Biographies of Mr. Strickling, the panelists, and the
moderator, Shane Tew, can be found
here.
NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling opened the session by giving his remarks
on the IANA Transition process that he requested ICANN to manage. He was
introduced by the moderator, Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge at the start of the
session, which begins at 11:00 minutes. His talk ends at 30:00 minutes. The
transcript of his presentation is available
here.
The moderater then introduced the
panelists
at 30:00 minutes. The times at which they spoke and a digest of their
remarks follows.
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
31:25 minutes - In his opening remarks he endorses the IANA
Transition reports stating that their recommendation provide
"accountability measures over ICANN that NTIA never dreamed of and
that we have never had before." "Those that say that we need a one
or two year trial run have to understand that the empowered
community will test these new measures." "the consequences of
reneging on this 18 year commitment (to turn over ICANN to the user
community) ... are significant." "Russia and China will lose
confidence in the US sticking to the multi-stakeholder model."
Gordon Goldstein, Managing Director and Head of External Affairs,
SilverLake
33:49 minutes - In his opening remarks Goldstein says that
"Larry acknowledges that the challenges to the multi-stakeholder
model are going to continue regardless of whether this transition is
effectuated or if it is not. I think that's a critically important
point to focus on" "We have seen continuity in this theme ... when
the nonalignment movement ... made a submission that articulated a
heavily focused Internet paradigm focused on the multilateral
system in sharp contrast to the multi-stakeholder system" "ICANN
will continue to be a rich strategic target"
John Kneuer, President and Founder of JKC Consulting LLC
36:40 minutes - In his opening remarks he says that "There is a
lot of disagreement and dispute sometimes around these issues and it
has regrettably sometimes drifted away from the bipartisan consensus
there once was." "this is a transition that crossed several
administrations." "... the purpose of the agreements was ... for the
express purpose (of) ... getting it turned over to the community"
"the community itself is articulating (what we want) ... when the US
government has stepped out" "we are talking about a US corporation
organized and subject to US laws and that is the way it is going to
remain." "the best defense against (government-centric
intergovernmental oversight and regulation) is a successful and
accountable ICANN operating under the bylaws that have been
negotiated and adopted."
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
42:05 minutes - In his opening remarks he says "I want to start
with a few points of agreement. I don't think this is about giving
away the Internet. I am in favor of the transition generally
speaking and I think that for the most part a lot of of the
accountability work that was done to date has a lot of promise and
took seriously a lot of concerns that people have. If you read the
220 something pages of the bylaws, there was a lot of thought and
care that went into it. That said, I believe there are some
potential issues relating to a few core issues that deserve a
little bit more attention ... If we don't delay the transition for
a year or two, if we had a soft transition, through ICANN, that
would be prudent. .. There is workstream two in process that is
going to deal with two important issues ... jurisdiction (that is,
which laws apply to ICANN), which is in the bylaws right now and
is in the articles (of incorporation but) I would actually like to
see what the community comes up with ... before I feel comfortable
saying yes, this issue is settle. As Larry noted this is a
California corporation. Everything in the bylaws hinges on (this
fact). ...
Another major area is ... accountability. ... There is ambiguity
in the mission statement (which) explicitly says something along
the lines of ICANN ... won't be able to do content regulation on
the Internet, which broadly speaking I'm in favor of this. At the
same time there's something that ICANN has had in its registrars
and registries contracts to date that should continue forward are
public interest commitments (PICs). ... And these are contractual
clauses that ICANN puts into its agreements with registrars and
registries to make sure that the DNS is not used for illicit
purposes (and some domains may) ... need to shut (these domains)
down ... (to be) compliant with legal authority. The way the
bylaws are written in the PICs are actually grandfathered in. At
the same time the bylaws saw that there is not be content
regulation. As a lawyer, if I was hired by someone who wanted to
go after the bylaws or ICANN behavior if there was any of these
public interest commitments in the future, that would a great
basis for attacking public interest commitments. And the reason
why this matters is because the actual real threat to the
operation of the DNS, in my opinion, ... (is that failure to
address these issues would) give governments a really strong
argument saying that you are not doing your job. You are allowing
human trafficing, allowing the sale of illegal drugs, allowing
deceptive propery. You are not capable of handling this problem
and it needs to go into the UN, the ITU. ... Waiting a year and
putting in some provisions in for NTIA to make sure that things are
going well based on the operative workstream two, I don't think is
a problem."
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
47:25 "Berin, you have been a bit recent to the discussion but
what we have seen from some of your dialogue is that still you have
concern about what is going on here. So do you want to take some
highlights on that?
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
47:355 minutes - In his opening remarks he says "Just for the
record, I was more involved in Internet governance issues in 2009
and 2010. I have not been involved in the last few years. So when
yiou heard Larry complain about people dropping at the last
minutes have not been involved. A lot of those remarks were
directed at me. Like Kristian, I am not opposed to the
transition. I find much to agree with what Larry said. There is
broad consensus that the U.S. Government should transition its
role and the best way to protect Internet freedom is to depend on
the multi-stakeholder community. I could not agree more. I am not
sure that we have done enough to make sure that we have empowered
that community to stand up for itself and to hold accountable and
to ensure that it will be transparent the way that ICANN as a
corporation operates. The multi-stakeholder model, that term means
relying on stakeholders in the community and makring sure they can
exercise control. That's not the same thing as ICANN. And the term
ICANN is ambiguous. Are we talking about the community that's
involved or talking about the board or are we talking about the
leadership of the organization? Or are we talking about the
corporate form itself. So my concerns is twofold. First of all,
first and foremost, we haven't actually empowered the community
adequately and it is in this respect that I think the transition
is being rushed. ... And there are concerns that that need to be
addressed before (the transition) happens. Now I would highlight
as chief among those, since Larry called me out by saying that it
is not defending the multi-stakeholder process to drop in afgter
two years of not being involved and not advocating for something
that has not been proposed. I am advocating to have membership
rightsd under California laws. Many of you may know that there two
types of corporations, non-profit corporations, most of them have
members, in a lower case term. So it is veyr confusing but in in a
legal sense they are fundamentally different. So category 1 you
are a membjer. You give money to the organization and you get to
vote for the board. And under California law, if it is based
there, you get to look at budgets. The other one is called the
self-perpetuating board. That's a model where you have members,
they are people who give you money but they don't have any legal
rights. Now the community ask asked for a membership model (in
which members get to vote) and not only did the board rolled them
over. The board crossed its arms and said that not only is it not
willing to do that, if that's what you want we are going to push
for this transition we are going pick up our ball and go home...
we should pause ask if our community is cohesive enough to operate
efficiently. ... we are talking about defining a constitutional
system. ... when you have diffuse and disparate communities on the
one hand who are trying to come together to reach majorities
(etc. and) ,,, you pit them against cpncentrated interests (they)
tend to win every time. so I believe it is naive to assume this
process is going to turn out fine and dandy. ... there are other
questions ... that we have not begun to address that simply will
not be resolved until after September. ..."
Jonathan Zuck, President, ACT
54:48 minutes - In his opening remarks he says Larry's speech
"has left me with very little to say in some sense respects."
"having been on the committee that worked on the accountability
framework if we made a mistake it might have been to produce to
big a document because ... the guy on the other side didn't have
to be very accurate to hit (the target)" (we were trying to give)
"the community the last word." "with the sole designator model we
gave the community the last word in the ability to remove
individual board directors and to spill the entire board and a
number of enumerated powers." "everything you are worried about
was going to happen no matter what document we put into place." "a
lot of us saw this transition not a significant event in and of
itself" "It was ... an opportunity to bring about reform that
ICANN has always needed"
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
60:48 "ICANN was created to be the technical coordinators of the
unique identifiers of the Internet but ... you have a document that
talks about proxy fights and Human Rights. I think people are
concerned about ... mission creep." "have (you) addressed that to
the point that people can feel comfortable"
Jonathan Zuck, President, ACT
61:00 minutes - "No. The multi-stakeholder decided that it
should be the responsibility of ICANN to decide XYZ - if you are
afraid of that, you are afraied of the multi-stakeholder decision
making model and there is no way to protect the organization
entirely from the entire community coming together and wanting a
particular outcome."
John Kneuer, President and Founder of JKC Consulting LLC
62:30 minutes - "We are all here today because of the desire to
move mission creep out of ICANN"
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
63:13 minutes - "ICANN is a unique beast but it is not the
first time that we have had to draft a constitution or figure out
governance structures; every non-profit goes through that." "this
empowered community concept is still in the womb. We don't know how
it is going to work and we should be very skeptical and concerned
that ... in five to ten to 20 years (we might discover) that the
real threat was that ICANN will continue doing since day one, which
is morphing from a technical coordinating body into a huge money pot
with the ability to control hundreds of millions of dollars which it
then uses ... to make friends and influence people. And ... becomes
more and more like a government. It would be naive to think that's
not going to happen. It doesn't mean that the transition to the
ICANN community is a bad idea. What it does mean is that we need to
address the open questions (such as) ... where jurisdiction be based
are live questions workstreamtwo and that people in the Helsinki
meeting were up in arms about this and (saying) we have had enough
of these Anglo-Saxon ideas about debate and confrontation" "they
should make us ask why is it imprudent to wait until the workstation
two issues have been resolved" "we don't know the answers to many of
these questions and we shouldn't sweep them under the rug because of
this idea that somehow those who want to take over the Internet and
put it into the ITU will be emboldened because they will do that
anyway.
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
67:08 minutes - Draws analogy between ICANN governance and the
US Constitution. "Bill of Rights was deferred to workstream two"
(laughter) Cites the importance of the stress tests that were used
to evaluate proposals and assess accountability.
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
70:15 - "That was funny but it was too clever by half." "the
states were in charge of everything at the time." "if the federal
government didn't work out, they would have recourse to (the
states)" "We are asking for a similar kind of backstop"
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
70:49inutes - "the customer communities could pull back names,
numbers and protocols"
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
70:51 - "Right but we want that to remain with the Federal
Government." "the failure to deal with slavery led to the Civil War"
"And we would want to avoid that analogous outcome for ICANN"
John Kneuer, President and Founder of JKC Consulting LLC
71:23 minutes - "You said that you would like the clawback
provision to remain with the Government. Why"
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
71:33 - "The NTIA and the Federal Government has currently
through the NTIA has the ability to revise the terms of ICANN ... If
(other nations) wanted to come and take over DNS. That fails to
exist if ICANN is completely independent. If we don't know that
ICANN can run independently without the problems that Berin and I
have been noting, that's a problem."
John Kneuer, President and Founder of JKC Consulting LLC
p
72:18 minutes - "But if the IETF withdraws those IANA functions
that propagate changes to the prototols, you would prefer that the
government make the decision rather than we make that decision"
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
72:43 - "No, I would want to revert to the status quo." "We
would want to do is have a reset button if it turns out despite all
out best efforts that lawyers and the governments are capitalize on
that the United States can say Okay that we did not work. We are
going to try something else."
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
73:09 minutes - "Jonathan has noted that the US had and, I
think, still has a great deal of leverage ... and could still
use it now ... we need to make sure that the following things are
resolved. The top of the list of jurisdiction, which is still a live
issue in workstream two. ... under California law, is it Okay that the
elaborate structure that has been designed to devolve decision
making power to subcommittees that are not part of the board? It
... may not stand up and if it doesn't stand up that could really
bring down the entire governance structure ... (if the transition is
blocked by the courts or others) that would be the worst possible
outcome"
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
75:53 - "there hasn't been a tremendous amount of writing and
thinking on potential clawback provisions. ... any number of parties
should be able to trigger that clawback"
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
76:18 minutes - "It's probably unfair to yuou and Berin, coming
in late, to come up with plans that assess all the hypothetical
risks that can be posed in the future. That's not fair to you. You
are failing to assess the downside of introducing this notion of
let's have the US Goverment keep it a bit longer. ... It appears (to
other governments) as if, oh, the US Government is not going to give
up its unique bilateral role on the clerical oversight on the IANA
functions. It costs us the credibility with the middle
governments. ... will they still be there when we build consensus on
issues of cybersecurity, privacy, and free expression and trade
agreements? I worry that is all at risk. If the US is reneging on
the promise to privatize ICANN ... thhere is plenty of
potential to assert that the UN needs to control the Internet
because the US Government and the US Government alone gets to
control the tether of IANA.
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
78:26 minutes - "It's a great point. ... Too many Americans who
don't worry about what the rest of the world thinks. I am not one of
them. ... but what I am saying is that there are real concerns
here. If I were on the ICANN board I would want the board to
interject here because a lot of the concerns I am raising here are
about fiduciary duties to the corporation to make sure that the
corporation is protected, that it doesn't end up losing in court,
and that the organization doesn't end up running adrift because
frankly my concern is as much as the community being able to control
ICANN as it is the board being able to control the leadership. This
is the nature of power. People get put in charge of large amounts of
money and lots of pressure on them to do more. They are going to do
more and every CEO is going to keep pushing the envelope and my fear
is that we are going to end up with an uncontrollable government
with accountability mechanisms that look great on paper but not able
to exercise in practice because they require each of these disparate
communities come together to reach consensus or because the nature
of the communities, India, for example, which loves to manufacture
civil society groups, right, or China, which is able to inject
government vehicles as private sector groups will find ways of
gaming the system. These are all things we need to take very
seriously."
Jonathan Zuck, President, ACT
80:04 minutes - "I still want to take this back to brass
tacks. The letting go of the IANA functions is for all intents and
purposes a symbolic gesture. The downsides of it are things that
could exist even under the current structure. The idea that there
could be court cases that happen, that ICANN has been brought to
court under antitrust, already happened plenty of times. So the idea
that we are tying all these things to letting go of a particular
contract provision that was largely symbolic to begin with is
ridiculous. The problems, the challenges, the concerns, the fears
are all legitimate and I will say that on the team we did everything
we could to look at every one of the scenarios in terms of board
governance and making sure that the community was kept within
certain boundaries in terms of what it can do and wasn't taking
overy power from the board proactively but instead was able to hold
them account. There were countless hours of legal advice from people
who were specialists in California corporate law that were gave
input to the community and that were hashed out a great deal to get
the best possible solution here. So the idea that ... theoretically
we are going to solve problems that weren't solved, I think again,
is very naive. We are going to solve problems by going through them
as they come up. And the community is going deal with problems as
they come up and there are going to be plenty of things that we
don't like that will happen. And will have to be Okay with that but
that was exactly what was going to happen now under this IANA
contract. There is not enough there there to hold ICANN to account
and so the power of making this process go through and creating a
diplomatic environment in which we are doing what we always promised
we were going to do and supporting consensus work of the community as a
whole is the way forward.
But even the things you are talking about Berin are not new. Yes, I
personally would have preferred a membership model but there were
many in the community that were concenred about their ability to
incorporate an order to become members. So it wasn't just some
question of the board rolling the community. There was a lot of
concern within the community that was resolved by coming up with the
single designator model. ... But the single designator was not
manufactured out of whole cloth. That exists too. The specific
powers, access to the budget that are afforded to members by statute
... are now afforded to the community by virtue of fundamental
bylaws.
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
83:05 minutes - "Except that with different defaults. Like the
ability to approve or reject is not the same as the ability to
approve.
Jonathan Zuck, President, ACT
83:11 minutes - "And the fundamental bylaws have the
requirement to approve. The Articles of Incorporation changes to
that, which is where jurisdiction lives, by the way, has the power
to approve. So yeah, part of that question again is that you are
talking in circles, Berin, because the power to approve had the
potential to disrupt board power. To power to overrule and challenge
and to go through an appeals process within ICANN was more in
fitting with good corporate governance than some of the things that
would been in place under a membership model. Again, I was a fan of
the membership model. So I am not trying being an enormous
apologist. But there were certainly those in the community that were
nervous about it and we found a compromise that dealt with the
objections that were raised but still preserved the powers that were
most important for the community to have.
Gordon Goldstein, Managing Director and Head of External Affairs,
SilverLake
84:25 minutes - "... I want to speak in favor of
caution. Caution in the conjectures we are induced to make in a
situation like this. I have heard several arguments today that have
predicted different futures. I have heard it argued that failure to
implement this plan is going to lead to fragmentation of the
Internet is already occuring. Data localization is already
happening. My colleague Ely Noam from Columbia has been writing
about this for years. I have heard it argued that failure to act is
going to motivate countries such as China to advance multilateral
model. That is absolutely going to happen following this debate. So
I think we should exercise some degree of humility in projecting
confidence in our conjecture. I would like to register that I think
Berin's question is entirely legitimate one when he asks if the
community in the future is going to be cohesive enough and unified
enough to adequately defend its interests. I certainly hope so. But
I wouldn't necessarily make a conjecture on what the composition and
dynamics of the community will be a decade from now. It could all be
quite different, which underscores the stakes of this contract and
the stakes of this transition. Ten years from now will the community
act cohesively if confronts a crisis. Ten years from now will there
be any aspect of this question of jurisdiction that compromises the
vision of the accountability framework. Ten years from now are we
going to have adequate solutions to the technical administration of
the Internet and will an entity as realiable as Verisign still
executing that function. These are all real questions. And there
is no one on this panel, certainly not me, who can provide any
certainty that our conjectures are going to hold.
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
86:40 "You bring up a bigger question that goes beyond the IANA
functions itself and, Steve, you touched on it. Why is why do we even
get into this. A lot of people didn't think about this question
until Snowden. What does the US Government have to do with it. The
geopolitical question of what's a stake and the concerns and the
fragmentation. What control do we have and what do we think we
should be doing as a US government if isn't just the IANA
function. Are there other points that you guys want to make about
how we keep things near and dear as American that we feel like we
have taken abroad and are there ways to make sure those continue to
be part of the bed rock of the way the Internet is facilitated?
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
87:35 minutes - "That's great. The answer to the end of your
question is that we better start looking at means other than the DNS
to try to preserve free expression, free flow of informaation, and
free trade around the world. We better look to things like the trade
agreements we discussed in this morning's session, TPP and so on, to
the extent that we enforce those trade agreements and road barriers
to new entry and for I think that the best best argumentthat I have
heard for doing this transition is coming from Berin and Kristian
and evern Gordon wheen they articulate hypothetical future
questions, conjectures, and potential problems. Because it is in the
face of those prolems that more than ever the community actually
needs brand new powers that we have never had before to actually
hold this corporation called ICANN for how it reacts to the change
as it occurs. If a creative lawsuit turns up or the community is not
holding together ant that's when the community needs the powers that
we have with the new bylaws and NTIA has next to no power over
ICANN. All NTIA can do is say that we don't think we are going to
allow - we don't that ICANN can publish the root. All it really
matters is whether the ISPS around the worl wo pick up a copy of
the DNS root every morning will continue to pick it up from
ICANN. It is their choice. It is not the US Government's choice at
all. That is what so many of you have to keep in mind that the DNS is
voluntary involvement. ... So the Internet resolves domain names for
e-mail and websites and they do so because they have that trust root
they get. They are not going to listne to command and control from
the US Government.
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
89:32 "You bring up another question. Should it stay voluntary?"
Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice
89:37 minutes - "It is voluntary and I think it should stay
voluntary. If we try to force it. I don't know how anybody would go
along with a forced regime.
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
89:45 "Another comments. I can imagine that this group lost
their tongue."
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
89:45 "Another comments. I can imagine that this group lost
their tongue."
Gordon Goldstein, Managing Director and Head of External Affairs,
SilverLake
89:54 "Just one brief response. Steve, ... let's stipulate that
the work that was done and the accountability reform in which you
were a leader, a though leader, and you did an outstanding job, let's
stiputlate that those reforms are necessary. I think the questions is
are those reforms sufficient to protect the DNS in an uncertain
future.
John Kneuer, President and Founder of JKC Consulting LLC
p
90:30 minutes - "I would go back to the point that I was making
earlier and the historical footnote that reflects the IGF. You know
the community doesn't really exist. There are communities upon
communities. Like there is no such thing as the Internet. There are
networks that interconnect through agreements and voluntary
participation on the DNS. Each of these groups, the ICANN
communities, the sponsoring organizations, if you take community at
the narrow level, now have additional powers under the bylaws. But
it is going to be very, very important and thinks this is - I am
intending to echo Gordon't points here, but it is going to be very
importaant that each of those groups are listening to their broader
constitutents. That may not -- the GNSO constituents of tis own that
are not focused on the operation of the DNS. They are completely --
iot is completely transparene to them. But their life blood depends
upon the continues secure and stabile and realiable function of the
INterent. So it is going to be ghroups like this, other forms of X
participants in the Internet and the Interne ecosystem and the
Internet economy and Civil Society and governmentss to have to --
going to have to remain vigilant and focuse and keeping ICANN
accountable, not necessarily directly through esoteric legal
mechanisms that have been negotiated opver this period of time but
by staying involved with the different groups that have the ultimate
participate and flow into ICANN. Its going to hbe long process but
is also going to be reflective an unbelieavle diverse collection of
incentives and interests and that is goging to make this work and
this entirely is, this works because we say it works. It works
because w2e agree it works and it is impossible to come up with
evermore perfect legal mechanisms that are going to ensure that that
consensus continues to exist. It will exist so long as it continues
to provide the functions that the community expects of it. And when
it stops, it is going to stop. It is not going to be a product of
the execution of a contract term. It is going to be the consensus
that will break down.
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
93:19 minutes - "Amen to all of that."
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
93:21 "I'm glad that I am not having to moderate this myself. I
feel so much better.""
Kristian Stout, Associate Director for Innovation Policy at the
International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE)
93:22 - "Following what you just said and what Steve said as
well, if this was really just a matter of a voluntary organization
and everybody is going to with the root that everyone knows and
trusts anyway. So, why are we talking about this. Why not just go
ahead and have your corporation. Because it isn't true. The fact
that the United States is involved is sn implicit backing of the DNS
system currently. It is absolutely true. The fact that the United
States is involved is a big deal. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be
having this panel here. We would have these debates. Also, to touch
on something you said earlier. If we wait a year or two or we put
clawback provision asan emergency it would be a diplomatic
nightmare. You asked for it, the community asked for it. Now there is
another set of concerns. The government needs to look at ti and
make sure they are okay on it. If you wait another year that's one
more stakeholder who has to give their final OK on it. That's not
going to be a diplomatic nightmare."
Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom
94:38 minutes - "I agree with everything that has just been
said. And by the way the thing that gives his value is that, sure,
everybody can set up its own authoritative root zone file. That
could happen. There is a question of ownership. The reason that this
has value, that's the thing that has path dependency . That's why
this matters. That's why we are fighting over this. Going back to
Steve's example. Flashback to 1787. We are on the steps of Liberty
Hall in Philadelphia and says to Dr. Franklin democracy or republic
and he says Republic, if you can keep it. I echo the points that
were made that at the end of the day we are designing a governance
structure and no amount of lawyering and better contract terms will
give us the perfect thing in the future bevcause those things are
not durable in the long term. It is ultimately civic virtue and
participation and the nature of the people that are involved that
matters. And yet is still true that every school in America has a
political science department because institutional design and
organization structure really matter. And the constitutional
momement, the thing that I pointed back to, is one example but the
most telling thing about the issue of the membership model is that
the membership, the community, the organization, asked for
something, didn't get it, and the board rolled them over. That
should trouble us but there were important differences. Under a
membership model, for example, you get the right to approve the
budget and all bylaw changes. Those are important differences. We
went down one path. There are going to change how the organization
works in the future. ICANN is not a scrappy little non-profit that a
a bunch of engineers that does technical corporation. ICANN has
hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal. ICANN is in a
partnership withg a company, Verisign, that has its valuation of
about 9 billion dollars that depends on getting its dot com contract
renewed. The US Government is about to agree to that contract and to
get Verisign to shut up. The dynamics of what is going her are very
complicated. It is not as simple as the community came together and
we should just assume that's going to work going forward. If you
think back to your political science class in college where there is
that annoying guy that says well that demoecracy is whatever people
come up with and that's the Democratic will and we should be happy
with that. In some perverse sense that's democracy. Relly
nightmarish form of government. But we don't have a democracy in
this country. We have a Republic and it is a system that is
designed to defuse and refute expressions of general will to chanel
them through decision making mechanisms that tame the passions of
the process and that keeps special interests at bay and yet we still
live in a country where tiny diffuse interests get to screw everyone
else and that's part of why we have sugar subsidies protective
tariffs and a number of other things. So we have to keep that in
mind as we go through this process. And this is the question I was
going to ask Jonathan and Steve. Yes, you are right. We are not
going to be able test these mechanisms if we don't have a trial
period. So why don't we have a trial period. Instead of extending
the contract, you would not have the full benefit of having ICANN
try things. Why not put them out there and have them tried and have
the ability to callback so there is something that stands behind the
community to back them up. If it turns out there is a need for
further negotiation of if workstream two goes awry."
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
98:50 "So before you answer Jonathan, everybody knows that will
never be last word so you are going to be the last comment on this
panel. ..."
Jonathan Zuck, President, ACT
99:08 minutes - "Finally, an advantage of being at the end of
the alphabet, I guess. I've been going for that for years. The word
that keeps coming up that I hear at the table is the US Government
being involved. I want to key on that, because I keep hearing about
this. Because nothing about this is about the US Government not
being involved anymore. And if I could be a little bit critical, as
I have been known to be over the past ten to 11 years that I have
been involved in the ICANN community, I don't think that the US
Government's stewardship in ICANN is where it has shined. We talk
about it a lot and I always thought they should have asked for more
in those in every one of those joint project agreements etc. and the
affirmation of commitments in the end. I thought they were all weak
sauce and have said that for the last 11 years and I mean I get why
that was the case but everyon could leave them voluntarily. None of
them were hard contracts, right? And they didn't asks of enough
which is whey we needed this effort to put an accountability
framework in place. It is not a governance framework because we
already had that. And it has been kind of working but an
accountability framework and ability to hold the management and
board to account and that's what we had to put in place. And I thing
in some measure the US Govfernmwnt is culpable for the absence of
such a mechanism existing before now. Where the US Government has
shined, however, has beenas guardian of the multi-stakeholder
process and of ICANN. It is fighting for it in the UN and the ITU
and other international fora. It is about diverting the efforts to
move ICANN functions into the ITU towards something called the IGF
that we are all enjoying today. Those efforts where the US
Government has shined and where they will continue to do their best
work. They will also continue to be involved in ICANN via the
Government Advisory Committee. Where we have now enshrined a veto
for the US Government. Remember from the very start I think it was
Larry's speech where he said we have now enshrined that consensus on
the part of the Goverment Advisory Committee is a recommendation
without objection. So what we are looking for is ongoing influence
of the United States in ICANN and in its processes, we have
enshrined it, we have enshrined a veto for the US Government. The
truth of the matter is that it has never been about this
transition. Really, the power has always lied with the people, the
actors engaged in the Internet. And this was simple an opportunity
to do more to drive a process that has taken too long under the
stewardship of the US Governmewnt. I find it so ironic that
Republicans are fighting so hard for the Department of Commerce to
continue this role. Just got to think about that, right? So the
truth of the matter is they are involved. They will continue to be
involved and they will continue to be influential and they will
continue in the role in which they have shinedd the most, which is
as guardian of the multi-stakeholder system. and I frankly continue
to believe that they will be successful in this effort and instead
what we have done is to put real accountability mechanisms in place
that are far more sophisticated and nuanced and workable than
anything they had by removing the IANA contract.
Shane Tews, Consultant, Vrge
98:50 "So to quote Melanie Rubin's tweet during the session: This
one of the best, most passionate panels ever. ICANN IANA transition is
a hot topic. I want to thank you all for not only your current passion,
your past work on this, and the work you are going to continue to do
that makes sure that everything Jonathan said is true.
ICANN was incorporated in the State of California in 1998 as a
not-for-profit corporation and assigned responsibility for management
of the DNS via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ICANN and
NTIA of the Department of Commerce. NTIA advises the President of the
United States on telecommunications and information policy issues. The
MoU was replaced by an interim agreement and subsequently by the
The role of the U.S. government in the DNS is reflected in the AoC
The report
Internet
Governance and the Domain Name System: Issues for Congress by
Lennard G. Kruger and published Congressional Research Service
provides a brief explanation of the Domain Name System and the
stewardship role of the U.S. Government over it. It also describes
the steps taken by NTIA to implement the transition of the IANA
functions f
