Plan to shift internet's control panel away from US government gets tentative thumbs-up

4. What is the actual process for making changes to the internet's root zone?

As El Reg has noted repeatedly, the entire plan only covers the agreement between the US government and ICANN, and does not cover the actual process of making changes to the internet's root zone – something that is covered by an entirely different agreement between the US government and Verisign.

Soon after the plan was published, the US government revealed it had asked ICANN and Verisign to work on a plan for that critical aspect, and the two companies produced a short report on their plan [PDF].

Commentators welcomed that plan, but noted repeatedly that it was quite vague and that its contents were not included in the IANA transition plan. It is not clear, for example, how that critical approval process would actually work with the PTI/ICANN model or if the two other committees would have any kind of oversight, as intended.

The USCIB argues that the process needs to be carried out in the open: "The development of the IFO-RZM agreement should be developed in the same multi-stakeholder process as the other agreements."

5. ICANN accountability

And lastly, there were numerous mentions of the fact that the entire plan is dependent on there being a range of improvements in ICANN's own processes and its overall accountability.

Many are concerned that without those changes being properly implemented, the entire proposal would fall over. Unfortunately, the most recent meeting between the group designing the accountability improvements and ICANN's Board descended into a farce when the Board attempted to tear up all of the most important reforms and replace them with watered-down versions while claiming that they support the group's plans.

A week later things still do not look good, with the ICANN Board proposing that the group come to its hometown of Los Angeles and hold a two-day meeting at the end of September.

Despite a significant number of the group opposing such a meeting (the Board is supposed to be on equal status terms due to its inherent conflict of interests), it is going to move forward. Most expect the Board to try to dictate terms, even though the internet community and even the US Congress have been absolutely clear on the issue: that the Board is only allowed to comment on the community's proposals rather than decide what it will or will not accept.

Final thoughts

After a year of work and a looming deadline, the internet community has been keen to show its support for a plan that puts its own integrity on the line as much as ICANN's. For that reason, almost all make a point of saying they feel the proposed plan is good and workable.

However, there remain fundamental problems with the current plan, most of which are identified, albeit in gentle terms.

There has been a significant downside to the desire to show a united front to the world: that wider world hasn't been engaged.

The group developing the plan feels that 156 responses are an indicator of success. The reality is that the response remains far too low for a decision of such global import.

The report was densely written to the point of being incomprehensible to anyone outside the tight-knit ICANN community, and efforts to communicate its contents outside that group were almost non-existent.

It is intoxicating for many in the internet governance world to have a disproportionately large influence on the future development of a global communications network. Unfortunately, that personal sense of achievement too often leads to haphazard, flawed, and incomplete solutions.

Although there is little doubt that the IANA functions will continue to operate as before with no interruption, the governance model that will drive the internet forward for the next 20 years will include all the flaws of the current model and may even enlarge them. ®