By Nick Patience
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) made a couple of major decisions at its board meeting in Singapore this week, but by all accounts, doubts are growing about the make-up of the interim ICANN board and some sharp exchanges were heard in the public meeting held before the closed board meeting this week.
The main decision the board made was to finalize the make up of the domain name supporting organization (DNSO), which will be one of the three groupings that will advise the board on domain name policy – there will also be supporting organizations advising on IP addressing and protocol policy. The SOs will each nominate three of the 19-strong full board, when it comes into being, probably later this year. The ICANN interim board has decided on a compromise between the two main DNSO proposals that had been submitted, with the addition of elements of a document that was presented at the Singapore meeting, plus public comments. Obviously with a compromise, there will always be some that are disappointed, and this is no exception.
The DNSO will have a general assembly open to all, but it will also have specific constituency groups – ICANN has decided upon seven of those to start with. However, it is the choice of those seven that is likely to cause some resentment in the internet community because none of them includes users or user organizations. The seven are country-code registries; commercial and business entities, generic domain registries; ISPs; non- commercial domain holders; registrars; and trademark intellectual property and anti-counterfeiting interests.
The names council within the DNSO will act as its steering committee, which will be elected by the constituency groups, not by the individual members, as some had wanted. The ICANN solution to the problem of constituencies mirrors very closely the proposal put forward by one of the groups, which recommended six constituencies – the country-code registries was the only one added by ICANN. The rival draft, which was put forward by the so- called Paris group, proposed a more fluid structure, whereby up to 21 constituencies of members will be formed, with each of them representing at least 5% of the total membership.
Jay Fenello, president of a company that hopes to run a registry once that market has been opened up and a supporter of the Paris draft, protested at the open meeting in Singapore that ICANN should not support a proposal that doesn’t offer regular domain name holders their own constituency within the DNSO. According to those present, his protest got a lot of support but it was not adopted.
At one point a member of the audience – reports differ as to the person’s identity – asked the board if any of the members had affiliations with groups that supported one of the drafts. Only one, Hans Kraaijenbrink, chairman of the executive board of ETNO (Association of European Public Telecommunications Network Operators), said that ETNO had expressed support for the so- called BMW draft that supported the fixed constituency approach. At the previous open meeting ICANN held in Cambridge last November, Kraaijenbrink expressed the most misgivings about operating in an open, public forum and this week he apparently expressed doubt whether there could be agreement at the meeting on central issues, according to the ICANN real-time scribe’s notes. Fenello then suggested that Kraaijenbrink abstain from voting on the DNSO proposals, but he refused to do so. Full details of the ICANN DNSO proposal are not available yet as the ICANN staff have yet to draw up the bylaws, nor are details of the voting records board members.
The ICANN interim board also settled on its accreditation guidelines for registrars, which are the guidelines for companies that will be permitted to register names in .com, .net and .org. Network Solutions Inc (NSI) has had the contract for its registry function extended to September 2000, but is being forced to open up the registrar side of its business to competition – with companies initially chosen by ICANN to use its testbed implementation of a shared registry system. ICANN will choose five companies to start, which will use the testbed between April 26 and June 25. The market will be opened up to full competition, but in accordance with the accreditation guidelines, some time in the Fall.
ICANN will start accepting applications to become a registrar from March 15, but the large telecommunications companies are thought to be the front runners because there is a stipulation that they must have substantial liquid equity – $100,000 was the number being bandied around before the Singapore meeting – and a lot of time on their hands, but the details about what ICANN has decided are not yet available. It says the adjustments to the requirements make them less burdensome, reduce uncertainty for registrars and registrants, strengthen data escrow provisions, and clarify the legal liabilities of registrants that license names to anonymous third parties. http://www.icann.org
