[governance] New dot com agreement changes USG-ICANN relationship

[Danny Butt]

Hasn't it always been the case that the government of the US (or any  
economically powerful free-market economy) gives the "private sector"  
a "leadership role" when that is coextensive with geopolitical  
interests?

I always saw ICANN as being on a USG leash that would be pulled  
whenever convenient, or if it became too international - regardless  
of the formal wording of the MoU. Hopefully we can now dispense with  
the distracting fiction that ICANN was an model of a mythical user- 
led global internet. The primary actors in that organisation have  
always been more or less in accord with USG interests, gestures  
against "government control" notwithstanding.

 From my POV, a truly multistakeholder process advocated by civil  
society has to assert multilateralism as one of its strongest  
principles, rather than using idealist antipathy to any governmental  
involvement as a way of avoiding the questions about who actually has  
the power in IG arrangements.

Danny

On 04/12/2006, at 6:45 AM, Wolfgang Kleinwächter wrote:

>
> Is there any offcial comment by the USG on the ITU Resolution 102  
> from Antalya? Is there some interpretation what means what? US  
> Government obviously has supported (or watered down and when yes  
> what was the earlier version?) the text. You will find in the  
> adopted text seven times "enhanced cooperation", half a dozen times  
> "domain names and IP addresses" but ICANN is not mentioned at all.  
> Is this a new US double-strategy? Or a farewell to "private sector  
> leadership"?
>
> wolfgang
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu]
> Sent: Sun 12/3/2006 6:37 PM
> To: aizu at anr.org; governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] New dot com agreement changes USG-ICANN	 
> relationship
>
>>>> aizu at anr.org 12/2/2006 2:34:09 PM >>>
>> I naiively had thought that USG/DOC has had the ultimate authority
>> over .com and any other resources, despite, or in addition to ICANN's
>> authority which is under the mercy of USG anyway with the MoU.
>>
>> Is there any really new element between DOC and VeriSign to the
> existing
>> cooperative agreement?
>
> Yes.
>
> VeriSign's control of .com began with a National Science Foundation
> "cooperative agreement" starting in 1991, which was switched to the
> Commerce Dept in 1997. But the whole idea of ICANN was that assignment
> and regulation of gTLD registries, including VeriSign, would be
> delegated to ICANN.
>
> The Nov. 30 decision is quite significant because Commerce is  
> giving up
> on using ICANN to renew .com, it asserts that it must have final  
> say on
> any aspect of the registry contract. Nothing like that formally  
> existed
> before.
>
>> Does VeriSingh have more "freedom" than before?
>
> No, it has less in some respects.
>
>> Has ICANN really been undermined (looks like)?
>
> Yes, because its registry agreement for .com is now formally reviewed
> and approved by Commerce, rather than the decision being fully  
> delegated
> to ICANN. If you are VeriSign, you negotiate primarily with Commerce
> about .com, not ICANN.
>
>> Are these change very clear, or subject of interpretation?
>
> Oh, anything can be "interpreted" in different ways, that's what you
> pay PR flaks for, and that's why certain apologists will never concede
> anything.
>
> Just read the agreement, to me it's very clear that this is (yet
> another) significant departure from the concept of an independent,
> globalized Internet governance authority and a another step toward
> stronger US control.
>
>
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-- 
Danny Butt
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