[ncdnhc-discuss] Who will run .us?
Rob Courtney
rob at cdt.org
Wed Oct 24 21:05:50 CEST 2001
Chun,
Excellent comments... regarding the possibilities if ".us" goes to a
bidder who hasn't signed the MOU, I agree that we'll want to
encourage the operator to negotiate some kind of good policy process.
Does anyone know if ICANN will pursue contracts with the new ".au" operator?
r
At 2:43 AM +0900 10/25/01, Chun Eung Hwi wrote:
>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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