision on renwal taking those issue into consideration with all other relevant issues.

Thanks

avri
On 15-Nov-14 03:42, Guru Acharya wrote:

Avri,

I reproduce some previous conversations on this list below that may help

have an informed discussion.

I request you to address the points raised by Becky and MM.

   -

   *Becky*: Seems to me that the core of this group would be registry

   operators, perhaps with representation from other stakeholders like

   registstrars, registrants, etc.

   -

   *Greg*: Oversight of the IANA functions for the naming community should

   not be left solely (or even primarily) to its direct "customers." An

   essential part of the multistakeholder construct is that all Internet

   stakeholders (aka "the Global Multistakeholder Community") are affected,

   directly or indirectly, by these matters. This CWG is roughly

   representative of those stakeholders. Any group or entity designated or

   created to hold steward/oversight responsibility should be similarly

   representative.

   -

   *MM*: I disagree at the most fundamental level. This position is based

   on a fallacy. The fallacy is to confuse the accountability and input of

   ICANN’s policy making process with the accountability of and input into the

   IANA functions. All stakeholders should have a voice in and fair

   representation in the process of policy development. But once a policy is

   agreed, the implementation of policies by the IANA is a derivative

   technical and operational function in which its direct customers are the

   primary stakeholders. Broad public oversight would be meaningless at best

   (because random members of the public would not know what is going on at

   that level) and dangerous at worst (because there would be temptations to

   circumvent agreed policies by politically intervening at the implementation

   level). I suspect that people who argue for broad representation of IANA

   contracting function are people who want there to be a capability for some

   kind of political circumvention of the policy process at the IANA level. In

   other words, they think policy should be made by IANA rather than by ICANN.

   That’s wrong, fundamentally wrong, and that is why IGP – and many others –

   have argued as a principle that policy and IANA implementation need to be

   clearly separated. If you want to change policy, do it in the policy

   process. If you want to monitor technical implementation of a policy by a

   registry, the operators of a registry are in the best position to do that.

   Yes, there should be some public interest representation in a contracting

   authority (IGP proposed that, too) but mainly for transparency purposes and

   for keeping them honest. IANA should be primarily accountable to the people

   who actually use its services and whose basic functions and activities are

   dependent on those services. Whether or not one thinks they used it, the US

   government’s authority over modifications to the root zone created the

   potential for that kind of political intervention at the implementation

   level. This set a very bad precedent for the world that we are still

   dealing with. Now some people are trying to reproduce that situation by

   making IANA oversight a way for interest groups who don’t get what they

   want in a policy process to get a second, back door bite at the apple.

   Let’s reject that clearly. If one knows what the performance of the IANA

   functions actually are, the idea that every stakeholder in the world should

   be engaged in “oversight” of its performance is pretty ridiculous. You

   might as well say there should be public, multistakeholder oversight over

   what secretaries a registry hires, what cars they rent, what buildings they

   live in. After all if their cars break down you as a customer might be

   affected, right? If their building power goes out, you might be affected,

   right? If the ccTLD for .za submits a request for a change in its root zone

   file data neither you, Greg – nor I – are in a position to say whether the

   request should happen or whether it has been implemented correctly. You may

   argue that internet users under .za will be affected if the IANA

   implementation of a root zone change for .za is performed badly, but the

   answer is that the .za registry would be affected immediately and far more

   damagingly than any individual customer would be, and in terms of both

   incentives and knowledge, is in a much better position to prevent that from

   happening than any other stakeholder. So if you really care about the

   security, accuracy and accountability of registry changes, we will be

   relying on the primary users, no matter what kind of a structure we set up.

   -

   Becky: Thanks Elise, very helpful.  I was thinking that the “oversight

   counsel” would focus on technical and operational issues as opposed to

   policy issues:  Things like SLAs, how quickly name server changes are

   processed, etc. Where a government actually operates the ccTLD, it would be

   direct consumers of IANA services, like gTLDs and ccTLDs. But policy for

   IANA would remain in existing ICANN processes.  Could you help me

   understand which technical/operational IANA services might raise “public

   interest” concerns?  I agree with you that having some GAC reps on a

   Oversight Counsel would not be inconsistent with the Strickling view, but I

   am curious about why GAC might want to participate in that kind of counsel.

   -

   MM: Totally agree with Becky. I think any IANA transition solution that

   gives governments a special, privileged role is not meeting the NTIA

   criteria and could not be implemented. Most governmental concerns arise in

   the policy development process. As I’ve said before, IANA does not and

   should not be involved in making policy, nor should it be viewed as a way

   to veto or circumvent agreed policy. Therefore govts – and we - must not

   confuse IANA issues with the accountability of ICANN’s policy making

   process. For that reason I really like Stacey King’s statement: if GAC is

   represents on an oversight council “that the ICANN Bylaws provision

   allowing for GAC advice on any policy matter does not apply to IANA.  Ie,

   that the GAC cannot exercise any additional authority over IANA functions

   through other means/routes.”

   -

   Guru: Becky. I agree with your initial assessment that the "oversight

   council" would focus on "technical and operational issues" (as opposed to

   policy issues); and therefore GAC participation in the council will not be

   required even though GAC participation at an equal footing will not be

   inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model. However, I think GAC

   participation in the council might be essential in the scenario where the

   oversight council decides to change the IANA operator in the future. If the

   council decides to contract a different operator (different from ICANN) in

   the future, would it not lead to various policy issues such as jurisdiction

   of the new IANA operator, financing of the new IANA operator etc - where

   the insight of the GAC may be beneficial? Therefore I think GAC should be a

   part of the oversight council.

   -

   Allan: There is a potential problem with having just registries doing

   the oversight. Particularly for gTLD,s policy is set by a MS group (the

   GNSO) and it is possible that they can set a policy that the gTLD

   registries do not approve of (they do not have a veto based on GNSO voting

   threshholds). If IANA were to not be implementing that policy properly, the

   oversight body, composed of only registries would have no incentive to call

   IANA out on the problem

   -

   Becky: IANA is a service provider.  If you hire a contractor to build a

   house, it is the contractor’s job to make sure that the plumber and the

   electrician do their work properly.  If your house burns down because the

   wiring is faulty, you are going to look to the contractor – not the

   electrician – to make you whole. I fully support multi-stakeholder policy

   development.  Multi-stakeholder oversight of the electrician doesn’t make

   sense to me.

   -

   Oliver: irrespective of whether an "Oversight Council" is a desirable

   thing or not (I have not yet made up my mind about this, only having very

   basic information about it), I see a serious conflict of Interest where

   only the directly affected parties oversee operations that concern them

   directly.  There was much discussion about the GAC having seats. Although I

   have not asked them, I am pretty much sure that end users, as affected

   parties, would need a number of seats too

   -

   MM: I can’t agree with Olivier and Fouad. Olivier, help me to understand

   why the directly affected parties shouldn’t have the primary responsibility

   for operations they are the direct users of and that their own operations

   depend on. To me your claim that this constitutes a “conflict of interest”

   is almost self-contradictory and self-refuting – it is a confluence of

   interest, not a conflict – but perhaps I am missing something. Please

   explain. What I suspect is happening is that both of you are confusing

   policy development functions of ICANN with the operational and technical

   functions of IANA, and applying inappropriate mental models drawn from the

   former to the latter. In policy development we want “openness, diversity,

   inclusiveness and the user perspective.”  In the DNS IANA functions the

   users are the registries, it’s an intermediate good, it’s all about

   implementation, so we want efficiency, security and direct accountability

   to the primary users, not some playground for different stakeholders to

   voice their opinions. I do agree with Alan there should be safeguards to

   prevent the operational and technical functions from being managed in ways

   that undermine or subvert policy that is made in the MS process. It would

   be useful to discuss institutional safeguards – including antitrust law –

   to prevent those kinds of things. But throwing an infinite number of

   “stakeholders” into looking over the shoulders of those making root zone

   file modifications accomplishes nothing useful from a public interest

   perspective, while raising all kinds of risks and inefficiencies. If Alan

   can recognize the danger that IANA contractors or implementations might

   compromise the policy process, I hope that he can also recognize the danger

   that politicized ‘multstakeholdered’ oversight of the technical operations

   could be abused to circumvent or veto the policies developed by the MS

   process.

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 1:41 PM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> wrote:

 Hi,

I think we need to start from principles, as opposed to having a solution

and making sure the principles fit the desired solution.

And if we are stating that we think 'one Stakeholder Group is more

relevant than all other stakeholder types' and by virtue of that have

primacy in decision making, then that should be stated explicitly in the

principles section.   If it is already then I missed it.

I prefer the equal-footing multistakeholder principle, but if there is

near consensus for the one stakeholder above all stakeholders viewpoint, I

would like to understand.

Thanks

avri

On 15-Nov-14 01:33, Guru Acharya wrote:

Avri

I'm sure your viewpoints are not being ignored. Peace. I forgive you for

your sin.

Nobody is saying multi stakeholder compositions are not applicable or there

is consensus against it. Please look at strawmans 2 and 3.

I intact support a multi-stakeholder composition.

I'm just saying I don't agree there is consensus against a registry only

composition, which you seem to be eliminating by way of the principle that

you are suggesting.

 On 15 Nov 2014 11:51, "Avri Doria" <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> wrote:

  Hi,

Apologies, guess I picked the wrong email.  I hope I can be forgiven for

this sin.

I guess that means that my viewpoints will just be ignored.

But if this group is able to decide that multistakeholder models are not

applicable, no matter which thread an email is attached to. I think we may

be in more trouble than I think we are.  Are you saying we have consensus

on a principle against commitment to the multistakeholder model?  How can

that be when the multistakeholder model is really one of the first

principles we much meet for an NTIA solution

avri

On 14-Nov-14 22:48, Guru Acharya wrote:

Avri - You got the wrong thread. This thread is for RFP2B and not the

principles.

And your suggested principle for a multi-stakeholder composition of the

oversight council appears to be in contradiction to Strawman 1 and ignores

the range of discussions that happened on this list about the composition.

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 6:13 AM, Avri Doria <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> <avri@acm.org><mailto:avri@acm.org> wrote:

  Hi,

I have suggested a few edits to the doc.  hope I did it in the mandated

manner.

the changes refer to

- transparency and requirements that any and all audit reports be

published.

- bottom-up modalities

- multistakeholder nature of any committee or oversight arrangements.

Hope I did not mess up any of the formatting.

avri

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