Hi, Replying to several messages at once to reduce list traffic. On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:29:21PM +0000, Milton L Mueller wrote:
Hi, Andrew Fiona Alexander of NTIA has made a frequent point of telling us that .int is currently in the IANA contract (C.2.9.4) and a complete proposal will have to decide what to do with it.
As I was arguing upthread, it _is_ in the contract, but in a strictly limited way: the technical operations only. That's what's in C.2.9.4. In that section, all the policy formation is reserved to the USG: The Contractor shall operate the INT TLD within the current registration policies for the TLD. Upon designation of a successor registry by the Government, if any, the Contractor shall cooperate with NTIA to facilitate the smooth transition of operation of the INT TLD. Such cooperation shall, at a minimum, include timely transfer to the successor registry of the then-current top-level domain registration data. The Contractor shall also implement modifications in performance of the IANA functions as needed upon mutual agreement of the parties. It seems to me that this WG therefore can nicely side-step this issue by noting that IANA is currently the technical operator but not the policy authority. So as part of the transition, we can state that the pre-existing rules remain in effect (no policy changes, and if the USG designates a new registry then ICANN will cheerfully help). Moreover, if NTIA believes that the policy authority is also part of this transfer, then ICANN will follow the same policy while consulting with existing int registrants to ask them for a new policy authority. No alterations in int registration policy will be undertaken without the (what? Rough consensus? Majority preference? I don't care) of all int registrants. That dodges the problem of getting a complete solution to all the policy issues for int while respecting the NTIA statements and direction. Moreover, it kicks this problem down the road a bit and thereby allows us not to have to hammer out all the details right now. It is consistent with what everyone wants -- ongoing security and stability -- while yet leaving NTIA an option as to which way we are to understand the existing agreement. Moreover, it's consistent with the multistakeholder approach, and we can even enumerate all the existing affected stakeholders since the zone is so small. (Even if we extended the affected class to all the potential registrants, the list is still entirely manageable in size. So there is one potentially fraught question, and that is whether to use the bigger or smaller class here.) On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 06:27:51PM +0100, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
Hello all,
actually the Management of .INT is a high stakes political game.
The ITU has affirmed for many years that they wish to be managing .INT
I suggest that the above approach neatly avoids us having to debate whether management of int can pass to ITU without violating any of the NTIA's directives on this issue. If the ITU can convince all the relevant stakeholders (however defined -- see above), then they can run it. If not, then not. And maybe they don't want it any more. On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 03:11:43PM +0100, Jaap Akkerhuis wrote:
Strickling has repeatedly said that some solution should be presented for the .INT situation. What the exact problem needs to be solved is, I don't know but I suspect it has to do with the fact that IANA is now the registry and the underlining policy doesn't has a real home nor versight.
I agree, and I'm suggesting that the ambiguity is something we should take advantage of in order to reduce the "must do" items before the transition. Please note that I'm not suggesting this isn't important or something that ought to be left forever or anything like that. I'm just saying that, given all the things that we have to achieve in roughly four months, we had better figure out how to eliminate issues from our list whenever it is practical and safe to do so. This is, I submit, such a case; so let's take advantage of that. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com