No Such Weblog

Crawford and Johnson, at ICANNwatch: How long should it take us to conclude that the Internet will not be well served by calling in the French Academy? Recommended reading.

ICANN’s ccNSO assistance group has posted a draft policy-development process for the ccNSO. It’s modeled along the lines of the equivalent process for the GNSO. The non-trivial differences generally concern the role of the ccNSO’s council, which would be in a stronger position than the GNSO’s council. An unofficial (and somewhat experimental) HTML redline is available. If this doesn’t display properly for you, please let me know.

Ein Übersichtsartikel über die derzeit gültigen WHOIS-Policies ist in der Novemberausgabe von Datenschutz und Datensicherheit erschienen.

As John Crain has announced a week ago to the NANOG list, the J root server is changing to a new IP address. For people operating name servers, this means that the root hints file should be updated. A rare event: The last update was on August 22, 1997.

A couple of observations: As of today, this announcement hasn’t made it onto ICANN‘s or IANA‘s or InterNIC‘s home pages in a prominent manner – but probably, that’s fine since even Gambling Magazine carries some version of the news. Also, as Perry Metzger observes on NANOG, the PGP public key which is used to sign the root hints file (C1D27AF9) isn’t easily available through the usual key servers (it’s also not available from the list of ICANN PGP keys).

During ICANN’s Shanghai Meetings, I had a number of discussions with the ACM’s and NCDNHC’s Kathy Kleiman. Kathy was upset about the proposed GNSO policy-development process: The short deadlines, she argued, would basically make participation in the process impossible for the non-commercial world; they were only appropriate for full-time lobbyists. The deadlines would make any serious outreach efforts impossible, in particular if directed at people or organizations from the non-English-speaking world. The conclusion: Extend the deadlines and slow down the process in order to make that kind of participation and outreach practically feasible.

Kathy’s observation is accurate. However, I’m not sure whether the conclusion is the right one: Do more generous timelines really help? Wouldn’t they still leave more than enough possibilities for professional lobbyists to outperform volunteer participants? (And be it by the sheer volume of documents produced or time to be spent on conference calls – remember, volunteers most of the time have a real life and job…)

(Besides all that, it may still be a good idea to slow down the process somewhat. It’ll be hard for anyone to do in-depth work within that framework.)

As far as the concerns about participation from the non-commercial world are concerned, there may be a different conclusion: Leverage some professional lobbying power for the causes normally advanced by the NCDNHC, and to be advanced by the ALAC. Get professionalized advocacy groups involved who speak the language other participants actually listen to. (And that’s not just about being fluent in English.) Make sure you understand the issues before they formally come up, and try to do outreach ahead of time. Act instead of reacting.

It’s just like in court: It’s a much better idea to hire a lawyer than to ask for a deadline extension so you can spend the next four years on law (and legalese) studies. Hiring a lawyer also greatly helps you not to loose on procedural grounds…

Now, how does one make all this happen within the ICANN context? (Or is that entire approach just the wrong thing to do?)

Note that these questions aren’t academic at all: In the next couple of weeks, both the transition terms and some of the details of the ALAC’s final structure will have to be worked out. Whatever comes out of that process will inevitably include an attempt to practically implement one possible answer. I hope it’s the right one.

ICANN has posted preliminary minutes of the October 31 board meeting, which consist of the official text of the resolutions adopted.

The (lengthy) presentation Louis Touton gave during the Shanghai GA on Tuesday is available from ICANN’s web site.

Amadeu Abril i Abril on name server changes: Name server change when it cdomes for a reliable external source like company disappearing, the goal of stability should be the first and only consideration in doing the IANA functions. Vint adjourns since captioning folks leave.

Linda Wilson just suggests, after the thank you resolutions, to set up a corporate governance committee. The committee is supposed to review the work of the board and its relationship to the CEO and the staff lead by the CEO, including review of the existing committees. Committee could work on the selection of members of other committees; chairman, etc… The committee should relate to the ombudsperson, the public participation manager, and the CEO and the chairman of the board. Would look into complaints, so board doesn’t have to rely on anecdotal information. Suggests to adopt language similar to the privacy committee, consider the topic, and decide in December. Amadeu: One of his beloved topics. If one part of ICANN underperforms, it’s the board. Not a problem of the individual. Structural constraints. Too many people trying to do too many things on teleconferences. The way in which ICANN board populates committees is extremely strange. Mailing list not used as a tool. Not talking as seriously about the board as about the councils. Cerf: Amadeu excellent candidate. Alejandro: Received requests for changes in corporate governance. Not within scope of ERC. Felicitous way of acting. Put decisions into hands of a group that can actually produce some action. Will also be necessary not to overreact to the demands. Don’t do everything at once, but put up work program. Andy: Amadeu gave good description of the task. Very good idea. Exactly that part the ERC missed to address. Unanimously accepted.

Andy has proposed that the board sets up a privacy committee. Some fear of mission creep. Karl Auerbach argues that a privacy committee is the flip side of mandating the release of information. Board will investigate this. Resolution accepted.