Re: [ga] Re: ccTLD dialogue with Joe Sims (wasRe: your comments

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

Joe Sims wrote:
> 
> This is a pretty good illustration of the perception gulf we are dealing
> with.  

Yes, indeed.

> Hello! -- ICANN was created because individual national governments
> cannot effectively deal with the global issues created by global character
> of the Internet and the DNS.  Notice that to Peter, the only global issue
> is interconnection, and things like cc's that act like g's, escrow, dispute
> resolution, whois -- these are all up to the "local internet community."

I'd say the first thing to settle here is which way around the relation
betwwen ICANN and the ccTLDs should work. I'm thinking of some stuff (no
doubt over-simplified) I was taught in high school: in the US the states
retain all authority except what they've granted to the federal gov't,
while in Canada the feds retain all authority except what they've
delegated to provinces. Either system can work. Which is appropriate
here?

The Internet is a conglomeration of networks of various sorts held
together by common protocols. It needs both decentralised authority
for the individual networks and enough central co-ordination to ensure
the whole thing works.

In general, I lean to the position that ICANN's role should be strictly
limited, providing only those centralised services required to keep the
Net working. Anything that can be left to the ccTLDs, should be.

[snip]

> >Such
> >things as escrow requirements to protect against failure, dispute
> >resolution procedures or something equivalent to guard against
> >cybersquatting, whois systems that actually work so people can find our
> who
> >to contact when an issue arises  -- stuff like this?
> 
> No. These things, in a cctld, have nothing to do with ICANN.

I'd say whois is a network-wide issue. When some insecure server in
$COUNTRY sends me spam, or a virus probe against my web server, I
need to be able to contact the admin, quickly. Whatever whois service
is in place must support that. Otherwise, a particularly virulent
virus or spammer could trash the whole Net.

I'm not certain ICANN is the appropriate network-wide authority for
this issue, but since whois is closely bound to DNS and registration,
it is certainly the obvious candidate.

Also, there may need to be considerable adaptation of whois policies
to comply with local privacy law. Presumably the ccTLDs would need
to be deeply involved inthat process. 

> These are issues for the LIC, and because they are in the main subject
> to clear and identifiable national law, there is an available remedy
> for any problem which a registrant might encounter. How presumptuous
> to think that ICANN should or could play any role in this. Its not
> ICANN's job to protect the people of a cctld from failure of its
> registry.

Again, this is to some extent a net-wide issue. There is therefore
an argument that it too needs the intervention of a global authority,
perhaps ICANN.

For example, I regularly visit Gutmann's crypto reference page:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/links.html
and often refer others there. It is a wonderful resource. If .nz
goes down, all its users are affected, not just New Zealanders.

On the other hand, if .nz goes down, New Zealanders are certainly
going to be affected, and they are almost certainly going to be
the ones that have to fix it. I'd therefore say there's no need 
to have ICANN involved here.

How about a compromise? Address the global concerns while minimizing
ICANN intrusion into ccTLD turf: agree that:

    ICANN contracts with TLDs should require compliance with RFC 2780 
    http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2870.txt

    ICANN may require compliance with future BCP (Best Current Practice)
    RFCs for DNS, if IETF issues any

    ICANN will impose no other requirements on ccTLD management

> Its simply absurd to suggest that its ICANN role to
> provide a dispute resolution process, not the national legal system.
> And if there's a gap in the national laws, there are national remedies.

Yes, indeed.
 
> Cybersquatting in a cctld cannot have anything at all to do with ICANN,
> whose mission is technical management of names and numbers, not to protect
> intellectual property rights.
>
> Denying the existence of the real world will not make it go away.
> Read the White Paper, and the MOU, ...

Unfortunately, Sims is correct here. Much as some of us might dislike
the idea, trademark concerns were mandated as part of ICANN's brief
by the US gov't, in the documents he cites and others, before there
was an ICANN.

However, the rationale for that was that the international nature of the
Net requires some international protection mechanism. It is far from
clear that this applies to ccTLDs. Even if it does, it seems obvious
that national law must trump any ICANN-mandated policy every time. 
 
> But step one is for you and ICANN to accept that the cctlds do not operate
> under a licence from ICANN. They operate under a duty to their LIC.
> 
> And exactly where did the cc administrator's get their delegation?  Was it
> the DNS version of the Immaculate Conception?  If I remember my history,
> the cc delegations came from the IANA,

No-one disputes that.

> and they brought with them obligations to the global DNS and the LIC.

Nor that, thought there's obviously considerable dispute over exactly
what obligations.

> Reinventing history does not
> move the ball forward.  The issue under discussion is what is the
> appropriate allocation of policy responsibilities. ...

I'd say the first principle is as I suggested above. Anything that can
be left to ccTLDs, should be.

The exceptions are limited to matters that affect global network
operation.
--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html