[council] Preparations for .net re-assignment

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

The ICANN Board at its meeting in Rome, passed the following resolution
(from http://www.icann.org/minutes/rome-resolutions-06mar04.htm )

"Resolved, [04.18] that in order to prepare for the designation of a
transparent procedure by 30 June 2004, the Board authorizes the
President to take steps to initiate the process as specified in Section
5.2 of the .net Registry Agreement for designating a successor operator
for the .net registry, including referrals and requests for advice to
the GNSO and other relevant committees and organizations as
appropriate."

This implies that the President will be seeking advice from the GNSO.

>From the .net registry agreement
(
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-net-25may01.
htm )

"5.2.1 Not later than one year prior to the end of the term of this
Agreement, ICANN shall, in accordance with Section 2.1, adopt an open,
transparent procedure for designating a successor Registry Operator. The
requirement that this procedure be opened one year prior to the end of
the Agreement shall be waived in the event that the Agreement is
terminated prior to its expiration."

"5.2.4 ICANN shall select as the successor Registry Operator the
eligible party that it reasonably determines is best qualified to
perform the registry function under terms and conditions developed
pursuant to Subsection 4.3 of this Agreement, taking into account all
factors relevant to the stability of the Internet, promotion of
competition, and maximization of consumer choice, including without
limitation: functional capabilities and performance specifications
proposed by the eligible party for its operation of the registry, the
price at which registry services are proposed to be provided by the
party, the relevant experience of the party, and the demonstrated
ability of the party to manage domain name or similar databases at the
required scale."

Thus the terms and conditions need to be established via the processes
for consensus policy.
ie
"4.3.1 "Consensus Policies" are those specifications or policies
established based on a consensus among Internet stakeholders represented
in the ICANN process, as demonstrated by (a) action of the ICANN Board
of Directors establishing the specification or policy, (b) a
recommendation, adopted by at least a two-thirds vote of the council of
the ICANN Supporting Organization to which the matter is delegated, that
the specification or policy should be established, and (c) a written
report and supporting materials (which must include all substantive
submissions to the Supporting Organization relating to the proposal)
that (i) documents the extent of agreement and disagreement among
impacted groups, (ii) documents the outreach process used to seek to
achieve adequate representation of the views of groups that are likely
to be impacted, and (iii) documents the nature and intensity of reasoned
support and opposition to the proposed policy."

Note also that if Verisign is not selected, Verisign has the right under
the contract to challenge the "reasonableness" of the decision.

Given that a final procedure must be established before 30 June 2004, we
should start to think about the specifications/terms and conditions
immediately.

The Names Council went through a similar process for the re-assignment
of .org.

>From the DNSO archives see:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020205.NCdotorg-to-ICANN.html   dated 5
Feb 2002
And
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20020117.NCdotorg-report.html   dated 11
Jan 2002

Given the time available, I recommend that the Council form a
subcommittee (e.g with 1 rep per constituency) of the Council to review
the .org material, and draft a set of terms/conditions for .net
consistent with the ICANN mission and core values for consideration by
the Council.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin