[ga] Ang Peng Hwa -- Internet Governance: The US position is globally untenable

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://internetinasia.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/internet_govern_1.html
November 10, 2005

So, Larry Lessig , law professor at Stanford, in his
interview in Foreign Policy thinks the EU distrusts
the US and that is why the EU is recommending an
independent body to oversee the root functions of the
internet. Well, with the greatest respect for Prof.
Lessig, and there is indeed much to respect him for,
he is wrong on this one. The reason the EU, and the
rest of the world for that matter, wants control of
the root to be taken out of US hands and into that of
a third international body is simple: the US position
, that control of the root server system should remain
in the hands of ICANN, is simply politically not
defensible. 

Here's why. 

To begin at the beginning, one must understand that
the internet is not entirely decentralised. At its
apex is a server, the A-root server , sometimes called
the "Number 13 server , " because there are 12 other
similar root servers, and this server is under the
control of ICANN. The A-root server works from data
sent it by a " hidden server, " so called because it
is hidden from hackers. This hidden server then
:feeds" the other 12 servers, as it were, keeping all
of the information on all 12 servers synchronized. And
it is this server that is at the core of the dispute:
who gets to decide what goes on and what goes off?
Currently, it is ICANN, a California company operating
under the authority of the US Department of Commerce. 

Now to be fair, ICANN is doing an excellent job
technically. No one seriously disputes that. It even
has an international corp of officers and managers.
But the politically indefensible question is this:
What happens should there be a war between, say, Iraq
and the USA? This hypothetical case turned real with
Iraq. The TLD (top level domain) name .IQ,
representing Iraq based websites, disappeared from
cyberspace. And it disappeared because the owners of
the domain name, who were based not in Iraq but in
Texas, were jailed for unauthorized sale of computer
parts and for aiding terrorists .A coincidence? 

Now, if ever there was a case that put governments on
edge, that was one. Many countries were looking at how
the USA would handle the issue of a dispute. this case
demonstrated that the US could make any nation
virtually "disappear" from the Internet altogether,
and if governments were not concerned with internet
governance up to that point , this case brought it to
life . It is not surprising, therefore, that there
were initially two positions: the US position of
status quo, and the Brazil-China-India position to let
the UN run it. It would be too crass for any
government to say that it would run the hidden server.


The US, however, distrusts the UN even more than the
EU distrusts the US. Into this impasse, the EU
inserted itself. Now, it should be noted that this is
a strange insertion. The EU presidency rotates once
every six months. At the time when the proposals were
floated, the presidency was with the UK. Of all the
governments in the world, who is the friendliest to
the US? It is the UK. So in fact, at the PrepCom3
meeting that concluded last October, it seemed as if
the US position would prevail. But the US position is
simply indefensible. No government can agree that it
would put the internet, on which critical
infrastructure is now being built, in the hands of the
US and only the US. If anyone needed convincing, the
treatment of .IQ is enough. The difference between the
EU and the Brazil-China-India position is this: the EU
takes it out of the UN.

The US position is just not defensible. In my lectures
across the US earlier in October, I did not encounter
a single person who could support the US position,
especially against the backdrop of .IQ. Officially,
the .IQ TLD was in limbo because, supposedly, since
the owner was in jail, there was no one to hand it
over to. Well, within days of the Working Group on
Internet Governance (WGIG) report being published, the
report that made the recommendation that the UN take
control of the A-server, the .IQ TLD was handed back
to the interim Iraqi government. Another coincidence?
It's beginning to feel like the X-Files coming to
life. 

In my book, Ordering Chaos: Regulating the Internet ,
I've predicted that in general, the EU is the place to
look to for guidance on internet law and policy. They
are smart, they try to maintain a sense of balance of
competing interests (as in here too) and they
reconcile various cultural differences. I never
expected the EU to come up with a position like they
have. Given the compromise it offers, it looks like it
could be a winning formula in Tunis. 

[Author: Ang Peng Hwa is the Dean of the School of
Communication and Information and Director of the
Singapore Internet Research Centre at Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. He was also
appointed by Kofi Annan as a member of the Working
Group on Internet Governance, which issued a report
recently calling for a change in the global system of
Internet Governance.] 


	
		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 
http://mail.yahoo.com