Re: [ga] CCtlds

[JFC Morfin <jefsey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

the ccTLD/ICANN relation was sometimes interesting. It lead Peter de 
Blanc, the Chair of the ccTLDs at that time to oppose ICANN the 
famous "don't oblige us to resort to our nuclear arsenal", meaning a 
ccTLD root.  At that time France was one of the leaders of a friendly 
but separated attitude. It is based on the concept that RFC 1591 
makes a ccTLD Manager the trustee of its national community. We 
progressively saw some of  these trustees to become pure ccTLD 
Registry Managers. The Tunis agreement settled this in making the 
ccTLD Managers the affiliate of the Internationalized US system 
conducted by ICANN (the USG/ICANN agreement responds to the act of 
Congress voted to keep the Internet an US controlled system). There 
is a certain "normalization" in that direction after France (AFNIC) 
joined the ccNSO, accepting an ICANN preheminence and indirect certain control.

Together with multilingualisation this is leading to an Internet 
"split". The first known experience being China. The attitude of 
ICANN over the unworkable (the IETF technical proposition is not 
mature enough) IDN issue, will most probably determine the future of 
the digital system intergovernance (and the share of Internet, ICANN, 
IETF, etc.) in it. This will most probably result in broad part of 
the discussions which will be initiated in Athens. This will decide 
if this split result in a divide, a balkanization, or in concerted 
interoperations.

The attitude of the USG with ICANN seems to go into the good 
direction, and to be in line with their Statements which matches the 
general ecology of the digital ecosystem, the Internet is a part of. 
It consists in privatizing the internationalization of the 
Internationalised US Internet to the US industry, and making ICANN 
the missing trustee of the US local Internet community. The attitude 
of ICANN in the coming days will therefore be decisive. They can 
leave Athens as a the eldest brother or as the enemy. Frankly, this 
is truly up to them to decide.

IMHO this will result from their positions over the Multilingual 
Internet. The technical support they get from the IETF and IAB is 
real (RFC 4690) and inadequate, so we cannot expect any serious 
technical tackling of the problem. This gives the responsibility to 
Tina Dam and to the Presidential Advisory Committee. I wish them good 
luck as they need to politically address technical architectural 
errors (I proposed a tested and DNS coherent/consistent solution at 
the IETF WG when it was discussed. I was opposed because it 
disfavored Verisign interests at the time.  I think there is still a 
two steps solution, but it will most probably depend on the way 
Google see their mid-term interests).

jfc

At 09:56 06/10/2006, Olivier Guillard / AFNIC wrote:

> Hugh,
>
> ccTLD/ICANN relation issue is not a new one.
>
> FYI, Accountability Framework is a process that was
> initiated from the very begining with the creation
> of the ccNSO, see KL minutes:
> http://ccnso.icann.org/minutes/minutes-20jul04.shtml
>
> Formalized dialogues or agreements between ccTLD and
> ICANN including AF are visible here:
> http://www.icann.org/cctlds/agreements.html
>
> Best,
>
> ---
> Olivier
>
>
>
> le jeudi 05 octobre à 18 H 41 , Hugh Dierker a ecrit :
> > ICANN sure seems to be racking up the contracts with the ccTLDs.
> > 
> http://www.webhosting.info/news/1/icann-formalizes-new-relationship_1005061179.htm
> >
> >   Clearly it is becoming better to be a part of than going it solo.
> >
> >   e
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> >  All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get 
> things done faster.
> --
> Olivier