ICANN has opened the comment period for the issue of the year, the transition of ICANN of key Internet domain name functions away from oversight control of the United States to the “global multistakeholder community.”

“This draft transition proposal is the result of work by the Domain Name System (DNS3) community (the names community) to meet the requirements associated with this transition as defined by the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG)

“Following the request of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for ICANN “convene a multistakeholder process to develop a plan to transition the U.S. government stewardship role” with regard to the IANA Functions and related root zone management, a Cross Community Working Group (CWG) was tasked with developing to produce a consolidated transition proposal for the elements of the IANA Functions relating to the Domain Name System (DNS). The CWG has now published its draft transition proposal for public comment.”

The comment period is now opened and closes on December 22nd, 2014.

Note that ICANN typically uses UTC as the timezone.

If you would like to comment on ICANN plan you need to send an email to: comments-cwg-naming-transition-01dec14@icann.org

You will get an email asking you to confirm your comment.  Unless you confirm your comment by following the instructions in the email you receive your comment will not be posted, so you must confirm your comment.

You can see all submitted comments here

Specific areas for input during the public comment period:

The CWG is actively seeking input from respondents on its proposal overall as well as the following specific options and questions:

Input on possible modifications to the Independent Review of Board Actions– This arrangement is independent of the NTIA functions and can continue without NTIA involvement in IANA Functions. The independent review of Board actions is applicable to all ICANN Board actions which include non-DNS decisions and as such may be beyond the scope of this CWG’s charter. However, in the absence of NTIA oversight and accountability, the CWG is considering whether this review should be binding with regard to delegation/redelegation decisions, and possibly with regard to other decisions directly affecting IANA or the IANA Functions. The CWG will propose arrangements to ensure that all of the IANA Functions Operator’s actions related to TLDs are subject to a similar process.

Input on possible modification to the NTIA’s responsibilities acting as the Root Zone Management Process Administrator – Currently IANA must submit a request for all changes to the Root Zone or Root Zone WHOIS database to the NTIA. NTIA verifies the request and then authorizes the Root Zone Maintainer to make the change. The CWG is considering whether to replace this this process with the following:

Public posting of all IANA change requests – IANA will be required to publicly post all requests for changes to the Root Zone File or the Root Zone WHOIS database as a notification that a change is being made. IANA will also continue to be required to produce and publish Delegation and Redelegation Reports.

Independent certification for delegation and re-delegation requests – The CWG is considering replacing the authorization role, at least with regard to ccTLDs, with a written opinion from counsel (independent of ICANN) that each delegation and re-delegation request meets the policy requirements cited in the publicly posted reports. The CWG is still in the process of discussing whether and how to replace the authorization role currently played by the NTIA with respect to delegation and redelegation requests, especially those for gTLDs.

Who should have standing with the independent Appeals Panel? – The CWG recommends that all decisions and actions (including deliberate inaction) of the IANA Functions Operator that affect the Root Zone or Root Zone WHOIS database be subject to an independent and binding appeals panel. The Appeals Mechanism should also cover any policy implementation actions that affect the execution of changes to the Root Zone File or Root Zone WHOIS and how relevant policies are applied. Where disputes arise as to the implementation of “IANA related policies.”

Key contracting provisions – the end of Section 3 refers the reader to Annex 5, which presents key provisions which would be required to be in the first contract between ICANN and the new contacting entity “Contract Co.”. A number of these provisions come from the current NTIA IANA Functions Contract and are proposed to be retained in the new contract, either in original or modified form. Several of these provisions include options or questions on which the CWG would also appreciate receiving input.

If you would like to comment on the proposal you need to file your comment with ICANN