The Only Specialized Global Intellectual Property News Agency
A Member of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Global

ICANN’s Annual IANA Customer Survey Shows Shift in Engagement Preferences

19-Jan-2023 | Source : The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) | Visits : 2090
LOS ANGELES - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced in a press release that it has published the results of the 2022 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions Customer Engagement Survey, which measures customers and external stakeholders' satisfaction with their interactions with the IANA team.

ICANN commissioned Echo Research, LLC, a global reputation consultancy, to administer the annual engagement survey.  Representative groups surveyed included leadership from the Regional Internet Registries and the Internet Engineering Task Force, as well as members from the Customer Standing Committee (CSC), Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO), and Generic Names Supporting Organization (gNSO) councils, and Trusted Community Representatives (TCR).  Customers of IANA who operate top-level domains and root servers were also invited to participate.

Respondents were asked to rate the IANA team according to 22 key statements relating to credibility, transparency, attentiveness, fairness, timeliness, and accountability. Each statement was rated from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) in level of satisfaction. They were also asked about their preferred methods of interaction with IANA.

The biggest change was in customers' desires for remote engagement: only nine percent wish IANA to engage remotely, down from 50 percent in the year prior. Twenty-eight percent of respondents now prefer to return to in-person interactions, a significant increase from the 17 percent of respondents who wished to attend in-person meetings in 2021. Also, this year, a majority of survey respondents, 60 percent, prefer hybrid engagement approaches, blending in-person meetings with remote participation options.

"The significant shift in our customers' preference toward face-to-face engagement will inform our future approach. We will need to responsibly balance the desire of the majority of respondents to physically attend meetings while managing rising travel costs with the need to maintain access for those who do not travel," said Kim Davies, Vice President, IANA Services and President, Public Technical Identifiers (PTI).

Results show that respondents from the numbering function rated IANA the highest (4.3), followed by protocol parameter customers (4.2) and naming customers (4.1). The CSC and TCR groups rated IANA the highest in its ability to accomplish objectives (4.6 and 4.7, respectively). The lowest scores were given by members of the ccNSO council in statements around fairness (3.5). Operators of generic top-level domains want to see improvement in IANA's accountability (3.7).

"We're pleased we've been able to sustain our positive relationship with our customers and partners, and happy that efforts the community has asked us to prioritize, like the algorithm rollover project, are well underway. These results also show there is more discussion needed on important topics such as fairness and accountability," said Davies.
share



Related Articles