[NA-Discuss] Geographic Regions Statement

Eric Brunner-Williams ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Fri Jan 28 14:43:46 UTC 2011


Eduardo,

One of the unintended consequences of the construction of the "North 
American Region" is quite recent.

Several ICANN ByLaws entities agreed to form a Joint DNS Security and 
Stability Analysis Working Group (DSSA-WG).

The call for volunteers was circulated on several lists, though not 
this one (North American regional At Large participation may have been 
overlooked, or not sought).

One of the DSSA-WG chartering ByLaws entities is the ccNSO.

A significant portion of the subject matter (DNS Security and 
Stability Analysis) experts are residents of North America.

A significant portion of the subject matter (DNS Security and 
Stability Analysis) experts are not employed by Verisign, Afilias, or 
NeuStar, or employed by CIRA or NeuStar.

Everyone is entitled to their unsupported speculative opinion, my 
unsupported speculative opinion is that these three of these four 
corporate entities are unlikely to recommend independent subject 
matter experts to this working group.

The existence of PR in the "North American Region" allows that ccNSO 
member to recommend one or more North American resident subject matter 
experts to the DSSA-WG. Were MX currently allocated to the same 
region, it too could recommend one or more North American resident 
subject matter experts to the DSSA-WG.

The point of this note, which no one is obliged to read, is that the 
restriction of "North America" to two property managers, one with an 
issue relative to the majority Fracophone region of the continent, the 
other a for-profit corporation pursuing shareholder profit 
maximization goals, restricts, in the DSSA-WG case, basic access to 
DNS data of profound import to operational stability and policy making.

A goal of accountability and transparency is difficult to achieve by 
first allocating control of access to information to as few as two 
operators, one very active in the pursuit of its own profits as a gTLD 
registry operator. "Diversity" should not shield any regime, or any 
for-profit operator, from scrutiny.

Personally I appreciate greatly the independence of both the PR 
operator and the MX operator, and I'm honored to call their principles 
friends.

Eric



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