[ncdnhc-discuss] Who will run .us?
Chun Eung Hwi
ehchun at peacenet.or.kr
Wed Oct 24 19:43:33 CEST 2001
Dear Rob and others,
First, I truly appreciate for all answers and comments regarding my
question. Throughout those replies, I could know and understand more
correctly what is happening regarding .us although still many questions
remain. My thinking is as follows;
1. AFAIK, at the moment, the delegee of .us is definitely NSI if we refer
to the cctld whois information of IANA. At least, cctld constituency
members think so. (please refer to
http://www.wwtld.org/member_list/countrycodesort0917.php) If US Gov. argue
that it is the delegee, it could bring in very serious confusion and
strong challenges from other ccTLD managers.
2. Harold Feld's thinking that there is no more IANA is quite far from the
fact. Frankly speaking, for me, IANA looks like a magic hand of something
invisible. As Michael Froomkin called it properly as mini-ICANN in his
very impressive article (http://www.icannwatch.org/essays/dotau.htm), it
abruptly appears up and makes some policy without any consultation with
ICANN. And also its independent entity is confirmed by its contract with
US Gov. (refer to http://www.icann.org/general/iana-contract-21mar01.htm,
even here, it was clarified that its policy development procedure should
abide by MoU of ICANN with DoC. Therefore, in the case of redelegation,
any ccTLD should abide by RFC 1591 and ICP-1) Paradoxically and as such,
now, in the redelegation case of .us, I think, we could look forward to
such magic power of IANA.
3. Based on this speculation, I think, even when the bidder public
interest group had not made any MoU with was chosen for redelegation, that
group can argue the legitimate documented procedure for redelegation
including IANA's communication with other parties concerned or affected by
the redelegation, IANA report, public comment on that report and ICANN
board's authorization.
4. One comment for the contract of ccTLD! I can understand that the
trilateral contract model could be appropriate in the case of .us because
since its initial stage, the role of US Gov. has been clearly remarkable.
Whereas, in most other countries, the role of governments for each ccTLD
has been almost nothing or if any, very weak. That's why many ccTLDs feel
uneasy for the trilateral arrangement proposal. And moreover as Michael
Froomkin pointed out it correctly, the involvement of government in ccTLD
comes up from GAC principles that has never been adopted as a policy in
ICANN.
Due to these reasons, I think, the issue of .us is not simply an American
issue but its redelegation process has very significant implication even
to other ccTLDs.
Regards,
Chun Eung Hwi
------------------------------------------------------------
Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone: (+82) 2- 583-3033
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81 | pcs: (+82) 019-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea | eMail: ehchun at peacenet.or.kr
------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Rob Courtney wrote:
> Chun,
>
> The notion for future redelegations (and AFAIK no redelegations have
> actually implemented this yet) is that trilateral contracts will be
> signed between ICANN/IANA, the ccTLD operator, and the relevant
> government. That's what we expect to happen. Discussion about who is the
> actual current delegee (USG or NSI/VeriSign) is interesting one but I
> will leave that to some of the lawyers on this list. Harold's description
> of the current situation matches my understanding, though. I don't
> believe USG currently has any relationship with IANA (contract or
> otherwise) regarding ".us", and its silence for the last 16 years has
> been taken as assent.
>
> As far as what CDT (and MAP, and other U.S. groups) have been doing: When
> the Department of Commerce issued its solicitation for a new .us
> operator, it did two important things:
>
> * It effectively guaranteed that the new .us operator would
> be a for-profit company (not an NGO or other public-interest
> organization)
>
>
> * It required that the operator undertake some significant
> policy responsibilities regarding the domain's
> operation--things like outreach to domain name holders,
> policies for expansion of the space, dispute resolution, etc.
>
>
> Speaking for CDT, we were disappointed by this approach. Many in the US
> user community wanted to make sure that policy-making in ".us" was fair
> and representative, and since that's oustide the core competencies of the
> companies that would be bidding on ".us", a coalition arose to put
> together a policy-making structure that would be open, transparent, and
> inclusive of broader stakeholder interests. The coalition includes CDT,
> the American Library Association, Media Access Project, and other
> stakeholder & business groups.
>
> The group signed a Memorandum of Understanding with three of the
> companies bidding for ".us" (Redwood Registries (a subsidiary of
> Register.com), Liberty RMS (a subsidiary of Tucows), and eNIC). The MOU
> states that if one of those companies wins the contract, they will work
> to help establish this new policy-making body and will begin using it to
> resolve policy questions.
>
> Now we are waiting to see which bidder the Department of Commerce will
> choose. When that choice is made, our coalition will have to hustle to
> bring the .usPDC (.us Policy Development Council) online as soon as we
> can.
>
> When the time comes to submit a redelegation request to ICANN/IANA, and
> assuming that the usPDC is operational and has a relationship with the
> registry operator, we hope that usPDC will be involved in that
> discussion. Ultimately, though, the contracts would be between the
> registry operator, ICANN/IANA, and USG.
>
> All this is a second-best solution; we would have preferred that the DOC
> mandate a better policy process for ".us". But the coalition is hopeful
> that it can work with the cards it has been dealt to improve stakeholder
> participation.
>
> r
>
> P.S. If you want some more details on this feel free to e-mail me
> off-list or check out:
> - The Memorandum of Understanding between usPDC and the bidders:
> http://www.cdt.org/dns/010727dotus-mou.shtml
> - Our coalition's statement of policy for ".us":
> http://www.cdt.org/dns/010727dotus-policy.shtml
> - The members of our coalition (part of a press release):
> http://www.cdt.org/press/010727press.shtml
>
>
> At 10:57 AM +0900 10/20/01, Chun Eung Hwi wrote:
>
> Dear Chris Chiu and others,
>
> I have some questions regarding the redelegation of .us.
>
> First, in my understanding, .us is also one ccTLD that is
> included in IANA
> database - http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
> Therefore, it is very
> natural for the redelegation to abide by RFC1591 and ICP-1.
> For the
> redelegation of one specific ccTLD, we have very clear
> documented
> procedure.
>
> Second, according to that procedure, IANA should make a
> report for
> redelegation and get the authorization of ICANN board like
> all other
> redelegation cases up to now. Moreover, the operator of .us
> like all other
>
> ccTLD cases should make a formal contract with ICANN. Those
> contract
> drafts has already been posted on ICANN website for public
> comment.
>
> Third, I heard that CDT have tried to make an MoU with new
> operator
> together with other public interest groups. This activity
> could be
> justified as follwing statements of ICP-1.
>
> "(a) ... The IANA will make them a major consideration in any
> TLD
> delegation/transfer discussions. Significantly interested
> parties in the
> domain should agree that the proposed TLD manager is the
> appropriate
> party. ...
>
> (snip)
>
> (e) ... It is also very helpful for the IANA to receive
> communications
> from other parties that may be concerned or affected by the
> transfer. In
> the event of a conflict over designation of a TLD manager,
> the IANA tries
> to have conflicting parties reach agreement among themselves
> and generally
> takes no action unless all contending parties agree. ..."
> (Excerpts from http://www.icann.org/icp/icp-1.htm)
>
> Then, still I have never look at IANA report for the
> redelegation of .us.
> And I want to know what CDT and other public interest groups
> would respond
> to the DoC's plan.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Chun Eung Hwi
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Chun Eung Hwi
> General Secretary, PeaceNet | phone: (+82) 2- 583-3033
> Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81 | pcs: (+82) 019-259-2667
> Seoul, 158-600, Korea | eMail:
> ehchun at peacenet.or.kr
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Chris Chiu wrote:
>
> > The United States Commerce Department still plans to pick
> the future
>
> > operator of the .us country-code top-level domain by the
> end of October
>
> > 2001.
>
> >
>
> > See
>
> > http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/#highlights
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Christopher Chiu
> > Global Internet Liberty Campaign Organizer
> > American Civil Liberties Union
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at icann-ncc.org
> > http://www.icann-ncc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
>
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