More on Internet Governance
September 28th, 2005 at 5:35 pm by David FarrarI have blogged a lot about the attempt to have a UN body given governance authority over the Internet. Some have seen it as US vs UN but this is incorrect. While the US does presently have policy authority over the root name servers, it actually has never used this except in relation to .us. Everything else is delegated to ICANN which is far far far from perfect (in fact deeply flawed in many areas) but does allow the non governmental sector a significant voice in running the Internet.
Compare that to what is happening at the WSIS conference, where China, Brazil and Iran managed to force the Chair to exclude all further civil society
and private sector participation in the drafting groups. The compromise that they could attend but not speak was not even acceptable to these countries that want to set policy for the Internet.
Luckily for InternetNZ, our Executive Director has been made a member of the official Government delegation, so he presumably has been able to stay in the room. But it speaks volumes about what role the private sector will play in the Internet policy if China, Brazil and Iran get to set the rules in future. None.
There was a period I was so disenchanted with ICANN I thought the ITU might do a better job of it. I still find ICANN hugely disappointing in many areas (yet happily for InternetNZ it is mainly the gTLD issues not the ccTLD issues they are stuffing up), but the more I observe about the motivations and actions of those pushing for ICANN’s role to be transferred or supervised by a UN body, the more I believe this would be one of the biggest setbacks for free speech worldwide.
Luckily there is nothing the Chinas and Irans of this world can do, to force a transfer of authority. However the risk is that at some stage a compromise is done which will start the process off. If the UN sets up a global Internet forum (sounds harmless eh) and it starts making recommendations on allowable content etc, ICANN could find it politically very difficult to not go along with such recommendations.
Key things to watch out for is what comes out of these meetings known as Prep Com 3, and what is recommended to go the big WSIS meeting in November where heads of governments will attend and ratify outcomes.
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September 28th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
Argh, David, obscure acronym-overload!
Vote:September 28th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
DPF: I can’t fathom how anyone can consider making ICANN part of UN an improvement to current situation. shudder.
Keith Ng: Which acronyms are obscure?
Vote:September 28th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Hmm, where do I start. I think this needs more than a ad hoc comment.
I could list the entire .net gTLD appointment of Verisign again, the entire .xxx review after approved cause the US govt leaned on ICANN, the entire appointment of the current CEO, that ICANN is run by its staff and former legal advisors, SiteFinder, WLS, hmm, what else off top of my mind… oh, the entire gTLD creation bribe… opps, appication process… oh yeah. .travel, hmm… lots more. (as well as the .us as you pointed out).
I am gonna write a long story about this.
InternetNZ is ‘inside the tent’. Heck, PDT finally got his dream and scored a directors role on ICANN board. InternetNZ is hardly ‘neutral’ on ICANN and the lose of presitage to InternetNZ and certain ppl if ICANN lost its power.
Vote:September 28th, 2005 at 11:16 pm
I went and read the thread on the mailing list.
So, what you are saying is you dont like it that some countries enforced the rules?
While you and I might think its silly to do what they did they have rules for a reason. Heck, I think 90% of the rules in NZ Parliament are fucking stupid but they have been created for a reason as well.
Also is Keith being part of the NZ Government group like the time InternetNZ paid for Frank to go to a conference (INET I think) that was being held the same city as a GAC meeting? Just a fluke that Frank then had the ability to go to GAC meetings when he could not get approval from MED. Gee, InternetNZ funding NZ Govt reps… sounds like that broke many rules as well!
I think your bias is showing a bit too much David… time to write for Fox News if you keep this up!
Vote:September 29th, 2005 at 3:14 am
Steven – any ‘loss of prestige’ to INZ if ICANN gets replaced by a UN body is so far down my list it isn’t funny.
I said in the post that ICANN is deeply flawed and continues to stuff up in many areas.
In the end though it may be a bit like democracy, according to Winston Churchill – an awful form of government, until you try all the others.
Vote:September 29th, 2005 at 9:20 am
I would much rather have the authority kept in the status quo, than have countries like Iran and China control it. Aside from the free speech argument (which was perhaps more relevant than my point) It was created by the US government, and even though the whole world uses it it should remain under the jurisdiction of the US government. After all, they are the single biggest investor in it.
Vote:The UN is not an option for the internet.
September 29th, 2005 at 9:20 am
Alas David, others invloved in ICANN issues in NZ have different approach than you
PS You and I both know who I was aiming that comment at!
Vote:September 30th, 2005 at 12:27 am
The UN can’t agree on the size of a bag of rice to pass on to starving kids, let alone deal objectively with the internet. Imagine if all those censorship-prone folks got a hand on the switches! There’d be a second internet (not the advanced ones but just another) in weeks. ICANN is terrible but next to the UN it looks like a model of corporate efficiency.
Vote:September 30th, 2005 at 11:12 am
China (or any other state, or indeed ISP) could choose to create it’s own DNS root and copy selectively from the rest of the world’s system.
This would not be a very good idea for anyone (especially the Chinese) but is not technically very hard.
One could see a situation where to get a website visible in China you’d have to apply to the Chinese government to register on the ‘chinternet’.
Vote:September 30th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
Why would China want to create is own dns root? Won’t the system we have now be more foolproof and widely used rather than a system that can only be found in one country?
To others reading this, and wonder what a root server is, please read this article:
http://www.isoc.org/briefings/019/
In case no one has heard, there are now more than 13 root servers in the world. That’s thanks to the foresight of some who realised that we had 11 of the 13 root servers in the US and decided to deploy mirrors of it. Anyway you’ll find NZ has two, I (in wgtn) and F(in Auckland) root. For a list of where the others are, have a look at http://www.root-servers.org/
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