ICANN Report - March 2000

BACKGROUND READING

For a brief background to the establishment of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) see end of document. For full background on the issues see our pages at [ link ] 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For New Zealand to be involved in the international round of meetings associated with ICANN is both an expensive and time-consuming process, and an essential one. As the creation of ICANN is also a "first of kind" experiment and a highly politicised process, progress is also agonisingly slow most of the time. The issues the Society took to the country in April 1999 via the National Internet Summit have only been partly resolved. For instance, policy arising from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) report, on which we took a strong position after the Summit in April, was only finalised at the Los Angeles meeting in November 1999 with the Universal Dispute Resolution Process for Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD's).

PRE-SUMMIT INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ICANN

When the US Government decided that it was time to change the way the Internet was administered by shifting responsibility from the US Government to a new privately owned corporation it issued a Green Paper in January of 1998. This threw the international internet community into something of a frenzy as meetings were held around the world to see how this new idea could be put into action. As the issue had the potential to seriously impact the Society's ability to responsibly manage the ".nz" namespace in line with its Aims and Objectives, New Zealand representatives were involved from the beginning. As the Society had no budget for such unexpected activities, Domainz covered costs of attendance completely until the August 1999 meeting in Santiago (where the Society met partial costs to cover the attendance of Peter Dengate Thrush as legal advisor). The Society's involvement can be summarised as:

i. ISOCNZ monitored the formation of the IAHC (the International Ad Hoc Committee) and the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding)

ii. ISOCNZ monitored both the Green and White papers

iii. ISOCNZ made written comment on the Green and White papers (see http://www.isocnz.org.nz/magaziner.htm )

iv. Domainz also made submissions to the Green Paper (see http://www.domainz.net.nz/newsstand/usgovt.html )

v. ISOCNZ and Domainz were part of the Boston Working Group (BWG) submission to the US Government, late 1998. As the BWG submission was only one of two formal responses to the Internet Assigned Names and Numbers (IANA) draft that preceded formation of ICANN, NZ was involved in a number of audio conferences with Ira Magaziner and the US Dept of Commerce

vi. ISOCNZ and or Domainz attended three of the international meetings prior to establishment of ICANN

vii. ISOCNZ has, through Domainz, participated in the WIPO process, attending the Sydney meeting and presenting submissions in response to RFC-2 (see: http://www.domainz.net.nz/newsstand/wipo2.html ).

viii. ISOCNZ made written submission on WIPO RFC-3 (see http://www.isocnz.org.nz/WIPOresponse2.html) [The New Zealand Ministry of Commerce made comment to WIPO endorsing ISOCNZ's submission.]

ix. ISOCNZ and Domainz attended March 1999 Singapore ICANN meeting

x. ISOCNZ had representation at the April 1999 FICPI/AAPA (International Intellectual Property and Trade Mark Lawyers Association) meeting, Wellington, New Zealand

The Singapore ICANN meeting signalled that ICANN was moving to make Policy decisions before having completed the creation of a democratically elected representative membership structure. The Society decided that it was time to take the issues to our stakeholders and a Draft Position Paper was written, Parliamentary IT Spokespeople were briefed, and a National Summit was arranged.

THE NATIONAL INTERNET SUMMIT - APRIL 1999

A National Internet Summit was held in Auckland on April 30 1999 and was attended by a broad cross-section of stakeholders including internet businesses, government, academics, individuals, and professional bodies.The Summit gave four main directions to the Society:

1. To oppose major sections of the WIPO report in relation to compulsory domain name dispute resolution and the proposed Registrar Accreditation process
2. To oppose ICANN making any policy until it had finished creating a democratically elected representative structure
3. To endorse Jim Higgins and Peter Dengate Thrush as ".nz" representatives to ICANN meetings
4. Endorsement of the way the Society was managing ".nz"

We have made one oral and two written submissions to ICANN since the Summit:

1. Peter Dengate Thrush made an oral submission as per the Summit directions to the Berlin ICANN meeting in May 1999 on the WIPO Report
2. I wrote a submission on the Domain Names Supporting Organisation Working Group A (DNSO WG-A) Report on Domain Name Dispute Resolution in July 1999 (again echoing Summit position and requesting proper process be put in place for submissions)
3. I wrote a submission to ICANN on the proposed change to the By-Laws which eliminated the class of members as "members" in the sense of usual membership rights, removed the Membership Advisory Committee, and removed the Independent Review Committee; once again the lack of proper process was flagged.

In all three cases members were notified of the actions and referred to the web site. In the latter two cases there was insufficient time for consultation (which is protested strongly in both submissions) and in both cases the subject matter fell under directions set at the Summit.

POST SUMMIT ACTIVITIES

ICANN has since held four more international meetings:

1. Berlin - May 1999 (the specific trigger for the Summit) - attended by J Higgins, with P Dengate Thrush being part-subsidised by Domainz to act as legal advisor (also acting as official advisor to the NZ government representative to the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC))
2. Santiago - August 1999 - attended by J Higgins, with P Dengate Thrush being part-subsidised by ISOCNZ to act as legal advisor (also acting as official advisor to the NZ government representative to the GAC)
3. The Council subsequently decided that the Society needed "continuity of representatives in the various constituencies. It was suggested that the Executive Director would give continuity, along with a specialist in each constituency."
   The Council also voted to partially sponsor the representative of the Internet Domain Names Organisation (IDNO) to both the Berlin and Santiago meetings. This decision was taken as the representative had paid his own way to all the other meetings for the purpose of trying to get ICANN to add another constituency which would representation for the individual stakeholder not covered in other constituencies. Support for the work of the IDNO was given at the Summit.
4. Los Angeles - November 1999 - attended by J Higgins and P O'Brien (Domainz), S Leader (ISOCNZ - also acting as official advisor to the NZ government representative to the GAC), and P Dengate Thrush (part-subsidised by ISOCNZ to act as legal advisor)
5. Seoul - February 2000 - Asia Pacific Top LevelDomains (APTLD) - normally this is held in conjunction with the ICANN meeting, but this time was held in conjunction with APRICOT 2000 in Korea). Attended by P O'Brien (Domainz) and S Leader (ISOCNZ)
6. Cairo - March 2000 - attended by J Higgins (Domainz) and P Dengate Thrush and S Leader (ISOCNZ)

FUTURE MEETINGS

ICANN has determined that it will hold three to four meetings a year for the next two years. The remaining meetings for this year are:

1. Yokohama - July 2000
2. Los Angeles - November 2000

CONCLUSION

It is my observation that to date our representatives, as endorsed at the Summit, have publicly conducted themselves consistently within the directions from the Summit. Until the Cairo meeting no new issues had arisen, and their focus has been on Trade Mark and Dispute Resolution Policies, and the area of democratic representation of all constituencies within the ICANN process, including the vexed issue of the "At Large" membership. (See my report for details of the Cairo meeting and recommendations for a Summit before the next ICANN meeting).

Both the Los Angeles and Cairo meetings have been a learning process and I now am comfortable that I am "up with the play" sufficiently to represent ".nz" interests at the ccTLD meetings if the Council wishes to continue to send me. Given this, the Council may wish to re-visit the composition of future delegations as we will be less productive than we could be if both ISOCNZ delegates continue to attend the ccTLD meetings only.

I again strongly recommend that we send one or more of our technical people to the relevant constituencies, and I believe that sending a business person to the business constituency would also be productive.

In addition, I urge that the Society send representatives to the various international meetings of a purely technical nature, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Workshops, as I am convinced that in order to develop the ".nz" namespace we need to have New Zealanders fully au fait with international developments and issues.

Sue Leader
Executive Director

© 2000 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 13 April 2000