[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] The GNSO ISPCP Consultancy Comments (was Second Milestone Report public forum closes today)

[ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Colleagues,

Karla will be providing a staff summary of the public comments. I've
gone through them and this is my reading of the ISP & CP comment.

There are four comments made by the ISPCP:

1. Restrictions on applicants are insufficient and the GAC request for
participation by local governments in developing economies should be
rejected categorically.

The basis offered for this claim is that resources are insufficient.

2. Exemption or deferment of IPv6 and/or DNSSEC requirements should
be rejected categorically.

The basis offered for this claim is that exemption or deferral would
harm applicants.

3. Reduction of the Financial Continued Operation Instrument Obligation
should be rejected categorically.

The basis offered for this claim is that reduction may result in stability
issues for the DNS.

A dependent recommendation is offered that "ICANN should consider allocating
funds that could be made available ..." to preserve stability of the DNS.

4. Any assistance to applicants other than publication of the Applicant
Guidebook should be rejected categorically.

A dependent conjecture is offered that third party providers of "legal
and filing support" will receive funding from unspecified sources and
in unspecified amounts.

The basis offered for this claim is that such assistance may result in
"unfair" treatement, and the claim that qualified applicants are among
the "group of participants that engage in ICANN's processes to a greater
extent than Internet users generally" identified by the United States
Government in its Affirmation of Committments, replacing the prior
Memoranda of Understanding.

I think the fourth comment is artfully constructed to appear to apply to
only one possible form of assistance, but actually applies to the entire
scope and purpose of Recommendation 20. Suppose for a moment the ISPCP
recommendation was accepted, upon what basis could a "unfair" claim be
restricted to that specific form of assistance and not to any other form
of assistance not available to unqualified applicants?

The third comment requires assumption that one or more condition meeting
the partially specified conditions for the partly specified continuity
operations rise to the level of causing the DNS to fail, or be unstable,
a partially specfied condition.

This assumption would be rebuttable, but presumed likely, if, and only
if, the plan of record for the root server constellation involved the
abandonment of the .NET zone for a new zone, and one operated by an
applicant meeting the JAS qualification criteria. There are other, less
restrictive conditions where this assumption would retain the property
of rebuttable, put presumed likely, if, and only if, the condition were
present, or part of the plan of record, of a critical infrastructure
operator.

As this is not the case, this claim appears to be an embarassing offer
of ICANN civic religion for something actually quite a bit easier to
think about than whether the Internet actually failed when .PRO failed
or when .AERO transitioned from CORE's platform to Afilias' platform,
or when .ORG transitioned from Verisign's Atlas platform to Afilias'
platform or when .NAME transitioned from a tenant on Verisign's Atlas
platform to a Verisign property, or when .TRAVEL or .JOBS are finally
the objects of compliance policy final enforcement actions.

The second comment recognizes that IPv6 is not available, while concluding
that failing to make an impossible requirement harms the applicant through
some unspecificed aspect of "discrimination."

The first comment rejects the status of the GAC to inform the Working
Group, and the Board, as to the actual legal and economic situation
in developing economies.

Eric