RFC 1591 and "significantly interested parties"

["Michele Neylon :: Blacknight" <michele@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd is Ireland's only ICANN accredited registrar 
and the largest registrar of the .ie ccTLD in the world. 

This submission is being made in my capacity as founder and Managing Director 
of Blacknight and is my and my company's perspective and should not be 
construed as being that of any other entity. 

As the company's primary contact with many of the ccTLD and gTLD registries, as 
well as government bodes and law enforcement,  I am actively involved in domain 
name policy and internet governance both here in Ireland and internationally. 

To the best of my knowledge IANA / ICANN are supposed to follow RFC 1591 with 
respect to both delegation and redelegation of ccTLDs.

However it has been my experience that certain aspects of the RFC are ignored.

In February of 2011, for example, we contacted IANA to seek clarification with 
respect to a potential relegation request of the .ie ccTLD.

Our request was replied to very politely, but the answer was neither helpful 
nor would we deem to be in compliance with the RFC:

"We are unable to comment on whether there are open requests to do specific 
changes, or what their status is, except to the applicant and the domain's 
contact persons."

So how is are "significantly interested parties" supposed to provide input if 
IANA cannot tell them if there is a pending relegation request?

My reply to ICANN/IANA at the time is copied below, as I feel it is pertinent 
to the current consultation:

"I note from your last email that ICANN-IANA refuses to confirm whether it has 
received an application to change the delegation in the IANA database for .IE.

The IANA is a function, carried out by ICANN under a contract with the US 
government.

IANA policy includes, as I understand it from ICANN's own website, the ICANN 
board-adopted policy "ICP-1" as well as the internet standard RFC-1591.

In  RFC-1591 it says

         "It is also very helpful for the IANA to receive communications
     from other parties that may be concerned or affected by the
     transfer"


It appears to be impossible for the IANA to receive such communications if you 
carry out your duties under the USG contract in a back-room, and secretive 
manner such that parties that may be concerned or affected (such as ourselves 
and the Government department - ComReg - with statutory responsibility do not 
know an application is in progress.)


Your own policies also say that

"Significantly interested parties in the domain should agree that
     the designated manager is the appropriate party.

     The IANA tries to have any contending parties reach agreement
     among themselves, and generally takes no action to change things
     unless all the contending parties agree; only in cases where the
     designated manager has substantially mis-behaved would the IANA
     step in.

     However, it is also appropriate for interested parties to have
     some voice in selecting the designated manager."

As the largest registrar in .IE, it is without doubt that we are a 
'significantly interested party'.


It is also clear that the current designated manager for .IE is the University 
of Ireland (Computing Services at University College, Dublin.

Although 'IEDR Ltd' (a private company) is subcontracted to run the registry on 
behalf of UCD, it is not the manager, and therefore any change to the 
Designated Manager must require the positive support of the local Internet 
Community, and of the ICANN Board.

If the ICANN continues its refusal to provide information about any application 
that may be in progress, it would appear to be in violation of its own By-Laws 
and its own policies as quoted above.

May I please, therefore, BY RETURN have ICANN's assurance that no action will 
be taken to re-delegate the .IE domain before there is full consultation with 
all affected stakeholders, including registrars, registrants and the government 
department with statutory responsibility.

Yours sincerely"


While almost two years have passed since our exchanges with ICANN/ IANA on this 
matter I suspect that the organisation's policy's around redelegations in 
general have not changed significantly, though I understand that some of this 
was being reviewed by a work group within the ccNSO.

If you should require any clarification on my submission please do let me know

Regards

Michele


--
Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
http://www.blacknight.com/
http://blog.blacknight.com/
http://mneylon.tel/
Intl. +353 (0) 59  9183072
Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mneylon
-------------------------------
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Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland  Company No.: 370845