NTIA, ICANN Ties Called Too Close, but International Oversight Worse

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) warned against replacing NTIA oversight of ICANN with a “massive global bureaucracy,” as some govts. have proposed. Though an ICANN process free of direct govt. control is preferable, if the choice is between continued U.S. oversight or international oversight, “many in the Internet community will find themselves in the unfortunate position of supporting the status quo,” the comments said.

ICANN hasn’t achieved “procedural transparency,” because too much deliberation occurs in private and the group’s staff wields undue influence, CDT said. ICANN even has “taken notable steps backward,” as in early abandoning direct public representation: “The current international tension over ICANN may never have reached its current level, had ICANN early on committed to establishing a meaningful system of global representation,” CDT said. NTIA should consider creating an “expert panel” to study the implications of freeing ICANN from U.S. oversight and propose ways to protect its future autonomy, CDT said.

NTIA should remove itself more from ICANN involvement, after the flare-up over the agency’s intervention against the proposed .xxx TLD, CDT said: “That episode provided the clearest illustration yet of the inherent inequity of U.S. Government oversight.” A good-faith plan to loosen ties would show goodwill toward the original goal of a nongovernmental, “bottom-up” ICANN, the group said.

Transition to private management is “premature,” as ICANN has “lost a tremendous amount of credibility with the constituencies that must be governed,” said Network Solutions Chief Policy Counsel Jonathon Nevett. The registrar proposed several amendments to the MoU: (1) Ensuring competition in the registry space, including “a presumption against automatic renewal terms” for contracts that don’t allow competitive bids in the future. (2) “Explicitly” giving DoJ’s Antitrust Div. authority to evaluate changes to registry agreements. (3) Improving accountability such as “timely publication” of board meeting minutes. (4) Analysis of feedback to ICANN in the body’s decisions, including how feedback was or wasn’t implemented. (5) Better oversight of ICANN on budget and other matters. (6) A “proactive” role for ICANN in compliance efforts “to limit abuses.”

The proposed .com agreement with VeriSign is evidence of ICANN’s unfitness to operate autonomously, Nevett said. With .com representing 3/4 of U.S. domain names, VeriSign has a permanent monopoly under the proposed ICANN registry agreement, the company said. As seen in the 1984 breakup of AT&T, competition spurs incentives to invest in new technology and infrastructure: “As a factual matter, ICANN has not demonstrated any connection between a guaranteed monopoly [for VeriSign] and stability,” and VeriSign has improved infrastructure under the current MoU, the company said. Other registry operators are seeking and getting similar automatic renewal terms following the VeriSign proposal, such as .tel operator Telnic, Nevett said. Such incidents led the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) to drop its financial and logistical support for ICANN (WID March 21 p4), the company said.

Nevett also seconded earlier CIRA recommendations, such as veto power over board decisions by a supermajority of supporting organizations, and a required justification for closed ICANN meetings. With a budget that has nearly quadrupled since 2002, ICANN needs greater budget oversight, but the ICANN Budget Advisory Group “has no power” and hasn’t met in over a year, Nevett said.

ICANN’s pluralistic approach “should be further strengthened to allow more proactive involvement of end users,” said Annette Muehlberg, ICANN’s At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) chmn. Participants in the ALAC/Regional At- Large Organization have few incentives to continue because of “a lack of direct involvement at the decisionmaking levels of ICANN,” she said. The group wants “an institutional form” to handle DNS management, apart from “the authority of any single national legislation.”

NTIA should consider 3 alternatives that would allow limited transition of management functions to the private sector, said Danny Younger, former chmn. of ICANN’s Domain Name Supporting Organization’s General Assembly. Commerce could ask Congress to designate ICANN a new type of govt.- sponsored enterprise, which would help ICANN by giving it a charter instead of an MoU, keep NTIA “at arm’s length” from day to day ICANN operations, and reassure the public that civil servants are looking out for the public interest. Another option is creating a “Supporting Organization Congress,” split between the Generic Names Supporting Organization stakeholders and a renewed General Assembly of Internet users, to get more international participation. The final option is to use ICANN’s contingency plan, which would decentralize the DNS management in cooperation with Commerce to reflect “the international nature of the DNS.”

“We believe that the time has come for the U.S. Government to step back” from oversight of ICANN and transition the DNS to independent control, said Chris Disspain, CEO of the Australian Domain Administration (auDA), which manages .au. Neither should the U.N. control management: The current model “is still developing and improving, but it is the model best suited to the task of managing the DNS,” he said. With such a transition, “it will be possible to move swiftly to deal with the ‘U.S. centric’ perception.” But the registry separated its comments on governance from DNS management, saying the current ICANN structure, “whilst by no means perfect,” is best for the DNS infrastructure. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority’s work in automating root management requests “is the best method to achieve greater efficiency and responsiveness,” Disspain said.

CIRA, the Canadian authority, said it still hadn’t received “a satisfactory response” to its March letter complaining about ICANN transparency and fairness. It wants ICANN to hire a “nongovernmental, independent consultant” to conduct a review of ICANN’s activities cited as lacking by CIRA and recommend reforms. Such reviews are provided for ICANN bodies generally in its bylaws, said Chmn. Clyde Beattie and CEO Bernard Turcotte.