The
IFWP
was a series of international workshops designed to bring
together the various diverse stakeholder groups and
experts in corporate law and trusts to:
- identify
and articulate the parties, issues, and views; and
- prepare a
model, set of common principles, structure and general
charter provisions for the formation of an Internet
Assigned Numbers Corporation (IANA) or Trust to meet
the specifications of the June 5, 1998
U.S. Department of Commerce Statement of Policy on the
Management of Internet Names and
Addresses.
Culminating
this process, on September 17, 1998, IANA
and Network
Solutions, Inc.,
jointly
published a draft proposal (Iteration
4) for a
California non-profit public benefit corporation called
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, or ICANN, to coordinate the
administration of domain names and IP
addresses.
EuroISPA,
the European Internet Services Providers Association, and
the Electronic
Frontier Foundation
recommended modifications to the NSI/IANA framework
draft.
On
September 19-20, 1998, a group of IFWP participants
gathered at an open meeting in Boston to reconcile the
NSI/IANA
draft with the
IFWP
consensus points.
The recommendations of the Boston
Working Group
included an overview
and detailed changes to the Bylaws
and Articles
of Incorporation.
On
September 28, 1998, IANA issued Iteration
5 of the ICANN
Bylaws
and Articles
of Incorporation
without the participation of NSI. Biosketches, photos,
and links on the proposed
ICANN Board have
been collected by the Berkman Center for Internet and
Society of Harvard Law School.
In
the first week of October, 1998, the U.S. Department of
Commerce National Telecommunications and Information
Administration received three
bylaws proposals.
A full-text,
color-coded,
side-by-side
Comparison
of the Bylaws Proposals
is posted on this website.
The
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Basic Research and Subcommittee on
Technology, heard
testimony on
October 7, 1998 on Transferring the Domain Name System to
the Private Sector: Private Sector Implementation of the
Administration's Internet White Paper. Details about the
hearings
and letters
from Congressional representatives
are linked on this website at DNS
in Congress.
ICANN's
Adopted Bylaws
(Iteration 6) were announced on November 6, 1998. ICANN'S
first public meeting was held on November 14, 1998, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. An archive
of the proceedings
is posted by the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society
at Harvard Law School. For links to media reports and
ICANN Board activities, see Archives
from ICANN
elsewhere on this website.
News
articles about
the historic IFWP process are linked at www.domainhandbook.com/giaw2.html.
Information about the IFWP subscriber discussion list is
posted at http://lists.ifwp.org/
