ICANN Seeks to Modify IANA Contract

ICANN wants feedback on a proposed amendment to its IANA contract with Public Technical Identifiers (PTI), which manages operation of the Internet Assigned Number Authority functions, it said Monday evening. The change would allow the Customer Standing Committee (CSC), which reviews PTI's monthly performance against the IANA naming function service level agreements, and PTI/ICANN to modify SLAs without having to do a contract amendment each time. Instead, an SLA change would be subject to a process that would enable amendments in a timely fashion but still require consultations with IANA function naming customers -- such as generic top-level domain name registries or country code TLD managers -- and the broader ICANN community as appropriate. Once the IANA contract is amended, the table containing current SLAs will no longer be included in it but made available on pti.icann.org or iana.org. The table may then be changed only when the change process is followed. PTI/ICANN would consider feasibility and costs of any potential amendments before a broader consultation. Comments are due Feb. 18, and a staff report is scheduled for March 6.