Prepared By: The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Ben Edelman, Larry Lessig, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Jonathan Zittrain
| 13. Transition | |||
| White Paper Staff. We anticipate that the new corporation would want to make arrangements with current IANA staff to provide continuity and expertise over the course of transition. The new corporation should secure necessary expertise to bring rigorous management to the organization. 2) direct the Interim Board to establish a system for electing a Board of Directors for the new corporation that insures that the new corporation's Board of Directors reflects the geographical and functional diversity of the Internet, and is sufficiently flexible to permit evolution to reflect changes in the constituency of Internet stakeholders. Nominations to the Board of Directors should preserve, as much as possible, the tradition of bottom-up governance of the Internet, and Board Members should be elected from membership or other associations open to all or through other mechanisms that ensure broad representation and participation in the election process. 3) direct the Interim Board to develop policies for the addition of TLDs, and establish the qualifications for domain name registries and domain name registrars within the system. Based on the processes described above, the U.S. Government believes that certain actions should be taken to accomplish the objectives set forth above. Some of these steps must be taken by the government itself, while others will need to be taken by the private sector. For example, a new not-for-profit organization must be established by the private sector and its Interim Board chosen. Agreement must be reached between the U.S. Government and the new corporation relating to transfer of the functions currently performed by IANA. NSI and the U.S. Government must reach agreement on the terms and conditions of NSI's evolution into one competitor among many in the registrar and registry marketplaces. A process must be laid out for making the management of the root server system more robust and secure. A relationship between the U.S. Government and the new corporation must be developed to transition DNS management to the private sector and to transfer management functions. During the transition the U.S. Government expects to: 1) ramp down the cooperative agreement with NSI with the objective of introducing competition into the domain name space. Under the ramp down agreement NSI will agree to (a) take specific actions, including commitments as to pricing and equal access, designed to permit the development of competition in domain name registration and to approximate what would be expected in the presence of marketplace competition, (b) recognize the role of the new corporation to establish and implement DNS policy and to establish terms (including licensing terms) applicable to new and existing gTLDs and registries under which registries, registrars and gTLDs are permitted to operate, (c) make available on an ongoing basis appropriate databases, software, documentation thereof, technical expertise, and other intellectual property for DNS management and shared registration of domain names; 2) enter into agreement with the new corporation under which it assumes responsibility for management of the domain name space; 3) ask WIPO to convene an international process including individuals from the private sector and government to develop a set of recommendations for trademark/domain name dispute resolutions and other issues to be presented to the Interim Board for its consideration as soon as possible; 4) consult with the international community, including other interested governments as it makes decisions on the transfer; and 5) undertake, in cooperation with IANA, NSI, the IAB, and other relevant organizations from the public and private sector, a review of the root server system to recommend means to increase the security and professional management of the system. The recommendations of the study should be implemented as part of the transition process; and the new corporation should develop a comprehensive security strategy for DNS management and operations. | "Consensus" No points found. | IANA Draft Bylaws v5 No points found. | Boston Working Group No points found. |
| 13.1. Board | |||
| White Paper 1) appoint, on an interim basis, an initial Board of Directors (an Interim Board) consisting of individuals representing the functional and geographic diversity of the Internet community. The Interim Board would likely need access to legal counsel with expertise in corporate law, competition law, intellectual property law, and emerging Internet law. The Interim Board could serve for a fixed period, until the Board of Directors is elected and installed, and we anticipate that members of the Interim Board would not themselves serve on the Board of Directors of the new corporation for a fixed period thereafter. | "Consensus" There will be an Interim Board. The Interim Board will establish the new Entity. The Interim Board will validate the Membership. The Interim Board will validate the election process. Termination of the Interim Board Six Month target Extension Possible No Later than 30 September 2000 The Initial Board should be structured such that all members are not eligible for the final Board for a specific period of time or terms, and that the Initial Board should be phased out gradually to guarantee continuity. In view of the declaration proclaiming a LA&C region (see 1), ample participation in the formation of the Interim Board will be sought. Taking into consideration the short lead time left for the formation of this Board, consensus is reached regarding the fact that this Region can contribute members with required professional profiles, be they legal, business or technical, to the Interim Board. | IANA Draft Bylaws v5 No points found. | Boston Working Group No points found. |