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United States cedes control of the internet - but what now?
By Kieren McCarthy
July 27, 2006, The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/27/ntia_icann_meeting/
In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States
government last night conceded that it can no longer
expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the
internet.
Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary
taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to
transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing
organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more
international body.
However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in
charge of such matters, also made clear that the
US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file -
at least in the medium-term.
"The historic role that we announced that we were going to preserve
is fairly clearly articulated: the technical
verification and authorisation of changes to the authoritative root,"
Kneuer explained following an afternoon of explicit
statements from US-friendly organisations and individuals that it was
no longer viable for one government to retain such
power over the future of a global resource.
Despite the sentiments, however, it was apparent from the carefully
selected panel and audience members that the
internet - despite its global reach - remains an English-speaking
possession. Not one of the 11 panel members, nor any
of the 22 people that spoke during the meeting, had anything but
English as their first language.
While talk centered on the future of the internet and its tremendous
global influence, the people that sat there
discussing it represented only a tiny minority of those that now use
the internet every day. Reflections on the difficulty
of expanding the current internet governance mechanisms to encompass
the global audience inadvertently highlighted the
very parochialism of those that currently form the ICANN in-crowd.
When historians come to review events in Washington on 26 July 2006,
they will no doubt be reminded of discussions in
previous centuries over why individual citizens should be given a
vote. Or, perhaps, why landowners or the educated
classes shouldn't be given more votes than the masses.
There was talk of voting rights, or what the point was of including
more people in ICANN processes, and even how people
could be educated sufficiently before they were allowed to interact
with the existing processes.
Ironically, it was ICANN CEO Paul Twomey who most accurately put his
finger on what had to be done. One of the most
valuable realisations that ICANN has ever come to, he noted, was that
when it revamped itself last time, it recognised it
hadn't got it right. Even more importantly, Twomey noted, was the
fact the organisation recognised that "it would never get
it right. And so ICANN put a review mechanism into its bylaws".
The reason Twomey's observations are particularly noteworthy is that
it is Paul Twomey himself who has consistently - and
deliberately - failed to open ICANN up, keeping meetings secret, and
refusing to release information about discussions
either before a meeting and, in some cases, after the meeting.
A stark warning came from the Canadian government - the only
government except for the US government invited to speak.
Recent arrival, but highly knowledgeable representative, Bill Graham
was extraordinarily clear. "It is time for ICANN to
recognise that it is in many ways a quasi-judicial body and it must
begin to behave that way," he said.
"The ICANN board needs to provide adequate minutes of all its
meetings. There needs to be a notice of what issues will be
considered, and the timeframe when a decision is made. A written
document needs to be posted setting out the background
and context of the issues. There needs to be an acknowledgment and a
summary of the positions put forward by various
interested parties; there needs to be an analysis of the issues;
there needs to be an explanation of the decisions and
the reasons for it; and ultimately there needs to be a mechanism for
the board to be held accountable by its community."
Everyone recognised the meeting as an historic turning point vin the
future of the internet, causing a strange amount of
one-upmanship among those taking part, most of it covering how long
they had been involved with ICANN. Paul Twomey referred
to the Berlin meeting (1999); an irregular ICANN contributor (on the
panel thanks to US governmental influence) spoke of
"being there before ICANN was even created". The swagger got so bad
that several well-informed contributors were forced to
apologise because they had only been to three ICANN meetings.
Ultimately, what came out of a gathering of the (English-speaking)
great and the good regarding the internet was two things:
1. That the US government recognises it has to transition its
role if it wants to keep the internet in one piece (and
it then has to sell that decision to a mindlessly patriotic
electorate)
2. That ICANN has to open up and allow more people to decide its
course if it is going to be allowed to become
the internet's main overseeing organisation
If you ignore the fact that the conversation only happened within a
tiny subset of the people that actually use the
internet, everyone can feel quite content in walking away feeling
that at least people now understand their point of
view.
As a rare non-US contributor, Emily Taylor, Nominet's lawyer, UK
citizen, and a member of the IGF Advisory Group told us she
felt that "the fact that the meeting took place was as valuable as
anything that was discussed".
That much is certainly true. The US has recognised that it can no
longer hope to control the internet. The next step is for
everyone invited into the party this time to recognise that they too
play only a small role in the global revolution that
is this jumble of interconnected computer networks.
Future of the net to be decided tomorrow (25 July 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/25/ntia_public_meeting/
US government urged again to end net role (21 July 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/21/burr_cade_usg_paper/
US government told to take its hands off internet (15 July
2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/15/ntia_inquiry_results/
The internet needs YOU! (2 July 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/02/ntia_icann_consultation/
Governments to decide future of net (28 June 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/28/gac_icann_communique/
© Copyright 2006
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