Public Comment is a vital part of our multistakeholder model. It provides a mechanism for stakeholders to have their opinions and recommendations formally and publicly documented. It is an opportunity for the ICANN community to effect change and improve policies and operations.
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The proposed amendments represent a welcome development, clarifying important points through concise and balanced formulations, including:
- A clear definition of DNS Abuse, focusing on abuses of high importance and where action at DNS level is the most justifiable.
- An obligation to “confirm receipt” of reports, which reduces uncertainty for notifiers.
- A requirement of “actionable evidence”, highlighting the importance of providing enough information for DNS operators.
- A choice of “appropriate action” within the limited set of options (5) at the DNS level, with flexibility to account for the specific circumstances of the case, and the risks of associated collateral damage.
- An obligation to “promptly take mitigation action”, which establishes for the first time an obligation to act when actionable evidence was provided.
- A possibility to use reporting webforms, which will improve the notification and mitigation workflow.
These amendments usefully set a strong actionable basis for ICANN’s compliance mechanisms, and establish a baseline standard of behaviour reflecting the existing best practices of the industry’s leading operators, reducing the free-riding capacity of some actors.
The I&JPN Secretariat is pleased that the 5 years of work in its dedicated Contact Group paved the way for the Contracted Parties' initiative to develop these balanced amendments. We strongly encourage their adoption: this represents a litmus test for ICANN’s capacity to enact meaningful binding rules in the public interest.
Failure to achieve support would feed the narrative that the multistakeholder approach is unable to impose any constraint on irresponsible actors. Conversely, adoption of these amendments will send a strong signal that DNS operators are ready to fulfill their specific responsibilities in the collective effort to address DNS Abuse. It also will demonstrate the capacity of ICANN to achieve progress on a contentious issue.
After long and often conflictual discussions around the very notion of DNS Abuse, these concise and balanced amendments represent significant progress and deserve to be welcomed by all actors. Within a clearly defined scope of abuses, they set very specific, yet flexible, responsibilities for contracted parties when dealing with abuse reports. The Secretariat of the Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network (I&JPN) therefore strongly encourages the adoption of these amendments, as this will constitute a litmus test for the capacity of the multistakeholder approach to enact meaningful binding rules.