<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div>I hope you’re right, Sam. However, this paragraph of the NTIA press release is what prompted my question:</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span style="line-height: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From the inception of ICANN, the U.S. Government and Internet stakeholders envisioned that the U.S. role in the IANA functions would be temporary. The Commerce Department’s June 10, 1998 </span><a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/6_5_98dns.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#000000">Statement of Policy</font></a><span style="line-height: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> stated that the U.S. Government “is committed to a transition that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS management.” ICANN as an organization has matured and taken steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency and its technical competence. At the same time, international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as evidenced by the continued success of the Internet Governance Forum and the resilient stewardship of the various Internet institutions.</span></blockquote></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="line-height: 17px;">The paragraph somehow indicates (as I read it at least) that the “How to do this” is associated </span></span><span style="line-height: 17px;">with the “Why the changes”. So to rephrase my question; I wonder wether after some 17 years, does the NTIA’s belief in ICANN’s maturity and competence reflect its confidence in ICANN to simply be the convener of a dialogue amongst the different stakeholders to collectively reach some form of consensus on how to transition NTIA’s role to a yet undetermined institution, or does it reflect confidence in ICANN to coordinate this discussion in order to see how best ICANN can assume this role without NTIA involvement?</span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;">Frankly, ICANN's </span><i style="line-height: 17px;">“…, steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency…,”</i><span style="line-height: 17px;"> still leave much to be desired. Yeah…, steps were taken, but ICANN’s not quite there yet. In fact, several actors across different stakeholder groups have recently been voicing discontent claiming the exact opposite of this. One of the earlier examples is </span><a href="https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/NCSG+Request+for+Reconsideration+of+Staff+Decision+to+Expand+Scope+of+TMCH">NCSG’s reconsideration request</a><span style="line-height: 17px;"> of ICANN’s decision to expand the scope of the Trademark Clearinghouse to include up to 50 confusingly similar variants of brand names.</span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;">I still don’t know if my concerns are unfounded or not, but I do find it difficult to simply dismiss them, but we will all see how things’ll unfold over the next few months.</span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;">Thanks.</span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 17px;">Amr</span></div><br><div><div>On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:36 PM, Sam Lanfranco <<a href="mailto:lanfran@YORKU.CA">lanfran@YORKU.CA</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">
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<div>Amr Elsadr poses the questions: <br>
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<i><font color="#330099">On the other hand, have any proposals
suggesting that institutional separation of the IANA function
from ICANN been preemptively squashed?? <br>
Or is the principle still a viable option that can be
promoted??<br>
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What this announcement does is set a deadline on what has to be
done, in the absence of delays by unforeseen forces at play. The key
implication is to shift the discussions from "What changes" and "Why
the changes" to the "How to do this" while honoring the four stated
principles and producing a set of viable and sustainable structures
and processes. That will have ripple effects in structures and
processes across the Internet ecosystem. This is more than just
replacing one structure by another, and probably nothing has been
preempted. A successful outcome will call for heightened stakeholder
awareness and engagement, within ICANN, within constituencies, and
beyond ICANN. <br>
<br>
Sam Lanfranco <br>
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