This week’s 53rd public meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been focused on the review of the accumulation of months of work on two different paths that are crossing over each other in the ICANN world: the transition of the IANA functions and the effort to improve ICANN accountability and transparency. The accountability issue deserves most of our attention, as it will have implications for how (and whether) the transition issue will be resolved.
The first issue on ICANN’s agenda is the transition of the IANA functions away from the current structure that has the Department of Commerce holding a legacy role as an oversight provider to ensure the IANA functions are implemented as required by current, agreed-upon policies. As noted in a GAO report, the current IANA policies that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) manages as a contract holder do not really involve policy development. Rather, they are procedures established through an independent process run by the Internet numbers community via the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which are effectively autonomous of the NTIA. Similarly, the policy process which governs Domain Name System (DNS) numbering is generally agreed to be transparent and open to all stakeholders. If the IANA transition is done correctly, there should be no significant impact on the numbers community.
Still, some have voiced concern that changes to the IANA contract could disrupt the currently calm waters of the numbering process. Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling has asked the ICANN community to keep it simple and I agree. The key to a successful transition is to keep the status quo – don’t rock the boat on how the IANA functions actually work. Keep the Internet’s connective tissue, the numbering system, in place without any of the political drama of the naming policy process. But simplicity does not mean streamlining everything into a monolithic program owned by ICANN – it means keeping the political drama away from the IANA functions by continuing a trusted, independent process that the community has agreed upon for many years.
The second issue relates to accountability and transparency and how the functions of ICANN’s operational structure have been tangled into the operation of the IANA function due to opportunity, not need. Accountability of the IANA functions being managed by the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) is not actually in question; the Internet community has been well served by the current process and needs to find a way to keep IANA’s stabilizing role as the Numbering Services Operator insulated from political threats associated with special interest groups or government interests.
This is a key point in the bill passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act. This legislation requires that the agreed-upon policies for the IANA transition contain guidelines for the NTIA to relinquish its role when acceptable measures have been agreed upon by the ICANN multi-stakeholder community.
The conflation of issues swirling around ICANN is due to there being two different goals that intersect with each other. The first is to find the right balance on IANA oversight to ensure there is no risk of fragmentation of the Internet’s core structure. We want to keep enough checks and balances in the system to maintain the trust that operators who use the numbering resources have in the IANA functions. The second goal is for the ICANN structure to be reinforced by a strong accountability process that is transparent from end to end, so all parties know how a decision is made and implemented. Any request for a review of a decision should also be done in a fully transparent fashion so as to maintain the trust of all the stakeholders in the ICANN policy process and to ensure compliance with these policies.
The decisions being discussed at ICANN impact all of us because they will have a profound impact on the underpinnings of the global economy, which depend on networks functioning effectively and efficiently without fear of capture, corruption, or lack of compliance with the agreed-upon rules.
Internet governance brings with it a natural set of challenges and implications for freedom of expression, privacy, trade, cyber security, and even the nature of sovereignty in a globally-connected world. ICANN needs to be a place of trust and transparency where the world can see that all decisions are made out in the open by all of the stakeholders who play important roles in managing the global networks that comprise the Internet.