This document provides the external escalation process for IANA-related issues and when initiating escalation is appropriate. Summarizing, this document suggests escalating requests when one or more of the following conditions hold:
The escalation steps described in this document are:
With the escalation steps documented here, IANA aims to provide a process to address issues with IANA request processing prior to those issues damaging the relationship between IANA and the communities it serves.
The IANA’s many stakeholders rely on timely responses, appropriate handling of specific requests, and proficient management of IANA’s overall responsibilities. When a stakeholder perceives a request for IANA service is not being handled in a timely, reasonable, and/or responsible fashion, the stakeholder should have a means of escalating their concern(s) to higher level oversight, up to the ICANN President and CEO if necessary.
Because IANA’s responsibilities are varied and complex, clearly defined escalation procedures and channels of communication are very important. Ideally, the escalation process would be initiated by the individuals appointed by the leaders of the various organizations that IANA directly serves, including the IAB, IESG, and IETF, the ccNSO, TLD managers, the managers of domains IANA is the registry for (e.g., .INT), and the RIRs. For example, in the case of issues with a request involving the .INT top-level domain, it would be the Administrative or Technical Contact of the second-level .INT domain who would initiate the escalation.
At the time of the writing of this document, IANA is in the process of documenting and/or defining work processes with relevant stakeholders within each area of IANA’s responsibility. These work processes imply certain average timeframes with some variance due to the specifics of requests. As such, issues would not normally be escalated provided they are still within the mutually agreed request process window. However, if there is a perception of a trend of issues not being addressed appropriately and/or a particular issue is or threatens to become critical, early escalation can help defuse the issue.
The following steps describe the typical path of escalation for IANA-related issues. There are several avenues of contact for each level of escalation, including email, telephone, and fax. The specifics of these communication methods are provided in Appendix A – Escalation Contact Information. It should be noted, however, that any requester may at any time contact the ICANN Ombudsman and file a complaint (an online form for filing a complaint via http://ombudsman.icann.org/complaints/). In addition, while unlikely in the context of IANA-related requests, any and all contractual issues relating to ICANN should always go directly to ICANN’s General Counsel.
In all cases, IANA makes every attempt to be responsive and efficient in processing requests for the various resources the IANA administers. However, in some cases, a resource requester may feel IANA has not performed their service to the requester’s expectation. In such cases, and after attempting to resolve the issue with the IANA staff member with whom they are working, requesters may escalate the problematic request to apply greater management oversight and/or increased priority in the processing of their request. If a requester has reached a point where they feel an escalation request is justified, the IANA will assume the escalation is appropriate and treat follow-ups to the escalation request with higher priority.
In general, an escalation is justified when one or more of the following hold:
In the event the requester feels an escalation is justified according to any of the above criteria, the steps outlined in the subsequent section should be undertaken.
The IANA-related issue escalation steps are:
In order to track an issue escalation, the requester should initiate an escalation request by sending email to escalation-request@iana.org. In either case, the requester should provide as many details relevant to the issue as is possible, including:
All documents provided to the IANA in this context will be considered confidential and will not be released to the general public without explicit written permission of the requester. However, in many cases the IANA will need to publish reports about the issues that have escalated, both to the ICANN Board as well as the public in general. Should this become necessary, the IANA will work with the requester to establish which of the materials can be released in full and which need to be redacted for confidentiality reasons.
Once the initial escalation request is received via email or the form on the web page is filled out and submitted, a time stamped escalation ticket will be issued that will allow the requester to track the status of their escalation request. See the following section for details on how to track an escalation ticket.
To ensure IANA and the requester both understand the circumstances surrounding the escalation request and the perceived issue, the requester should communicate with IANA staff any details not provided in the opening of the escalation ticket regarding the status of the original request that triggered the escalation and any particular conditions that may have precipitated the issue using the escalation ticket number. IANA staff will respond with an acknowledgement within one (1) business day. Within two (2) business days following the acknowledgement, IANA staff will respond with a description of a proposed remedy. Regular communications will continue between IANA staff and the requester until the escalation request and the underlying issue is resolved.
If the requester feels they are not getting an adequate response to their request from IANA staff, they should contact the IANA Operations Manager, referencing the escalation ticket.
The IANA Operations Manager will respond with an acknowledgement to the escalation request within one (1) business day. Within two (2) business days following the acknowledgement, the IANA Operations Manager will respond with a description of a proposed remedy. Regular communications will continue between the IANA Operations Manager and/or IANA staff and the requester until the request is resolved.
If the requester feels they are not getting an adequate response to their escalation to the IANA Operations Manager, they should contact the IANA General Manager.
The IANA General Manager will respond with an acknowledgement to the escalation request within one (1) business day. Within two (2) business days following the acknowledgement of the escalation, a proposed remedy will be provided that includes a timeline for resolution of the issue when possible. The IANA General Manager will coordinate with the IANA Operations Manager and IANA Staff to ensure that communications with the requester are effective and timely until the issue is resolved.
If the requester feels they are not getting an adequate response to their request to the IANA General Manager, they should contact the ICANN President and CEO.
The ICANN President and CEO will respond with an acknowledgement to the escalation request within three (3) business days. The causes of the IANA’s inability to fulfil the terms of the request will be reviewed and a determination will be made by the ICANN President and CEO as to whether systemic changes are needed to address this issue and/or potential future instances of the circumstances that resulted in the issue. Within ten (10) business days following the acknowledgement of the escalation, the results of this review will be provided to the requester. Along with the results will be a proposed remedy and a timeline for implementing that remedy. If resolution of the issue takes longer than one calendar week, at least one update on the status of the issue will be provided to the requester by the IANA General Manager.
As the final level of escalation (or at any time the requester feels this escalation procedure is not being followed or is not effective), the requester should contact the ICANN Ombudsman if the requester feels the individual issue or the systemic problems are not resolved.
The ICANN Ombudsman will respond to the escalation request according to policies and procedures described within the Ombudsman Framework published at http://www.icann.org/ombudsman/documents/ombuds-frmwrk-eng-20jun05.pdf.
At any step in this procedure, when the issue is deemed resolved by both the requester and the IANA, the escalation ticket will be marked as resolved and closed.
At step (1) in the escalation procedure, a ticket will be issued in response to an escalation request. This ticket will allow the requester to track their escalation request through the escalation process as described in this document and will help IANA staff and management collect and collate data regarding the request and the underlying issue and coordinate responses to the requester.
As soon as feasible, IANA will implement a system to facilitate requesters determining the status of their escalation tickets. If the requester wishes to check the status of their escalation request, they will be able to visit http://www.iana.org/escalation/tracking.html where a web page will be provided that will allow the requester to determine the state of their escalation request. The URL provided will allow the requester to see which of the steps as described in this document their particular escalation request is in. The tracking interface will also allow the requester to provide additional information, revise their request, and/or cancel their request if they feel satisfied with the IANA response.
This document has described the IANA escalation procedure IANA asks requesters use when they feel IANA is not processing their request appropriately. In addition to the actual escalation steps, the criteria a requester should use to determine when escalation is appropriate are provided. The aim of this document is to provide a process to address issues with IANA request processing prior to those issues damaging the relationship between IANA and the communities it serves.
Very useful comments and suggestions for this document were provided by the ICANN Country Code Name Supporting Organization via members of the ccNSO/IANA Working Group chaired by Bernard Turcotte. Significant contributions came from ccNSO/IANA Working Group members including Bernard Turcotte, Olivier Guillard, and Lesley Cowley.
Contact information for ICANN and IANA staff as of 28 February 2007:
Role | Name | Email Address | Telephone |
---|---|---|---|
IANA | IANA Staff | iana@iana.org | +1-310-823-9358 |
Operations Manager, IANA | Barbara Roseman | barbara.roseman@icann.org | +1-310-301-5835 |
General Manager, IANA | David Conrad | david.conrad@icann.org | +1-310-301-3869 |
ICANN President and CEO | Paul Twomey | paul.twomey@icann.org | +1-310-301-5807 |
ICANN Ombudsman | Frank Fowlie | ombudsman@icann.org | +1-310-823-9358 |
Note: Email communications are preferred as it greatly facilitates maintaining a history of the communications.