Here are my personal thoughts on the Board comments.

1. They seem to put an excessive emphasis on Work Stream 1  of the Accountability CCWG, which comes across to me like they are trying to narrow the focus of the IANA transition just like they did when they created the two work streams.

2. On page 2 in the first paragraph under IANA Functions, they say, “..ICANN was created and purpose--‐built to be the permanent and robust home of the IANA functions.”  That may have been the purpose of the particular individuals who formed ICANN; I cannot speak to their motives.  But my understanding was that ICANN was created to fulfill the role discussed in the DoC White Paper of replacing the U.S. Government’s role in the overall coordination of DNS identifiers.  That role certainly includes the IANA functions, but the Board statement makes it sound like that was the main purpose and it goes on to add the words ‘permanent and robust home’.  I do not recall those words in the discussion that occurred at the four Internet Forum for the White Paper meetings that occurred in the summer of 1998 that preceded ICANN’s formation.

3. I do agree with them that the transition to ICANN “is, in large part, what ICANN was designed to do”, although I don’t think that meant the IANA functions exclusively.

4. They disagree with the formation of a separate contracting entity but they fail to address the fact that the possibility of separating the IANA functions from ICANN was one of the key accountability mechanisms that NTIA provided that impacted not just the IANA services but all of ICANN accountability.

That said, I appreciate the fact that the Board submitted these comments and I think we should take them into consideration as we review and evaluate all of the public comments.

Chuck

From: cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org [mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Steve Crocker
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2014 1:58 PM
To: cwg-stewardship@icann.org
Cc: Stephen D. Crocker
Subject: [CWG-Stewardship] Fwd: ICANN Board Comments on Cross Community Working Group (CWG) Draft Transition Proposal for Naming Related Functions

Folks,

The ICANN Board has just submitted the attached public comment.

Thanks,

Steve Crocker

for the ICANN Board of Directors