ASO Review Consultation

The most recent ASO Review concluded with 18 recommendations, which the NRO has resolved to accept. The first 17 recommendations are well defined and practical, and can be implemented by actions of the NRO Secretariat, or of the ASO Address Council, with respect to administrative procedures, documentation, or in some cases adjustments to agreements which are expected to be non-controversial.

The 18th recommendation of the Report is that “The NRO should initiate a public consultation, involving the five RIR communities, to determine the future structure of the ASO”. The NRO EC has concluded to accept that recommendation and is hereby launching a consultation on the issues identified in the ASO Review Report.

While each of the RIRs will launch consultation processes within their communities, the NRO has agreed on this joint announcement, and coordinated call for contributions, in order to maintain consistency in scope of regional consultations, both with each other and with the Review Report.

Scope

The Review Report concludes that “The core mission and administrative tasks for which the ASO was set up remain largely unchanged, and there is no pressing need for organi[z]ational reform”, but at the same time it recommends a “call for a community-wide reconsideration of the role and function of the ASO within ICANN”.

More specifically, the following questions related to the ASO MoU have a TTP (percentage of respondents in Top Two Boxes) that requires us to pay attention to the minority views:

• Does the ASO MoU adequately describe the role and function of the ASO within ICANN? 52% answered Yes.
• Does the rationale for the ASO as spelled out in the ASO MoU need to be updated post IANA transition in light of the creation of the ICANN Empowered Community? 50% answered Yes.

Additionally, the report allocates significant attention to the efficiency of the Internet Numbers Community involvement in ICANN activity after the findings in the question “Does the ASO have a continuing purpose in the ICANN Structure?” with 17% respondents not answering “YES”. Suggesting that some of the activities related to the ICANN engagement might be of marginal interest to the Internet Numbers Community and that could be reviewed:

“We did hear of concerns within the Internet Number community regarding the increasing amount of volunteer time that ICANN engagement seems to require, much of which is of marginal direct interest to the Internet Numbers Community. The NRO will need to regularly evaluate these concerns, and act pre-emptively, if necessary, to ensure that the benefits of the ICANN system are not perceived to be outweighed by the “costs” of engagement“.

Issues to Address:

The scope of this consultation includes the structural implications of issues identified by the ASO Review, including but not limited to:

• Any updates and adjustments identified as required for ASO-related documents
• Any procedural clarifications and adjustments identified
• Reported confusion of roles between ASO and NRO, and their components
• Perceived complexity of relationships among NRO, ASO and ICANN
• Relevance and cost to the RIRs of various ICANN engagement activities

Out of the Scope of this consultation are the following aspects:

• Global Policy Development Process (GPDP)
• ASO AC role with GPDP

Specific Questions:

The NRO EC is looking to specific answer to the following questions:

• What adjustments, if any, should be made in order to address the issues described above?
• Should adjustments be limited to NRO MoU, ASO MoU, and/or ICANN Bylaws
• Over what timeframes should these adjustments be developed and implemented
• What strategic aspects should we pay attention to when considering these adjustments?