[governance] Where are we going?

[Michael Gurstein]

Karl,

What hadn't occurred to me until this somewhat enlightening overall
discussion is the degree to which "Internet Governance" could begin to
slop over into "real world" governance issues and potentially in a very
significant way particularly over time.

That being said it doesn't' really matter what your (or anyone's)
personal beliefs are, there are too many forces with too many
significant and divergent interests at play to be able to easily walk
away from the discussion particularly since so many of those interests
may be less than benign from all of the various "rights" and other
perspectives various folks here have used to anchor their IG arguments. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl at cavebear.com] 
Sent: April 8, 2007 12:26 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Michael Gurstein
Cc: 'Milton Mueller'
Subject: Re: [governance] Where are we going?


Michael Gurstein wrote:

> But what about the second part of my question...
> 
> "Would/could/should ICANN or whoever is the supreme authority here 
> maintain jurisdiction over the naming patterns of the sub-tld's (or 
> the organizations managing the existing tld's)...

> So these issues aren't simply matters of free speech or dare I say 
> human rights, they seem to me to be quite fundamental issues of how, 
> at least potentially, political power may be used (or misused) in an 
> "Information Society".

Even if we accept that these are fundamental issues regarding political 
power, is it appropriate for that to be a subject of internet governance

at this time?

The reason I ask is multifold:

First, it is my own personal belief that the power of governance is 
something that ought to be used to supersede individual choice only when

there is a clear and compelling reason to do so.  And I do not perceive 
a clear and compelling reason in the situations in the domain name
space.

WHILE YOU MAY BELIEVE THAT "INDIVIDUAL CHOICE" (IN MANY PARTS OF THE
WORLD THAT IS READ AS THE MONOPOLY POWER OF THE MARKET ECONOMY)
NECESSARILY TRUMPS "THE POWER OF GOVERNANCE", TELL THAT ONE TO ANY OF
THE ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES AT LOOSE IN THE WORLD TODAY.


Second, institutions gain legitimacy by doing their job well over an 
extended period of time.  And I do not see that as a community that we 
have evolved to the degree that we have a sufficiently consistent point 
of view on many of these matters to even hope that we could establish a 
governance body that would do a good job, much less do it over an 
extended period of time.

I DON'T THINK WE ARE HERE TALKING ABOUT INSTITUTIONS THAT WE MAY (OR MAY
NOT) DEVELOP OR CONTROL, BUT RATHER INSTITUTIONS (MORE OR LESS BENIGN
GOVERNMENTS) WHO, ONCE THEY SENSE THE POWER THAT LIES IN THE PROCESSES
THAT WE ARE CURRENTLY DISCUSSING WILL BECOME EXTREMELY INTERESTED AND
ACTIVE IN MANAGING WHATEVER IG INSTITUTIONS ARE THEN CURRENTLY IN PLACE.
OUR JOB HERE, I THINK, BECOMES ONE OF ATTEMPTING TO ANTICIPATE AND
FORESTALL SOME OF THAT BEHAVIOUR IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. RECOGNIZING ALL THE
WHILE THAT THE REAL ACTION AROUND THIS IS LIKELY TO TAKE PLACE AT THE
NATIONAL TLD MANAGEMENT LEVEL RATHER THAN AT THE (AT LEAST
SUPERFICIALLY) MORE CIVILIZED GLOBAL LEVEL.


Third, there are governance issues that are being left unaddressed. 
Among these are the responsibilities of root server operators, the 
technical obligations to be imposed on domain name server operators 
(mainly at the TLD level, but also perhaps at deeper levels), IP address

and ASN assignment (which may perhaps be best left to the RIRs), 
mechanisms for end users to obtain end-to-end (cross-ISP) assurances 
(not guarantees) of service quality, etc etc.  The cause of internet 
governance could do well in these areas - the debate is not so 
emotional, and the criteria for success are more clear, as they are in 
the very subjective areas in which ICANN has become mired.

YES, BUT AREN'T THESE MORE OR LESS "TECHNICAL" ISSUES BEST LEFT TO
STRICTLY TECHNICAL RESOLUTION... NO NEED FOR AN ELABORATE
"MULTI-STAKEHOLDER" FORUM TO DEVELOP PROPOSALS AROUND THESE, I WOULD
HAVE THOUGHT (AND HERE I'M ASSUMING THAT YOUR LAST SENTENCE IS LACKING A
NEGATIVE SOMEWHERE... I.E. "THEY ARE --NOT-- IN THE VERY SUBJECTIVE
AREAS..."


All of this leads me to suggest, again, that in these early days, that 
we constrain our efforts to engage on matters that have a clear linkage 
to technical matters.  Only at some later date, once we have experience 
and have formed a more capable system of measuring competing values, 
ought we to venture to try to deal with larger issues.

I'M NOT SURE THAT THE OPTION YOU ARE PRESENTING IS STILL AVAILABLE...
ONCE THE DJINN IS OUT OF THE BOTTLE IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO PUT IT BACK
IN...

MG

		--karl--



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