The Board Candidate Evaluation Committee (BCEC) has determined that the candidates on the electoral slate are all qualified and experienced to serve the role of an ICANN Board director as per the criteria of the selection process.  Each of the candidates brings different strengths and skills based on his or her set of experiences.  All are interested in addressing the public interest deficit in the decisions of the board and to strengthen the voice and views of the Internet end user in the board’s decision-making.

I believe that I am the candidate that brings the strongest diversity to the ICANN Board, not just in terms of geography and culture, but also in terms of uniqueness of experiences and achievements.  I also have a special ability to reach out and connect with people, particularly those from the developing world.  This will help the Board tremendously in ICANN’s globalization effort, which is meant to enhance the organization’s legitimacy and acceptance among stakeholders around the world.

My priorities if selected as the At-Large Board Director:

(1) Ensure a strong strategic position for ICANN by strengthening its legitimacy

Ensuring a strong strategic position for ICANN can be achieved by strengthening its legitimacy.  ICANN’s legitimacy can be strengthened by ensuring that ICANN: (a) implements the recommendations of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team 2; (b) incorporates a strong end-user orientation in its decision-making; and (c) develops measures to address risks related to the possible take-over of its role with options that instill the greatest confidence across global Internet users, particularly end users.

(2) Ensure globalization of ICANN with emphasis on strengthening non-financial stakeholder participation that will enhance the multistakeholder model of engagement 

The global Internet community does not have equal access and opportunity to participate in ICANN.  There are clear imbalances of representation in decision-making structures as well as policy-making activities.  Despite the openness of ICANN, high participation barriers exist for stakeholders with no financial stakes, particularly those from developing countries.  In the urgency to globalize ICANN, which is another means of enhancing legitimacy, focus is required on ensuring the meaningful participation of stakeholders with no financial stakes from all parts of the world.  In particular, attention is needed to ensure that those from developing regions can participate meaningfully in ICANN’s governance and policy-development activities.  This would necessitate (among others) ensuring that ICANN has effective outreach, engagement and capacity-building of stakeholders with appropriate language support as well as ensuring that policy development processes have a balanced representation of stakeholders before proceeding.  All of this will serve to strengthen ICANN’s multistakeholder model of engagement.

(3) Advocate for a review of the new gTLD program and support continued efforts to enable Internationalized Domain Names and their universal acceptance. 

Before contemplating new gTLD program expansion or future rounds of applications, a thorough review of the program is needed to address and correct aspects that the At-Large community and other communities with no financial stakes feel have under-served the public-interest.  In addition, efforts to make Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and their variants available and usable for Internet users worldwide must be supported to serve the majority of the global population, who do not use the Latin script.

The At-Large Board member cannot "represent" the ALAC or At-Large. Once appointed, the director is there purely on his/her own. However, At-Large was given a voting seat on the Board to allow the issues relevant to users to be factored into the debates. To do that, a person must be selected who can best represent those interests.

ICANN background:

• 8 years as a volunteer to At-Large, 6 years of which as a NomCom appointee to the ALAC, ALAC Liaison to the GNSO for all 8 years. I have also held several ALAC leadership roles.
• Principal author of countless statements issues by the ALAC over the last 8 years demonstrating my understanding of the issues important to At-Large.
• In depth knowledge of ICANN policy issues including the new gTLD program (and strong critic when it has not served the public interest).      
• Good working relationships with people in many diverse areas of ICANN.

Professional background:

• Technical as well as management experience.
• One of a handful of people that introduced the Internet to Canada.
• Volunteer in technology-related organizations for decades, including serving on the Internet Society Board of Trustees.
• 6 years as a volunteer to the Internet Society working with and then running Network Training Workshops for people from developing countries. We trained people from over 140 countries who were instrumental in bringing the Internet to their countries. Alumni include government ministers, ICANN Board members and ICANN employees.
• Much of my career has focused on technology usability and recently authored a chapter of a book on web usability issues related to using the Web to enhance developing economies.
• After my retirement from McGill, I became a consultant on the use of technology in developing economies (ICT4D), and worked in Africa, South Asia and Central America. A paper on using technology to alleviate poverty was one of the first on the topic (http://www.eldis.org/fulltext/sidaictpoverty.pdf).

Strengths related to the Board position:

• Very strong understanding of ICANN and its various components, of At-Large, and of the needs of Internet users.
• Proven ability to work with others, and to influence outcomes. I am generally viewed as a thoughtful and articulate person, and I am in a very strong position to enter the Board and immediately be effective. Three of my references for my Expression of Interest for this Board position were current or former ICANN Board members, and their endorsements speak well to my ability to quickly become an effective Board member.
• My background with both the ISOC training workshops and my ICT4D consulting has made me acutely aware of and focus on the issues that are important in the developing world.
• I am free of any relationship with those who stand to make money off of ICANN's decisions, and will not have any conflicts in carrying out my mandate.
• My track record of dedication (in both time and effort) to ICANN and At-Large is well known, and I will put the same energy into presenting the needs of users on the Board.

In short, I do not believe that any other candidate can match all of my qualifications and I will not only be a good Board member, but an outstanding At-Large Board member.

If I am selected, I can make a number of commitments:

• I will not disappear, but commit to staying in touch with the ALAC, At-Large and RALOs, through both face-to-face meetings and teleconferences. That is the only way to ensure that I am aware of issues important to At-Large.
• You will regularly hear from me about Board activities and my participation, and raising issues that I believe that At-Large may want to focus on.
• I will work to make sure that the bottom-up nature of ICANN is preserved in fact and not only in words. This is key to ICANN's ability to continue to exist and meet its obligations.
• I will work on ensuring that there is strong representation in ICANN from all parts of the Internet ecosystem, and that lack of funding and lack of English are not impassable road-blocks
• Aside from ensuring that issues related to users are considered in all Board deliberations, I will work to improve the Board’s and ICANN’s transparency and continually ensure that public interest issues are paramount.

My Expression of Interest has far more detail for those who are interested.

In endorsing me, Avri Doria called me the most “positively disruptive” candidate. Internet end-users need an assertive voice, awareness of issues, willingness to speak truth to power, and ability to forge consensus. I bring to the role:

Vision:

I have consistently demonstrated a grasp of end-user needs and championed them throughout ICANN, participating in all activities related to user rights and trust. This, and all I have done within ICANN, has been motivated by a desire for ICANN to be more responsive to worldwide needs of users of the Internet. ICANN's efforts to address the public interest in the gTLD expansion, such as the current proposals for “Public Interest Commitments” are useless in their current state and need substantial rework or replacement. ICANN's method of accepting and acting on public complaints needs significant enhancement and greater independence. Overall, CEO Fadi’s call for multi-EQUAL-stakeholderism must be realized – including proper empowerment of the public interest – if ICANN is to be sustainable.

 Collaborative Innovation:

Putting vision into action sometimes requires unique approaches. I played a primary role in many such advancements, including ALAC’s first Summit, first White Paper, its Applicant Support effort, the Future Challenges WG, and the current cross-community Internet Governance team. I’ve demonstrated capability for creative thinking that creates coalitions and produces results. 

Clarity:

Progressive ideas go nowhere if not expressed clearly and persuasively. The  numerous ALAC statements, white papers, communiques and other works of which I was primary author are known for precision, substance, and lack of clutter. Such style is necessary to inform and persuade -- inside the closed ICANN boardroom and beyond.

I encourage readers to view my original candidate statement for more detail.

I consider all of my interventions that are well received by the At-Large and the ICANN community as a whole as important achievements.   Nevertheless, in terms of greatest impact, I would say that my advocacy on Internationalized Domain Names, including my contributions to the Root Zone Label Generation Rules project that bridged the concerns of the technical community with the needs of language communities worldwide, to be the most important as it will have the widest impact on the global population.

I have taken part in far too many activities to try to rate them in priority order. Certainly among those that come to mind are the two GNSO PDPs that I initiated related to successfully abolishing domain tasting (the ability to sample MILLIONS of domains for monetization at no cost), and protecting registrants whose domain accidentally expire. In both cases, the problems had been around for years, and talked about endlessly, but no one had taken any steps to stop them until I acted.

These come to mind if only due to the immense amount of work required to address them. However, I have been involved with dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of other issues where the combination of knowledge and my willingness to put time and effort into an issue have allowed At-Large to make a forceful statement or take other action, and in many cases, this has resulted in real change that may not have happened in my absence.

However, I believe that my most important achievement is one that is harder to quantify. At the time I entered At-Large, it was considered a joke within much of ICANN. Although the efforts of a number of people were crucial, I believe that my presence, my actions and my words within the ALAC, the GNSO and ICANN in general can be credited with much of the turn-around where we are now viewed by most as a legitimate and important part of ICANN.

I have had many achievements within my ICANN history in which I may find pride: however, for the most important I would have to indicate my service as Co-Chair of the first At-Large Summit in 2009, Co-author of the Summit Communiqué, and part of the core organizing group that fought – against significant opposition – for the first Summit to ever happen.

This was most important because the Summit was a turning point and major milestone for the At-Large Community. It gave a new voice to At-Large, and completed the transition of ALAC from an appointed body to one that was representative of a broad and globally-diverse community of end-users. Activity started at the Summit served as a catalyst for deeper At-Large involvement in ICANN policy, which eventually led to:

• Cross-community work on Applicant Support in the field of new gTLDs (involving the first-ever direct GAC/ALAC collaboration)
• Direct At-Large participation in the gTLD objection process
• Greater and more frequent direct contact between the ALAC and the GNSO, GAC and ICANN Board
• Greater awareness within ICANN of global and multilingual issues
• Significant growth in the number of ALSs
• Transition on the ICANN Board from ALAC liaison to At-Large-elected Director

There is still far to go and much to be done, but I believed that the first Summit, in its creation and its execution, created inspiration which remains to this day.

Three other important accomplishment that deserve mention are:

1. From my time as the first Chair of NARALO, In a legacy that continues to this day, the North American Region welcomes individual members of the public who are not ALS members, and strives to make decisions via collaboration and consensus rather than confrontation and voting.
2. Co-creating (along with Jean-Jacques) the Future Challenges Working Group, an innovative "think tank" designed to engage in longer-term policy analysis and enable At-Large to play a part in setting ICANN priorities rather than simply respond to the priorities of the domain industry. The first output of that group was the "R3" White Paper, which I initiated and served as lead writer in collaboration with others.
3. Acting as champion and initiator of the Cross Community Working Group to provide an ICANN-wide response to the external challenges to ICANN's legitimacy, and specifically to provide a defense of multi-stakeholderism to the Netmundial meeting.

During my service on the ICANN Board, and on its President's Strategy Committee, I had an active role in drafting the "Improving Institutional Confidence" document, some recommendations of which later found their way into the Affirmation of Commitments, but are also reflected in the CEO's recent statement about ICANN's need to further "internationalize" (F. Chéhadé announced a new ICANN legal entity to be set up in Geneva). Also on the Board, I helped set up the Public Participation Committee, of which I was the first Chair (significant improvements in remote participation, in the Public Forum, and in linguistic services). And for more than 2 years, I constantly pleaded for Board oversight on the international and institutional dimensions of ICANN, which at the time were taken care of by the CEO and a handful of senior Staff: my suggestion was finally accepted, resulting in the creation of the Global Relationships Committee. I was also active in a number of Review Working Groups: chair of the ccNSO Review; member of the ALAC Review which recommended 2 voting members to be nominated by At-Large (this resulted in the creation of "Seat 15"). On the Board, I often made the point that it was time to consider the ALAC not as some "junior partner", but as an essential element of ICANN's very legitimacy. I also strongly supported funding for the first At-Large Summit.

During my service on the ALAC, I introduced the notion that, in parallel with the usual work of this Advisory Committee (responding to calls for comments, drafting statements, consulting with other ACs and SOs), it would be in the interest of the user community for the ALAC to take a more autonomous and longer-term view of challenges to the Internet and to ICANN. Acting upon my suggestion, the ALAC created the "Future challenges working group" (FCWG), of which Evan Leibovitch and I were appointed co-Chairs. The FCWG produced a document, "Making ICANN Relevant, Responsive and Respected" (R3), unanimously accepted by the ALAC as its first White Paper, and which has enjoyed quite a wide distribution.

During ICANN-49 in Singapore, the FCWG will be hosting a public session on its new work, "The Internet as a space of freedom: the user perspective". It is hoped and expected that the result of this work may contribute, in a significant way, to the current debate on the need to place the user at the centre of Internet preoccupations and processes. Without this user dimension, the multi-equal-stakeholder model would be unrepresentative of the evolving Internet.

Although this is a very small contribution, I am also pleased that the over-arching theme chosen by my colleagues for the Atlas-2 Summit (London, June 2014) is the one I suggested, "The global Internet: the user perspective".

ICANN Bylaws

The ICANN Bylaws Article XI needs to be changed so that the ICANN Board is required to respond to formal advice from all Advisory Committees in a timely matter, explaining what action it took, and the rationale for doing so.  Currently, the ICANN Board is only required to respond in this particular way to the Governmental Advisory Committee.  Changing the Bylaws will ensure that formal advice from the end-user community is given weight and careful consideration.  In addition, the same standard applied to formal advice from Advisory Committees related to Security and Stability will ensure that the ICANN Board does not make decisions without factoring the security and stability considerations of the Domain Name System, which affect all Internet users.

Rules governing the new gTLD Program

The new gTLD Program needs to be reviewed to address aspects of public interest deficits that became apparent since the program implementation began in 2012.  The ALAC has flagged several issues of concern related to the program.  These issues need to be addressed (before proceeding with future rounds of applications) and will affect the rules that govern the program.  Some of the issues include: poor outreach and uptake in developing regions, a problematic objections process, a priority evaluation process for community applications that evades providing evidence that it has sufficient community expertise in the evaluation panel, the approval of IDN Top Level Domains without factoring variants, the limitation that parties not directly harmed by a registry violation of public interest commitment cannot file a compliance report/complaint, etc.

It would be presumptuous to say that *I* will make changes in Board procedures. But I will certainly work hard to see that done. Targets include:

• Although we have improved a lot in recent years, the Board is still opaque and not transparent. That needs to improve.
• ALAC statements are often not given the review that they deserve. I will work to fix that. The (Accountability and Transparency Review Team 2 (ATRT2). Has recommended that the Board must formally respond to such statements, but we need to go a step further and make sure they are properly considered.

To me, two issues require priority attention:

• "Accountability and Transparency" within ICANN must be more than a committee, it must become a credo. The Board should, as a minimum, accept and implement the recommendations of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team 2" (ATRT2) as well as heed its observations.
• I have seen first-hand, a number of times, the ill effects of community input not being properly or accurately presented to the Board, resulting in poor decisions. Anyone providing policy input to the Board must have a manner to review staff representations to ensure accuracy and lack of bias. 

If chosen for Seat 15, I would want to make sure that the Board holds itself to the same high standards that are required of the community, its ACs and SOs (for instance, how are Board Committee Chairs appointed?). With an open mind, I would demand full information about a number of items crucial to the future of the Internet and of ICANN: the IANA function and contract; objectives, methods and calendar for the further internationalization of ICANN; the upcoming consultations between i-organizations (Sao Paolo and beyond); the need to promote "default settings" that respect privacy and fundamental rights of Internet users; encouraging efforts currently under way at IETF for technical solutions to user rights (encryption); taking stock of the New gTLD programme; helping ICANN migrate from the silo mentality to a more fluid community involvement.

As I have indicated in a previous question, I believe that I am the candidate that brings the strongest diversity to the ICANN Board, not just in terms of geography and culture, but also in terms of uniqueness of experiences and achievements.  I have a special ability to reach out and connect with people, particularly those from the developing world.  This will help the Board tremendously in ICANN’s globalization effort, which is meant to enhance the organization’s legitimacy and acceptance among stakeholders around the world.

I bring a number of things to the Board:

I would be one of the rare Board members who had recently served as a non-management volunteer in ICANN. That give me perspective that is VERY different from long-serving Board members, those from outside with no ICANN experience, and those who had spent years as Chairs within other parts of ICANN. At the same time, I have a strong understanding of the requirements and constraints on a Board member.

I have broad technical and administrative skills, and can very quickly assimilate new knowledge when needed. This “quick study” ability will allow me to approach the diverse range of subjects that come before the Board, and enter into intelligent debate even if it is an area with which I have little past experience.

Moreover, I believe that the Board lacks such generalist members. Knowledge in a tightly focused area, the type of skills often listed as being needed by the Board, is not sufficient to address the wide range of topics that come before them.

Another strength is that I am viewed as being balanced and thoughtful. I do not have a reputation of being a radical or being “over the top”. That combined with my existing good working relationship with a number of Board members puts me in a very strong position to influence and change opinion.

The existing Board already includes a diverse set of highly skilled individuals. My addition is one of vision and approach, as described in question #1 above.

I come as a candidate deeply rooted in the needs of end users around the world, with a career focused on social action, entrepreneurship, and a demonstrable passion for an open, accessible and trusted Internet. What I would bring to the Board – that it most lacks now – is a clear articulation of the global public interest necessary to inform, convince and effect real end-user-focused change throughout its decisions.

As some members of the Board have pointed out over the years, the notion of a "skills set" for the Board must be treated with caution, if only because terms served by Directors partly overlap, in what amounts to "a permanently unstable equation". With respect, rather than answering the question "without you the Board will lack what skills", I offer the view that, whatever the composition of the Board at any given moment, I could contribute in the following ways:

• heightened awareness of, and attention to the global public interest, by emphasising the Internet users' perspective (fundamental rights, basic principles of good governance, "default settings" in software and applications so as to protect privacy, fair representation) ;
• the ability to place Internet and ICANN challenges in the wider context of social, geopolitical and economic transformation;
• a high-level experience in international affairs, both in conceptual and in practical terms;
• familiarity with high-level cooperation in diverse professional contexts, with colleagues from various cultures and walks of life;
• an operational balance between careful listening, independent thinking, clear analysis of challenges, and problem-solving;
• gravitas and humor in equal measure, where required.

The Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 governing regulatory actions is applicable only to agencies of the US federal government and as such does not apply to ICANN.

That being said, ICANN does, in my mind, exercise quasi-regulatory authority over many aspects of the global domain name system and needs to take these aspects of its responsibility more seriously than it has in the past. In particular, a careful path needs to be followed between being a bottom-up multi-stakeholder organization (and among those stakeholders are the various contracted parties) and being responsible for ensuring that the public interest is served related to those same contracted stakeholders.

There are indications that this has been taken more seriously by recent Boards (new Registrar Accreditation Agreements and Registry contracts have added a few teeth), but in my mind we still have quite a way to go.

The current situation related to new gTLDs, Public Interest Commitments, and the lack of enforceable and practical methodology to ensure that the public interest is met is shameful, as is the situation related to the delegation of confusingly similar new TLDs.

ICANN takes great pains not to use the term “regulator”, even though it clearly serves many regulatory functions. In my opinion, this is because being thought of as a Regulator, either in American law or elsewhere, imposes upon ICANN a heightened and explicit level of public accountability that the organization refuses to shoulder.

In response to my perception of this attitude, I wrote and circulated an article titled “A Call for ICANN to Embrace its Inner Regulator”. This article attracted broad support, as well as contributions from a number of people (including some of my fellow candidates), and evolved into a submission to the ATRT2. This submission contains my answer to this question more completely.

Eric Brunner-Williams (NARALO)

For Mssrs. Bachollet and Subrenat:

I have the impression, having interacted with each of you over a number of years, that each of you are reflective, and aware of the "Anglo-Saxon" limitations assumed by the Corporation.

If re-selected to join the Corporation Board, which basic principle will most inform you, one in which the "market", in which Verisign holds "market power", determines public policy or one in which "market power" does not determine public policy?

1) The first part of your question is a statement to the effect that the DNA of ICANN, incorporated under California law, is largely "Anglo-Saxon". I cannot dispute this. I also share your view that this feature imposes "limitations" on the Corporation. In fact, as a member of the President's Strategy Committee (PSC) and a drafter of its "Improving Institutional Confidence" document, I strongly advocated the creation of a "separate legal entity" of ICANN outisde of California and the USA. Our findings led us to suggest Geneva as the best location for this, and I note that the CEO of ICANN recently mentioned Geneva in this context. 

For the At-Large community, the interesting question should be "why would ICANN need a separate legal entity outside of the US?". In the PSC paper, we identified, among other advantages for ICANN, fiscal predictability and flexibility, a status favourable to non-government international entitites, and the ability to recruit on a truly worldwide basis (without the visa constraints of recruiting non-US citizens in California).

2) The second part of your question echoes one of the major debates of the early 21st century, about government vs. enterprise. At the heart of the debate is the notion of self-regulation, long expounded as the ultimate mechanism to ensure economic growth and free competition. It is now clear that the financial crisis of 2008 was one of the unwanted results of permissive self-regulation in the financial sector (Nouriel Roubini & Stephen Mihm, "Crisis Economics, A Crash Course in the Future of Finance", Penguin USA 2010). What does this have to do with the Internet? Whether ICANN likes it or not, it does partly play the role of a regulator of the Domain Names Business. But because it shies away from the suggestion of any regulatory role, it has allowed itself to become unbalanced, to the detriment of the global public interest, as evidenced in the way the New gTLD programme was launched.

3) You allude to Verisign. For future progress in ICANN, an open approach will be required, among other things about the IANA function. Along with the European Commission, I am in favour of a thorough debate, in order to make the Internet, and ICANN, globally accountable. Governments alone cannot achieve this, nor corporations alone: if the Multi-Stakeholder Model is to succeed, now is the time to improve it.

For all the candidates except the incumbent, are the interests of "At-Large", a By-Laws body charged with providing advice to the Corporation Board, advanced by limiting the tenure of the appointee to Seat allocated to At-Large to a single term? If not, what defect of the incumbent, or advantage unique to you, do you offer as sufficient to end the incumbent's tenure and begin your own? Please note that several individuals have been on the Board in one capacity or another for several terms.

If it is believed that the At-Large Board Director requires more than 3 years to be effective, then the rules governing the elections of the At-Large Director would state that the incumbent should serve for two terms continuously and not be challenged after the completion of the first term OR that the term for the At-Large Board Director should be longer than it is now. 

The current rules allow the electorate to select the candidate that they feel would best serve the interest of the At-Large at a particular point in time.  Moreover, the non-guarantee of a second term re-election serves as a powerful incentive for the incumbent to deliver his/her best performance during the first term, which serves the interest of the At-Large.

All of the candidates are interested in addressing the public interest deficit in the decisions of the board and to strengthen the voice and views of the Internet end user in the board’s decision-making.  What I offer is my unique background and range of skills, knowledge and experiences, which I have elaborated in great detail in my Statement of Interest for the consideration of the At-Large community.

The two parts of the question need to be addressed separately.

I believe that the interests of At-Large are served by allowing a director to serve consecutive terms, following the overall rules applicable to all voting Board members. That potentially puts the At-Large member in a position to assume roles that are often only taken on by those with more experience. Someone on a renewed term may also be in a better position to participate fully in Board activities with less of a learning curve.

The issue of whether the incumbent Director should be given a second term is a completely different question. In the general case, I believe it both important and healthy that an incumbent needs to have the support of their constituency to continue. I should not be automatic. In this specific case, if I did not believe that At-Large might wish to consider a replacement, I would not have put my name in for the position.

I will not comment on the overall skills or capabilities of the incumbent, but will say that I was personally disappointed that, as he pointed out on the Candidate interview teleconference on March 6, he chose to remain conflicted related to the new gTLD program and therefore not participate in one of the issues of most interest to At-Large.

I have answered the reasons for my running clearly and completely, in my statement of candidacy (and summarized in my answer to Question #1 above).
While there are some advantages to serving multiple terms, these benefits do not override the public-interest need for a properly democratic process, for Directors to be accountable to the community at appropriate intervals. To argue otherwise is to invite complacency and stagnation.

A Board member's tenure provides no entitlement: I found it completely natural to have failed re-election after my term of duty on the Board, 2007-10. My candidacy for Seat 15 is not motivated by any "defect of the incumbent", nor do I claim to possess any "advantage unique to (me)". In the life of an organization, different times require different profiles. Candidates should be judged not on whether they are incumbents or new applicants, but on the expected value of their contribution.

According to my analysis, the challenges ahead include: clearer and more effective roles to be played by the various i-organizations including ICANN; more substantial globalization of ICANN, in the face of the rapid evolution of the Internet worldwide; placing the Internet user at the heart of ICANN's processes. I am confident I can contribute a global view, gained from my high-level experience in an international context.

For all the candidates, the Corporation provides "technical coordination of unique endpoint identifiers", acting on three baskets -- a zone file published in coordination with the US DoC NTIA, Verisign GRS and the operators of several nameservers, a set of sets of protocol parameters published in coordination with the IETF, autonomous system numbers, and IPv4 and IPv6 prefixes allocated in coordination with the Regional Internet Registries. Can you think of any reason why protocol parameters, ASNs, and IP allocations should remain the concerns of the Corporation?

Please note, this was the subject of significant discussion when the IANA Functions Contract was last let for competitive bid, and the NTIA archives contain comments reflecting several points of view. The IANA Functions Contract will be up for competitive bid during the term of the individual selected by this process.

The IANA contract refers to the IANA functions as interdependent functions.  Members of the technical community indicate that the IANA functions were bundled due to historical legacy instead of architectural requirements.  This means that it is possible for each function to be carried out by different entities. 

Whether ICANN should continue to be responsible for the IANA functions related specifically to the protocol parameters registry, IP address space allocation and Autonomous Systems Numbers (ASN) assignment depends on several factors:

The protocol parameters registry function serves primarily the needs of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).  Any arrangement to change the IANA Operator requires the agreement of the IETF.  As long as the IETF remains satisfied with the choice of and performance of ICANN as the IANA Operator for the protocol parameters registry function, the function will remain with ICANN.  Should the IETF be unsatisfied with ICANN’s performance of the function, they can independently make alternative arrangements.

The requirement for unique allocation and assignment of IP addresses and ASNs calls for centralized coordination.  The only viable alternative to ICANN in performing this IANA function is the collective Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) where all RIRs participate so as to ensure the uniqueness of allocation and assignment.  This function will remain with ICANN as long as all the RIRs are satisfied with the status quo.

I have not sufficiently studied this question and do not feel that it is appropriate to pass judgement at this time. Should the matter come to the Board, I would make sure that I understood all views prior to making a decision.

That being said, as long as these resources are administered by IANA and ICANN holds the IANA contract, they are clearly within our domain. Whether ICANN should oversee the policy related to these issues, and whether IANA should have an administrative role are different questions, and I would not be surprised if the answer differs for the various parameters. Clearly ICANN has had some responsibility for IP allocations, far less so for ASNs. Regardless, it is essential that policy responsibility rest with an entity that can make decisions fairly and transparently for the overall good of the Internet. Similarly, the administration of these parameters must rest with entities that will transparently carry out the established policy.

It is unfortunate to me that ICANN has devoted so much attention towards expansion of the DNS in a manner that has diverted focus from these other important facets of the organization. I am concerned that structural adjustments being made -- such as removing a formal position for the Technical Liaison Group from its Nominating Committee -- indicates a harmful philosophy to distance ICANN from influence by the technical community; I will work to correct that as Director.

In any case, it is my position that the functions listed are not inter-dependent and that ICANN should encourage transitioning to other bodies, those functions which have no policy component. As an Internet Society Chapter president I agree with some commentators that ISOC and IETF now possess the level of maturity and capability necessary for them to take on global co-ordination of functions such as IP address allocations. Going forward, ICANN must demonstrate both the desire and capability to maintain such functions; I do not believe it has any inherent perpetual mandate to perform them.

Alberto Soto

You think that the criteria for this selection, are correct and sufficient?

Requires modifications?

I believe that the criteria for the selection of Board Candidates are sufficiently rigorous because it combines the general requirements of an ICANN Board Director with the special requirements of an At-Large Board Director.  However, having a correct and sufficient set of criteria is not enough.  There is also a need for an effective vetting mechanism to ensure that candidates presented to the electorate actually fulfill the criteria.  This responsibility goes to the Board Candidate Evaluation Committee, which has a balanced composition of able members from all regions and led by Roberto Gaetano, who is a respected member of the At-Large community.

Yes, I am satisfied that the criteria are sufficient. They include those mandated by the ICANN Bylaws, those required by the Nominating Committee and additional criteria including the need to be free of contracted party (registrar and registry) conflict.

You put this question yesterday 6 March, during the conference call which provided an opportunity for the candidates to present themselves, and to respond to questions from the At-Large community. I'm glad to repeat in writing what I expressed yesterday: yes, I think the criteria are sufficient.

In fact, having too many parameters or criteria would carry the risk of losing the wider picture: what are a candidate's stature, credibility, ability to listen, ability to convince, familiarity with Internet matters, and experience in working on a high-level Board?