A fresh approach to defining a DNSO for ICANN --------------------------------------------- 1. Executive Summary A number of organisations have responded to the call from ICANN to prepare a proposal for the DNSO. In this document we propose an approach which differs significantly from other DNSO proposals of which we are aware. The other proposals concentrate on defining a corporate structure and its administration. We feel that this distracts from what we see as the primary role of the DNSO: that is, to give policy advice to the ICANN board and to give that advice based on expertise. The DNSO we propose is non-corporate and unfunded, with participation based on a general assembly and constituencies rather than on individual membership. Thus, the overhead of administering membership and fees is eliminated. The elements of the proposed DNSO are - a General Assembly open to all who are willing to contribute effort to the work of the DNSO, - a Names Council responsible for managing consensus and making recommendations to ICANN, and - constituencies who will have the right to nominate members to the Names Council. Our proposal describes the processes to be used by these elements, their inter-relationships, and the relationship of the DNSO to ICANN. The proposed General Assembly will be open, will hold formal meetings at regular intervals, and will conduct its work between these meetings by means of electronic communications. The General Assembly will require processes for: - convening and conducting meetings, - appointing a chair, - proposal and recognition of new DNSO work areas, - progressing work, and - reporting its proceedings. We propose that the Names Council will be responsible for - managing the consensus process in the General Assembly, - nominating the DNSO nominees to the ICANN Board - making policy recommendations to the ICANN Board (either on its own initiative or in response to issues referred for its attention by the ICANN Board), and - recognition of new constituencies. The Names Council will require processes for dealing with these responsibilities and also for: - convening and conducting meetings, - regulating the voting strength of the constituencies, - appointing a chair, and - reporting its proceedings. The proposed constituencies will be self-defining and must apply for recognition to the Names Council. The voting strength of the constituencies in the Names Council will be weighted so that the constituencies representing suppliers and consumers respectively of domain name services are equally balanced. We see as "suppliers" the registries and registrars, and as "consumers" the ISP's, business and trademark interests. On either side of the supplier/consumer division, voting strength is to be balanced between constituencies. We propose that ICANN should take responsibility for the DNSO secretariate, and that individuals and constituencies should take responsibility for their own costs, with certain exceptions. In particular, ICANN should be responsible for protecting the officers of the DNSO and Names Council from legal liability arising from the exercise of their functions as such officers. We believe that ICANN should derive its funding from organisations which enjoy service from ICANN. As ICANN requires service -- in particular, policy advice -- from DNSO, we find it inappropriate that DNSO support ICANN financially. 2. General Framework It is proposed that the Domain Name Supporting Organisation, ('DNSO'), be a consensus based policy advisory body within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ('ICANN'). The promoters of this proposal believe that the DNSO structure should be lightweight, based on a General Assembly, a Names Council and a set of constituencies. The objectives for DNSO are as defined in article VI of the ICANN bylaws; that is, to develop and recommend substantive policies and procedures regarding TLDs, including operation, assignment and management of the domain name system and other related subjects. The proposed DNSO will not be a legal entity in its own right, but will be a component of the ICANN corporation. It will be an advisory body rather than a decision making body, without operational responsibility or a budget, and therefore without financial responsibilities. Entities and individuals may participate in DNSO work through the General Assembly or through constituencies. 3. DNSO Elements: General Assembly This is an open body of individuals with a knowledge of and an interest in issues pertaining to achievement of DNSO objectives, who are willing to contribute time, effort and expertise in DNSO work items, including discussion of work items, work item proposal and development, draft document preparation, participation in working groups and steering committees. The promoters believe that the General Assembly should be an open, consensus based assembly, process oriented rather than member oriented. Names Council It is envisaged by the promoters of this proposal that the Names Council shall be the Steering Committee for the DNSO, dedicated to facilitation, administration and management of consensus building for each of the DNSO processes. It is anticipated that consensus based DNSO policy and standards proposals shall be forwarded to ICANN through Names Council recommendations. The proposed term of office of each representative on the Names Council are laid out in the Appendix, section A. It is proposed that the Names Council chair should be selected by the Names Council; when selected the chair would lose their personal vote in the Names Council and the constituency must choose another representative for the Names Council. To ensure fair voting, it is proposed that the chair would only have a casting vote. The promoters propose 24 initial names council seats, with voting rights divided equally between suppliers and consumers. Thus, initially there would be 6 seats for each supplier constituency and 4 for each consumer constituency. In the event of another constituency being recognised, votes are normalised as described in the Appendix, section B. It is proposed that no money shall pass through the Names Council. Constituencies It is proposed to have 5 initial constituencies, balanced between Domain Name Service Suppliers ('Suppliers') and Domain Name Service Consumers ('Consumers') as laid out in the Appendix, section C and a process for adding further constituencies, in the Appendix, section D. The proposed 5 initial constituencies are Suppliers - TLD Registries - Registrars of the TLDs Consumers - Infrastructure and connectivity providers - Businesses - Organisations primarily concerned with the interests of trademark owners Constituencies may adopt their own structures, as long as they comply with ICANN bylaws and the criteria laid out in the Appendix, section E. Constituencies are expected to find sponsors or be self sponsoring. Constituencies decide on their own representatives for the Names Council, using a process in accordance with the ICANN bylaws. A person may be involved in more than one constituency. The promoters of this proposal believe that an ‘At Large’ constituency in the DNSO will not add value to the ICANN as there is already a substantial ‘At Large’ constituency in ICANN and therefore each constituency should represent a high level of expertise in an area relevant to DNSO objectives. 4. DNSO Processes General Assembly The DNSO is essentially a process and consensus body providing ICANN with recommendations and proposals. To ensure that this is done in an open manner, by consensus and in accordance with ICANN bylaws and recommendations, it is suggested that the General Assembly act as a forum for generation and discussion of areas pertaining to the work of the DNSO. Although the General Assembly will meet at regular intervals, General Assembly work may be carried out electronically. Processes which the General Assembly will use include: - Convening and conducting General Assembly meetings - Selecting a chair for the General Assembly - Proposal and recognition of work areas - Progressing work - Publication and propagation of items of interest - Reporting the proceedings of the General Assembly Names Council The General Assembly and related processes shall be openly and fairly managed by the Names Council. It is anticipated that particular importance will be attached to building of consensus on proposals for items of work arising from the General Assembly. Specifically, processes will be established to facilitate: - Managing the consensus process in the General Assembly - Acceptance of proposals from ICANN for work areas - Nominating the DNSO nominees to the ICANN Board - Making policy recommendations to the ICANN Board (either on its own initiative or in response to issues referred for its attention by the ICANN Board), and - Recognition of new constituencies. - Convening and conducting meetings, - Regulating the voting strength of the constituencies, - Appointing a chair, and - Reporting its proceedings. - Establishment of new processes as required from time to time Voting procedures for the Names Council are outlined in the Appendix, section F. 5. DNSO Funding. The promoters of this DNSO proposal reject the notion that DNSO has a role in funding in ICANN, as DNSO provides policy advice to the ICANN board. The promoters suggest that ICANN should recover funds from those organisations to whom they provide a service, including registries. As it is proposed that each constituency shall source their own sponsorship, the only costs attributable to DNSO are those pertaining to a DNSO secretariat. It is proposed that ICANN shall fund a manager and administrator for a DNSO secretariat, including costs of travelling to General Assembly conferences and Names Council meetings. Where conferences are held, conference costs shall be covered by an equitable charge on attendees. Conferences and meetings shall be held online whenever possible. 6. DNSO Relationship to ICANN The DNSO have representation on the ICANN board through the nomination of three members to the ICANN board. These procedure for nomination of the board members is described in the Appendix, section G. As a component of ICANN, the DNSO falls under the ICANN corporate umbrella. Thus, ICANN will underwrite the legal liability of Names Council members and other DNSO committee members for actions taken in the course of DNSO work for DNSO. As the DNSO provides a policy and advice service to ICANN, ICANN shall furnish an appeals process for entities who may wish to record dissatisfaction with aspects of DNSO. By bringing this above internal DNSO processes, openness and fairness is ensured for those entities who, particularly in this situation, may remain unconvinced regarding internal DNSO process impartiality. Any proposed DNSO comes into being only when ICANN recognises it. It is understood that ICANN may at any time - but with due process - withdraw recognition of the DNSO. This may act as a factor allowing ICANN to impose a decision on a proposal which the DNSO may have rejected one or more times. In this case, the majority of interested parties in the DNSO would have been against the proposal. The workability of a decision taken against the consensus of interested parties must be considered questionable. APPENDIX Notes to the above proposal are given below. A. Term of office of Names Council members. Names Council representatives shall be elected by their constituencies and terms of office shall be staggered for continuity. The term of office shall normally be of three years. One-third of the membership of the initial Names Council must retire after one year in office, and another one-third of the membership after a second year. In case a new constituency is recognised, and the Names Council decides against allocating new seats, the vacancies arising may be filled by representatives of the new constituency. B. Normalisation of votes Each side of the supplier/consumer equation shall receive a multiple of the lowest common multiple of the number of seats in constituencies such that each seat has an integer number of number of votes. Subject to these constraints, the Names Council may decide how many votes are available in total for a given number of seats and constituencies. C. Balance between Suppliers and Consumers. The total number of votes available to supplier constituencies shall be equal to the total available to consumer constituencies. D. Process for adding further constituencies. Where it has been agreed that a prospective constituency has satisfied the requirements in section B above, the names council must vote to recognise the new constituency. A supermajority of at least 3/4 of the votes must be in favour of recognition for the new constituency to be accepted. Upon recognition of a new constituency, balance of votes between suppliers and Consumers must be maintained. To achieve this, the Names Council is free to add more seats to the council, remove seats from the council and/or alter the weighting of each vote using normalisation as described in section C above. E. Constituency requirements. The promoters of the proposed constituency must persuade the Names Council that the proposed constituency: (a) Complies with ICANN bylaws. (b) Is globally diverse as far as possible. If some ICANN defined region(s) have no representation at time of recognition as a constituency, there must be fair, open processes for adding those geographical regions when representation for those regions in that constituency becomes possible. (c) Has appropriate consensus procedures. (d) Has no significant overlap with existing constituencies, and procedures to ensure that this remains the case. (e) Has a representative procedure for bringing people forward for the Names Council. The constituency must declare whether it is a supplier or consumer constituency. F. Voting procedures in the Names Council For the purposes of voting on the Names Council, a constituency may delegate one or more of its Names Council representatives to participate in the Names Council meeting. Votes assigned to the constituency shall be divided be the number of constituency representatives present, physically or electronically, at the meeting. Constituencies may delegate any Names Council member to vote on their behalf. (e.g. if all consumer constituencies were in agreement on an issue, it would be necessary to only have one person present at the Names Council meeting to represent all those constituencies and thus that person would represent 1/2 of the total votes available). To change the status quo, a supermajority of at least 3/4 the total number of votes must be in favour of the proposed change. When voting to appoint the chair of the Names Council, the procedure will involve single seat, single transferable voting. A candidate with (50% +1) of the votes will automatically be elected. If the newly elected chair is a member of the Names Council, that person shall lose their voting rights on the Names Council and the affected constituency must choose another representative to take their place. Membership of the Names Council will not be a necessary qualification for a candidate for the chair. G. Procedure for nomination of ICANN board members Candidates for nomination to the ICANN Board must be proposed by three or more members of the Names Council, none of whom may propose more than one candidate. In the case that more candidates are proposed than there are vacancies for DNSO nominations to the Board, the positions will be filled using a single transferable vote system. It is anticipated that the DNSO nominees to the ICANN Board will have staggered terms of office to ensure continuity. Thus, all of these Board positions will not normally fall vacant at the same time. Initially, and whenever more than one vacancy arises, the nominees shall, in default of agreement among each other, draw lots to determine their order of vacating their Board positions. -- Ends --