State of the Net: Internet Governance, IANA Transition, EU Safe Harbor

International Perspectives of the State of Governance on the Internet (56 mins) with Larry Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, United States Department of Commerce, NTIA; and Bertrand de la Chapelle, Director, Internet & Jurisdiction Project. 

MODERATOR: Cheryl Miller, Director, International Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Verizon.

High Noon for the IANA Transition (63 mins) PANEL: Steve Crocker, Chair of the ICANN Board of Directors; Alissa Cooper, Distinguished Engineer, Cisco; Steve DelBianco, Executive Director, NetChoice; David Redl, Counsel, U.S House Committee on Energy and Commerce; Greg Shatan, Partner, Abelman Frayne & Schwab; Chris Wilson, Vice President, Government Affairs, 21st Century Fox. MODERATOR: Laura DeNardis American University

The Collapse of the EU Safe Harbor: Assessing the Damage and Exploring Solutions (59 mins) INTRODUCTION: Justin Antonipallai, Counselor to the Secretary with Delegated Duties of Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce; PANEL: Andrea Glorioso, Counselor, Delegation of the European Union to the U.S.; Bijan Madhani, Public Policy & Regulatory Counsel, Computer & Communications Industry Association; Meg Jones, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University; MODERATOR: Kelly A. DeMarchis, Counsel, Venable LLP.

See also: Europe’s Top Digital-Privacy Watchdog Zeros In on U.S. Tech Giants - The New York Times: ".... A number of digital-rights advocates, including Mr. Schrems, are also preparing new privacy cases if a data-transfer deal is not reached by Feb. 1. That will most likely cause more problems for American tech giants, pushing Ms. Falque-Pierrotin and her European counterparts to consider new investigations — and, eventually, fines. But her position on protecting personal data continues to appear unwavering. “Does the U.S. provide sufficient privacy guarantees?” she said. “Until now, the answer is no.”"

more info:

• The 12th Annual State of the Net Conference: January 25, 2016, at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center, Washington, DC
• State of the Net - The largest Internet policy conference in the U.S.
• Domain: stateofthe.net
• @SOTN (twitter)

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DISCLAIMER

A Lust for Power: Is PIMCO Like Some CCWG-Accountability Members?

Video above: Bill Gross Sues PIMCO Over Forced Exit - Bill Gross has sued PIMCO (pimco.com) and its parent Allianz SE (allianz.com - ETR: ALV) for “hundreds of millions of dollars,” claiming he was wrongfully pushed out as the bond giant’s chief investment officer by a “cabal” of executives seeking a bigger slice of the bonus pool, in other words "greed." Bloomberg's Mary Childs reports on "Bloomberg Markets." Published on Oct 8, 2015

“Driven by a lust for power, greed, and a desire to improve their own financial position and reputation at the expense of investors ..." --Bill Gross Lawsuit Claims

Greed? In the financial industry? "I'm shocked."

Of course, the financial industry is not unique in this regard--it is now clearly evident, that there are a few members of the CCWG-Accountability (Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability) who have been, from the beginning, working on their own lustful power grab, or "greed," for control over ICANN, and apparently intend to impair or destroy ICANN's (and its Board of Directors') fiduciary duties to the global multistakeholder community and the global public interest. See: Domain Mondo: China (CAICT) Objects to ICANN CCWG Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal. For them, "Accountability" is a mere euphemism for "Power"--NOT enhancing ICANN accountability BUT enhancing their own Power--they intend to be "in control" of their proposed Single Member which would rule over the post-IANA transition ICANN and its Board of Directors. Remember, it is the "ICANN stakeholders" who currently select, directly or indirectly, 15 of the 16 voting members of the ICANN Board of Directors! But even that's not enough power (Carl Icahn would be flabbergasted by their chutzpah!)--they want to be able to overrule the ICANN Board even when to do so violates ICANN's (and the Board's) fiduciary duties to the global multistakeholder community and the global public interest:

"Sole Member given reserved power under Bylaws to override Board decision directly, regardless of Board fiduciary duties." - Legal counsel for CCWG-Accountability (pdf) opinion on CCWG 2nd draft Report (emphasis added)

But not all CCWG members are in agreement--and certainly ICANN community members do not all agree with the "power grab"--

"... Let¹s not suggest that the community is in full agreement on the 2nd draft CCWG proposal, it is not. Let¹s not suggest that the board is (nothing but) working against us, it is not. We have agreement on the most important ingredients of the proposal: specific powers for the community that can be enforced. We do not have agreement on the mechanism to implement these..."-- Roelof Meijer (CCWG mail list, October 8, 2015)(emphasis added)

Even one of the original supporters of the CCWG's 2nd Draft Report's Single Member Model now concedes:

"None of us know what will or won’t be approved by the [ICANN] stakeholder groups because at the moment there’s nothing for them to approve. At the moment no one in their right mind would approve our second draft proposal because of the feedback that it has."-- Jordan Carter, ICANN CCWG member, Oct 6, 2015 meeting transcript, emphasis added)

Apparently, from reading the CCWG mail list, we have some members of the CCWG who are not "in their right mind" since they have taken the hardline position to proceed with the Single Member Model (SMM or CMSM) in defiance of the feedback from the Public Comments, including that from the ICANN Board of Directors.  We may find out in Dublin, at the ICANN 54 meeting, if those who 'lust for power' will be successful in impairing or destroying ICANN's fiduciary duties to the global multistakeholder community and the global public interest. Some of these hardliners appear willing to destroy ICANN and the IANA transition in the process. Let's be clear what these CCWG-Accountability hardliners really want:

Complete power over ICANN to be in the hands of a few powerful ICANN "stakeholders," to the complete exclusion of the global internet community--

“... Having been a member or observer of many of these entities [ICANN stakeholder groups] I have found that they are often disorganized, ruled by a few strong personalities in a sea of apathy, and given to making up rules on the fly when needed. They do not even necessarily follow the rules they have agreed to in the charters, though some do, not all of them.  And for the most part, though they are supposed to [be] transparent, most aren't. So what I fear is that they are accountable to none except the few strong personalities..." -- Avri Doria, CCWG mail list, (emphasis added)

"... I agree that we have not (in this [CCWG] group) explored the accountability of stakeholder entities to their members, or the accountability of stakeholder entities (singly and collectively) to the larger community, or for that matter, the accountability of stakeholder entities to their non-member (and non-participating) stakeholders. If this is truly a deep concern, then it could be seen as a fundamental flaw in our entire plan, which is based on the existing stakeholder entities -- no matter how you design it (members, designators, delegates, etc.)…”-- Greg Shatan, CCWG mail list (emphasis added)

This "power grab" has nothing to do with ICANN Board accountability nor "enforceability"--that is a straw man argument completely refuted in a memo (pdf) from the Jones Day law firm distributed on the CCWG mail list October 8, 2015.

Caveat Emptor!

See also on Domain Mondo:

• IANA Transition: ICANN Board Also Rules Out CCWG Designator Model Oct 6, 2015
• Why the ICANN Board Does NOT Support the Single Member Model Oct 2, 2015
• IANA Transition, ICANN Accountability, "Has Always Been About POWER" Oct 1, 2015
• ICANN Board Does NOT Support CCWG Proposed Membership Model Sep 27, 2015
• China (CAICT) Objects to ICANN CCWG Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal Sep 24, 2015
• Only 19 of 90 Comments Support ICANN Accountability [CCWG 2nd draft] Proposal Overall Sep 22, 2015
• ICANN CCWG-Accountability Co-Chair Comments on the Public Comments Sep 15, 2015

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DISCLAIMER

IANA Trademarks and Domain Name, ICANN or IETF Trust?

ICANN video above: Alissa Cooper (IETF) - published on Jul 25, 2014 - Alissa Cooper discusses her representation of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) on the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) during the group’s first meeting in London, 17-18 July 2014.

Note: this is a continuation of yesterday's post: IANA Transition: IANA Trademark and Domain Name Controversy Erupts.

[Disclosure: this background information and analysis has been provided by the Editor of Domain Mondo, John Poole (hereinafter "John"), who was also an observer of the CWG-Stewardship (observers are called "participants" in the CWG-Stewardship, as they are allowed to have a "voice" in the proceedings, but no "vote" in the consensus decision-making).]

As noted yesterday, Alissa Cooper (hereinafter "Alissa"), ICG co-chair, sent an email to CWG-Stewardship Friday, in which the "ICG requests that the CWG communicate back to us a proposed resolution to this issue by July 2 at 23:59 UTC." This issue being the transfer of the IANA trademarks and domain name to the IETF Trust as proposed by the Numbers community (RIRs/CRISP). The IETF Trust, is not affiliated with ICANN, and according to its website, its sole beneficiary is the IETF, also known as the "the Protocols community," represented by Alissa (see video above). The IETF has agreed to have the IETF Trust be the transferee of the IANA trademarks and domain name (iana.org) which are owned/registered in the name of ICANN. The two other key players in this whole saga are Greg Shatan (hereinafter "Greg"), IP attorney and IPC President, and Professor Milton Mueller (hereinafter "Milton"), who is a member of the ICG but also participates or contributes to the Names, Numbers, Protocols, and CCWG-Accountability mail lists, and has been active in ICANN since the late 1990s.

Here are the most relevant links (dates are all calendar year 2015):

February 23: [CWG-Stewardship] Proposed Design Team: IANA IPR, including IANA Trademark and Domain Name - Greg flagged the Numbers proposal to transfer the IANA trademarks as an issue to be addressed by the CWG-Stewardship on February 23, 2015, by way of his proposed Design Team G.

February 23: [CWG-Stewardship] Fwd: [Internal-cg] Numbers community response to question from the ICG: via Alissa, Numbers community rationale for transferring the trademarks and domain name from ICANN to the IETF Trust.

March 1-2: [CWG-Stewardship] Design team list: Greg responded to John's objection to Design Team G, after which, John concurred with Greg's statement: "To my mind, it's actually pretty simple -- the best place for the trademark (and thus the domain name) is the grantor/owner of the right to offer IANA services -- in the external trust model, it would be a trust asset; in the Contract Co. model, it would be Contract Co., in the internal models it would be ICANN. A third party owner doesn't make a lot of sense in any of our models."  John: "... I will defer to your and Jonathan's and Lise's [CWG-Stewardship co-chairs Jonathan Robinson and Lise Fuhr] wise judgment on how to best proceed on this--perhaps even the formality of a design team can be dispensed with--it sounds like you need to move quickly "to slow the train down." If so, do whatever is necessary..." [note: soon thereafter John withdrew from any active participation in the CWG-Stewardship].

So what happened to Greg's Design Team G? Nothing it appears--the CWG-Stewardship Wiki page indicates:

June 10: [CWG-Stewardship] drift in v5: Bill Manning and Milton catch the "draft language" that Greg inserted into the CWG-Stewardship proposal, which is the same language referred to by Alissa in her email of June 19, 2015.

June 10-11:  [CWG-Stewardship] drift in v5: Milton and Greg each express their respective positions which led to even more discussion by many people on the CWG-Stewardship mail list, including even John, who after reading the exchanges, contributed the historical context--[CWG-Stewardship] drift in v5--to which Greg replied with "thanks," and Milton responded that the historical trademark/domain name record was "not relevant" to which John responded (also explaining the importance of this issue for domain name registrants, trademark holders, and the global multistakeholder community). Thereafter Greg responded to Milton which left the CWG-stewardship proposal with the draft language to which the ICG responded Friday through Alissa.

postscript: Jonathan Robinson's (co-chair of the CWG-Stewardship) posting on June 11, 2015, is interesting:

Bill [Manning],
Two key points from my perspective:
1. There is urgency to send the proposal out to the chartering organisations but that does not in any way imply a lack of recognition to deal with this trademarks issue.
2. Lise and I have previously had meetings with the CRISP chairs. We have also had meetings with the ICG chairs group. The purpose of the meetings was primarily to ensure continuous updates on progress and current issues. We touched on the trademarks issue in a meeting with the ICG chairs yesterday. Clearly, there is now some more work to be done.

Jonathan

Yes, there is clearly "some more work to be done"--that may be the understatement of the year!

Domain Mondo doesn't know how the SO/ACs are supposed to approve a CWG-Stewardship proposal that isn't yet finished. Welcome to the Land of ICANN!

Domain Mondo UPDATE: ICANN Board and CWG address IANA Trademarks and Domain Name


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IANA Transition: IANA Trademark and Domain Name Controversy Erupts

"What's in a name? 

That which we call a rose

By any other name 

would smell as sweet."

-- Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

by William Shakespeare

 IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) meeting agenda, Friday, June 19, 2015, Buenos Aires

The IANA Stewardship Transition process, convened by ICANN pursuant to the NTIA's March, 2014, announcement, has involved three ICANN "communities"--Names (CWG-Stewardship), Numbers (RIRs a/k/a CRISP), and Protocols (IETF a/k/a IANAPLAN)-- each coming up with their own IANA Transition proposal and submitting it to the  IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) which will "deliver a proposal to the NTIA recommending a transition plan of NTIA’s stewardship of IANA functions to the Internet community, consistent with the key principles outlined in the NTIA March 14 announcement" according to the ICG website.

Pursuant to the ICG meeting June 18-19, 2015, in Buenos Aires (Friday agenda above), ICG co-chair Alissa Cooper, who is also a member of the IETF (Protocols) community, sent the following email to the CWG-Stewardship (emphasis added):

Alissa Cooper to cwg-stewardship:

Dear CWG,
The CWG transition proposal suggests that "ICANN will grants [sic] PTI an exclusive, royalty-free, fully-paid, worldwide license to use the IANA trademark and all related trademarks in connection with PTI's activities under the ICANN-PTI Contract." [1] Our understanding is that this text was not a product of full CWG deliberation and consensus and is flagged as subject to further negotiations.

During the ICG face-to-face meeting #5 on June 18 this text was identified as causing an incompatibility between the three operational community proposals. Both the IETF and RIR communities have been using and continue to use the term "IANA." For instance, the term has been cited in 3,353 RFCs over several decades. The CWG’s proposal for ICANN to grant an exclusive license may not be compatible with all three communities making continued use of the term.

Second, the RIR community has specified in its proposal that the IANA trademark and domain name [2] should be transferred to an entity independent of any IANA Numbering Services Operator. In February 2015, the ICG asked the RIR and IETF communities to report if their proposals can be made compatible in this regard. After discussion these communities reported back that there was no fundamental discrepancy. [3, 4] The IETF Trust also indicated its willingness to hold intellectual property rights relating to the IANA functions and the IETF community expressed its willingness to support such a decision. [3]

Finally, the current text discusses only the trademarks and not the iana.org domain name. Thus it is unclear whether the CWG proposal text is meant to extend to the domain name as well.

The ICG has identified this topic as something that requires coordination between the communities. The ICG would like to request that in completing its proposal the CWG review the proposals from the protocol parameters and numbers communities, determine if it can adopt an approach taken by those communities, and if not, work together with the protocol parameters and numbers communities to reconcile the incompatibilities that have been identified. The ICG requests that the CWG communicate back to us a proposed resolution to this issue by July 2 at 23:59 UTC.
Thank you,
Alissa, Patrik and Mohamed on behalf of the ICG

[1] CWG Stewardship proposal, Annex S, page 132
[2] Numbers community proposal, page 10: "With regards to the IANA trademark and the IANA.ORG domain, it is the expectation of the Internet Number Community that both are associated with the IANA Numbering Services and not with a particular IANA Numbering Services Operator. Identifying an organization that is not the IANA Numbering Services Operator and which will permanently hold these assets will facilitate a smooth transition should another operator (or operators) be selected in the future. It is the preference of the Internet Number Community that the IANA trademark and the IANA.ORG domain name be transferred to an entity independent of the IANA Numbering Services Operator, in order to ensure that these assets are used in a non-discriminatory manner for the benefit of the entire community. From the Internet Number Community's perspective, the IETF Trust would be an acceptable candidate for this role.
The transfer of the IANA trademark and IANA.ORG domain to the IETF Trust will require additional coordination with the other affected communities of the IANA Services, namely, protocol parameters and names. It is the preference of the Internet Number Community that all relevant parties agree to these expectations as part of the transition."
[3] http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-February/003103.html
[4] http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/internal-cg/2015-February/003105.html

Initial analysis and  background note:

[Disclosure: information and analysis provided by the Editor of Domain Mondo, John Poole, who was also an observer of the CWG-Stewardship (observers are called "participants" in the CWG-Stewardship, as they are allowed to have a "voice" in the proceedings, but no "vote" in the consensus decision-making).]

Interestingly, the members of the ICG, and specifically, Co-Chair Cooper, who also attended CWG-Stewardship meetings and received all emails posted on the CWG-Stewardship mail list, failed to note that the RIR community's IANA trademark and domain name proposal to transfer the IANA trademarks and domain name to the IETF Trust, was first flagged as a problem by CWG-Stewardship member Greg Shatan, intellectual property attorney, and President of the ICANN IPC (Intellectual Property Constituency), on February 23, 2015. Domain Mondo's next post will provide further background information and analysis of this issue, why its resolution is important, not only for ICANN and its "communities," but also for domain name registrants, trademark holders, and the global multistakeholder community, also known as the global Internet community.

Domain Mondo UPDATE: ICANN Board and CWG address IANA Trademarks and Domain Name


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