ICANN: Improving Institutional Confidence consultation launched

More than two years ago, the President’s Strategy Committee (PSC) commenced a series of consultations on how to strengthen and complete the ICANN multi-stakeholder model. In addition, the recent Midterm Review of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) between the United States Department of Commerce and ICANN produced useful comments about ICANN’s performance and future. Most commentators in that consultation believe ICANN has made significant progress, but that some key areas need to be improved in order to complete the transition to an agreed model of multi-stakeholder coordination of the Internet’s unique identifiers.

The PSC has developed three papers that outline those key areas and possible responses to address them.

The PSC wants to be clear – all these suggestions are for discussion. They are the work of the Committee alone. They are not fixed positions. But they are also positions that are the result of long-term work over two years by the PSC that also incorporate recent input from the community.

The President’s Strategy Committee has provided the following three documents to launch a discussion with the community PSC about how to complete the transition of the organization after the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement. The documents are:

> Transition Action Plan [pdf]
> Improving Institutional Confidence in ICANN
[pdf]
> FAQ [pdf]

These documents and the proposals contained in them will be discussed at the Paris meeting from 22 June – 26 June, 2008. A timetable for that process will be outlined, and a dedicated webpage launched to provide the community with all the information it needs, including regular updates as the process develops.

> Public comment period
> Consultation webpage
> Sign up to the consultation newsletter

There is a dedicated email address for people to use if they have additional questions, and a newsletter that people can subscribe to that will keep everyone informed of progress by email to save them having to regularly check back on the ICANN site.