Re: [Ianaplan] it's more than that

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 04/05/2015 09:41, John Levine wrote:
> In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>> While it is understandable that ICANN legal might be concerned about its
>> freedom of action under the NTIA-ICANN contract,  there are more
>> transparent ways for them to have handled that concern - and that is what I
>> believe that much of the fuss is about.
> 
> Some of the fuss, but far from all of it. I agree this would not be
> the first time that ICANN has suffered from bad legal advice.
> 
> Personally, I'm more concerned about two things.  One is that the
> CWG's plan boils down to ICANN overseeing itself through a wholly
> owned subsidiary.  I realize there are supposed to be all sorts of
> conditions indented to make this less absurd, but it seems absurd to
> me.
> 
> More of an issue is the situation described in this article by the
> generally perceptive Kieren McCarthy two days ago.  It reports that
> ICANN has told the RIRs that ICANN won't even discuss any plan unless
> it says that ICANN runs IANA forever:
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/01/icann_iana_latest/
> 
> If ICANN is really saying take it or leave it, I don't see that we
> and the RIRs have any option but to leave it.  That would be a huge
> hassle, but given ICANN's history, does anyone dare to give them
> what is in effect a blank check?

We should certainly leave nobody in any doubt that we will leave it,
if that is the best way to make the Internet work better. That's
exactly why we put the 6 month cancellation clause in the MoU in the
first place, and why a similar clause must exist in any future agreements.

  Brian