According to a press release we received today from Dr Govin who is the CEO of the .IN ccTLD Registry which is the ccTLD for India is claiming that about 40% of all ccTLD’s are being left out of the IANA Transition Coordination Group as part of ICANN’s plan to move away from US oversight.

Basically Dr. Govin says that 104 of the 259 ccTLD are not being representative in this process.

Balazs Marto of .HU (Hungary) also signed the email:

The USG has recently announced its intent to transition its procedural role of administering changes to the authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the DNS.

Whilst the stewardship role of the NTIA has been exemplary, this initiative is welcome, and of the 255 country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) that exist today, 240 were in stable operation with fully automated updating of the IANA Root Zone data, prior to the creation of ICANN which occurred on September 18, 1998.

Historically, ccTLDs have formulated policy based on a multi-stakeholder model, addressing their user community needs based on the cultural, operational and legal frameworks in which the Registry is founded.

Today the ccTLD community can be categorised into two groups:

i) 151 ccTLD Registry Operators are members of the ICANN Country Code Names Supporting Organization with the function to propose Policy to the ICANN Board that impacts members of the ccNSO (and for ccNSO members to opt-out of decisions taken by the ICANN Board if they so wish), and;

ii) 104 ccTLD Registry Operators who have chosen not to cede any authority to the ICANN Board and are wholly responsible for the secure and stable management of their respective ccTLD Registry.

The 104 ccTLD Registry Operators in ii) above develop their naming policies outside of ICANN in a manner that best serves their respective Internet communities, recognise Industry Best Practices, accord with laws of the jurisdiction in which the Registry is incorporated, and operate within a diverse set of cultural, technical and legal frameworks.
There is no case in which ICANN or IANA may amend these policies or undermine foundation document RFC-1591 upon which the assignment of the ccTLD occurred, and there is no intervention by any external party (even the US Government) in their implementation.

With the IANA transition now in sight, the Internet community is entering a crucial phase in which the details of new arrangements need to be developed and finally agreed.

Yet, a significant section of the ccTLD community is being proactively excluded from the Transition Coordination Group.
Dr Govind, CEO of the body which manages the Indian ccTLD Registry .IN said, “Clearly the process has already been captured by a subset of the ccTLD community. The selection process controlled by the ccNSO resulted in all four seats being assigned to their members. A significant section of the ccTLD Registry operator community do not share the objectives of the ccNSO membership are now excluded from the process.

While the Selection Committee did have non-ccNSO community representatives, not a single non- ccNSO ccTLD Registry Operator was ultimately chosen as a representative, despite two highly qualified and experienced candidates offering to serve (and even share a seat) on the Transition Coordination Group to represent the diversity of ccTLD Registry operations.”

As Registry Manager of .HU, Balazs Martos, says “I am very concerned that the ccNSO seem to feel they speak for the whole ccTLD Community when dealing with every IANA matter. They do not, .HU is an IANA service user, but we are not a member of the ccNSO. I would much prefer representation from the non- ccNSO Registry Operator community on the Transition Coordination Group as well, otherwise our position is easily excluded from the process and retaining the status-quo much more desirable.”

If fragmentation of the Root Zone management function is to be avoided, it is essential that any transition process respects, represents and unites the whole ccTLD community, something that the current IANA Transition process being managed by ICANN is not doing. Members of the Coordination Group have stated they were willing to increase the number of participants to be as inclusive as possible; however ICANN refuses to do so.

Dr Govin (CEO .IN ccTLD Registry) GOVIND@nixi.in

Balazs Martos martos@iszt.hu