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RALO(s)

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Comments
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Announcement 
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Vote CloseDate of SubmissionStaff Contact and EmailStatement Number
28.02.2013At-Large Consultation on ccTLD Delegation and Redelegation Performance Standards WorkspaceAdopted
11Y, 0N, 0A
19.03.201320.03.201321.03.201321.03.201327.03.201328.03.201321.03.2013Michelle Cotton
michelle.cotton@icann.org
AL/ALAC/ST/0313/3
Comment/Reply Periods (*)Important Information Links
Comment Open:15 January 2013
Comment Close:28 February 2013
Close Time (UTC):23:59Public Comment Announcement
Reply Open:1 March 2013To Submit Your Comments (Forum)
Reply Close:21 March 2013View Comments Submitted
Close Time (UTC):23:59Report of Public Comments
Brief Overview
Originating Organization:ICANN
Categories/Tags:Top-Level Domains
Purpose (Brief):A consultation on developing performance standards for Delegation and Redelegation of a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)
Current Status:Initial public consultation
Next Steps:Review comments received
Staff Contact:Michelle CottonEmail:michelle.cotton@icann.org
Detailed Information
Section I: Description, Explanation, and Purpose

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions contract

(SA1301-12-CN-0035) between ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to maintain the continuity and stability of services related to certain interdependent Internet technical management functions, known collectively as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority calls for a public consultation from all interested and affected parties to help satisfy the following objective:

C.2.8 Performance Standards — Within six (6) months of award, the Contractor shall develop performance standards, in collaboration with all interested and affected parties as enumerated in Section C.1.3, for each of the IANA functions as set forth at C.2.9 to C.2.9.4 and post via a website.

This consultation involves the operation of the Delegations and Redelegations of Country Code Top Level Doamins (ccTLDs) described in the IANA functions contract as the following:

C.2.9.2.c Delegation and Redelegation of a Country Code Top Level-Domain (ccTLD) –The Contractor shall apply existing policy frameworks in processing requests related to the delegation and redelegation of a ccTLD, such as RFC 1591 Domain Name System Structure and Delegation, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Principles And Guidelines For The Delegation And Administration Of Country Code Top Level Domains, and any further clarification of these policies by interested and affected parties as enumerated in Section C.1.3. If a policy framework does not exist to cover a specific instance, the Contractor will consult with the interested and affected parties, as enumerated in Section C.1.3; relevant public authorities; and governments on any recommendation that is not within or consistent with an existing policy framework. In making its recommendations, the Contractor shall also take into account the relevant national frameworks and applicable laws of the jurisdiction that the TLD registry serves. The Contractor shall submit its recommendations to the COR via a Delegation and Redelegation Report.

Section II: Background
This is one of a series of consultations to establish performance standards for the delivery of the IANA functions, as described in contract SA1301-12-CN-0035.
Section III: Document and Resource Links
Section IV: Additional Information
None

(*) Comments submitted after the posted Close Date/Time are not guaranteed to be considered in any final summary, analysis, reporting, or decision-making that takes place once this period lapses.

FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED

Please click here to download a copy of the PDF below.

FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

The ALAC recognises and understands why this consultation is occurring now, but we do note that it is, to some extent, unfortunate timing with regard to redelegations. 

ccTLD: The ccNSO Working Group on the review of the Framework of Interpretation (FOI-WG)  aims to establish a community agreed consensus of the understanding of terms, meanings, usage, limitations and the intentions of RFC 1591, ICP-1  and the relevant GAC Advice (2000 and 2005) relating to the rare relatively occurrence of the ccTLD redelegation (see FOI-WG -http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/foiwg.htm). The WG has not completed its work, but it will report to the ccNSO Council and as stated in its Charter “... advise whether it should launch a Policy Development Process to recommend changes to the current policies for delegation, re‐delegation and retirement of country code Top Level Domains …”.

gTLD: Redelegations are virtually unknown at the moment. With the advent of the New gTLDs program, they may well become far more common, but it is not at all clear how this new process will play out.

1. What are the key performance standards that would be meaningful for delivering the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

Timing and accuracy are reasonable standards.

To be meaningful, they must be fully documented and publicly available to the extent allowed by legal or confidentiality constraints.

For ccTLD redelegations, which can at times be tortuous processes and often include “false starts”, end-to-end timing may not be sufficient. There may need to be measures not only of the overall end-to-end time, but the time from the initiation of the “successful” redelegation request, with a particular focus on the effectiveness, efficiency as well as accountability and transparency of the involvement of the ‘Local Internet Community” and  ‘Significantly Interested Parties’.

Once the work of the FOI-WG and any recommended ccNSO PDP process has been completed, there may be a need to redefine the performance standards.

2. What do you consider KPIs for successful performance of the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

With one exception, the KPIs identified in the Consultation documents are reasonable. The exception is for ccTLD redelegations. ccTLD/gTLD delegations, and gTLD relegations are, or are expected to be, reasonably standardized processes. ccTLD redelegations particularly contested redelegations, are rare occurrences and  often “one-of-a-kind” and the reporting may need to be tailored particularly to reflect the more convoluted process. Moreover, the possibly necessary elongated ccTLD processes should to the extent possible, not skew the overall reporting.

For any process that will not be concluded within one reporting cycle (presumably not longer than one month), processes that are in progress should be displayed to allow all stakeholders and interested parties to be able to follow the progress.

For accuracy, the rate should not only be reported, but for cases where the transaction was not 100% accurate initially, information on the time-to-discover the error and the time-to-recover should be made available.

3. In what formats would you like the results reported to the community?

Some sort of a dashboard should be used to present the overall statistics, with the ability to drill down to specific delegations and redelegations.  Moreover the underlying data should be readily exportable.

Stakeholders should be able to subscribe to alerts to keep them informed of delegation and redelegations requests and the ensuing milestones throughout the following process.

As the rate of new gTLD delegations ramp up, statistics on these should updated regularly, probably weekly, to ensure that the community is well aware of the details of the namespace expansion and most particularly, any problems experienced in the ramp-up and steady-state period, where root changes are expected to occur at an unprecedented rate.

4. Do you have additional input on suitable performance standards for the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

No Comment.

FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

The ALAC recognises and understands why this consultation is occurring now, but we do note that it is, to some extent, unfortunate timing with regard to redelegations. 

ccTLD: The ccNSO Working Group on the review of the Framework of Interpretation (FOI-WG)  aims to establish a community agreed consensus of the understanding of terms, meanings, usage, limitations and the intentions of RFC 1591, ICP-1  and the relevant GAC Advice (2000 and 2005) relating to the rare relatively occurrence of the ccTLD redelegation (see FOI-WG - http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/foiwg.htm). The WG has not completed its work, but it will report to the ccNSO Council and as stated in its Charter “... advise whether it should launch a Policy Development Process to recommend changes to the current policies for delegation, re‐delegation and retirement of country code Top Level Domains …”.

gTLD: Redelegations are virtually unknown at the moment. With the advent of the New gTLDs program, they may well become far more common, but it is not at all clear how this new process will play out.

1. What are the key performance standards that would be meaningful for delivering the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

Timing and accuracy are reasonable standards.

To be meaningful, they must be fully documented and publicly available to the extent allowed by legal or confidentiality constraints.

For ccTLD redelegations, which can at times be tortuous processes and often include “false starts”, end-to-end timing may not be sufficient. There may need to be measures not only of the overall end-to-end time, but the time from the initiation of the “successful” redelegation request, with a particular focus on the effectiveness, efficiency as well as accountability and transparency of the involvement of the ‘Local Internet Community” and  ‘Significantly Interested Parties’.

Once the work of the FOI-WG and any recommended ccNSO PDP process has been completed, there may be a need to redefine the performance standards.

2. What do you consider KPIs for successful performance of the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

With one exception, the KPIs identified in the Consultation documents are reasonable. The exception is for ccTLD redelegations. ccTLD/gTLD delegations, and gTLD relegations are, or are expected to be, reasonably standardized processes. ccTLD redelegations particularly contested redelegations, are rare occurrences and  often “one-of-a-kind” and the reporting may need to be tailored particularly to reflect the more convoluted process. Moreover, the possibly necessary elongated ccTLD processes should to the extent possible, not skew the overall reporting.

For any process that will not be concluded within one reporting cycle (presumably not longer than one month), processes that are in progress should be displayed to allow all stakeholders and interested parties to be able to follow the progress.

For accuracy, the rate should not only be reported, but for cases where the transaction was not 100% accurate initially, information on the time-to-discover the error and the time-to-recover should be made available.

3. In what formats would you like the results reported to the community?

Some sort of a dashboard should be used to present the overall statistics, with the ability to drill down to specific delegations and redelegations.  Moreover the underlying data should be readily exportable.

Stakeholders should be able to subscribe to alerts to keep them informed of delegation and redelegations requests and the ensuing milestones throughout the following process.

As the rate of new gTLD delegations ramp up, statistics on these should updated regularly, probably weekly, to ensure that the community is well aware of the details of the namespace expansion and most particularly, any problems experienced in the ramp-up and steady-state period, where root changes are expected to occur at an unprecedented rate.

4. Do you have additional input on suitable performance standards for the ccTLD/gTLD Delegation and Redelegation service?

No Comment.

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4 Comments

  1. In #1, One of the standards should be a minimum of 24 hours in answering emails.

    In #3, I recommend to be more specific as to what we want to see in the dashboard as a minimum. For example, from whom to whom is the re-delegation, start date of the request, # of emails received/answered (if this number is relatively high, it may be an indication that the re-delegation is defective), links to appropriate wiki-pages, documents, etc., IANA staff member in charge of the re-delegation, and anything else we can think will be important to see as a minimum.

    -ed

  2. In my opinion, "accountability and transparency of the involvement of the ‘Local Internet Community” and  ‘Significantly Interested Parties’" mean also consultation with ALSes, which represent "interested or affected" local Internet community. It means that each such ALS has to receive direct e-mail from ICANN At-Large Staff with information, that IANA received any request for redelegation. In case, if ANY of such ALSes will object to such redelegation, this objection has to be considered on the level of corresponding RALO and the result of this consideration has to be reported to ALAC. In case if ALAC will find such objections reasonable, the decision of ALAC has to be submitted to the Board.

    1. Oksana your points are well made  and this process for greater engagement with direct push information  to ALSes on many ICANN matters including the work of the IANA on delegation and redelegation is a conversation we *must* have (and soon I would think) so perhaps between Beijing and Durbin meetings...  But  I copy here an email I sent earlier today re this matter to the APRALO list  to inform their discussion and the ALAC Working list...

      <snip>Just to be clear the Call for Public Comments that the ALAC is responding to iin its draft is *not*  looking *AT* any new gTLD or ccTLD deligations or  redeligations per se at all; *but is*  limited to comment on proposed performance measures and metrics for IANA performance in processing such things, as required under the new contract with NTIA, when they do (rarely) come to pass...

      Discussion on specific cases as might be tempting is interesting and occasionally challenging of course but *not* germane to this piece of work at all.

      CLO from my Mobile phone <end snip>

  3. Cheryl, thanks a lot, noted