Re: [ga] lawyers
At 09:12 10/01/2006, Joop Teernstra wrote: Maybe I'm naive, but I believe that the Clinton administration, possibly because it did not foresee the speedy growth in importance-for-everything of the Internet, was genuinely interested in devolving things like the IANA function out of its own hands and into the hands of an industry-led cabal in which it would retain sufficient influence. It was both in the Administration's and ICANN's interest to leave the question of where the buck ultimately stops as unanswered as possible. Joop, you are not naive. You are not considering the national interests. The Internet is the national packet switch network the USA missed. It was established after the deregulation and benefited from the removal of the national protections offered by the monopolies, as US trade first benefited from the drop of customs rights. Because the USA were a key piece of the world jigsaw. The difference between the Democrat and Republican administration over international relations and protectionism is immemorial. They both aim at the best US interest in very similar ways under two similar flavors. Tunis clarified the things. The Internationalized Internet is the US Global network, under the control of the USG through ICANN. RFC 3935 is clear about this which defines the role of the IETF. The Internet is defined in the same way as by 47 USC 230 (f)(1) (the digital ecosystem) and the role of the IETF is to "influence" those who "design, use, manage" it. The Tunis deal gives the world and the USA five, and more probably ten, years to converge their vision into a Global Multinational System concatenating all the private, national, regional, corporate, etc. networks through the International Network to be discussed by the IGF. This results from the acknowledgment that the US part is not anymore the core of the world jigsaw. Will this succeed? I do not know. But it has the merit to clearly state that ICANN is an US International Agency in charge of an International US System. That ICANN is welcome to share into the IGF. That we will see progressively the emergence of several International National Network Systems. If they merge into a single International Network we will have cross-connectivity, otherwise we will have balkanization. IMHO the only way we can avoid balkanization is to accept that the core of the network is not anymore the USA, but also not anymore the other States, but the user. A really long way to go for the IAB/IETF, for ICANN and work ahead for developers. jfc
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