[governance] [governance} Lets Regroup...Where are wegoing?

Mon Apr 9 16:28:30 EDT 2007

And my ten minutes -

I wrote this back in 2004. Nothing has changed much. Technical only
coordination has been a myth for a long time as the summary shows - and the
mechanism we have in ICANN is reactive rather than a sensible structure for
internet governance.

" The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) exists in
its current form largely because the US Government wanted it to be so.

Its structure is an evolving reactive mechanism. Anyone analysing its
current structure without regard for the history of how it came to be would
have to regard ICANN as

    * eccentric in structure
    * illogical in scope, and
    * incomplete in terms of Internet governance.

The initial proposal for a body to administer the domain name system
suggested establishment under Swiss law. However at the beginning of October
1998 the US Government's National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) responded to this proposal by announcing the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN). It would operate under an
agreement with the NTIA with oversight by the US congress. The new body was
asked to ensure competition in delivery of domain name services. Thus ICANN
became a corporation under US law, with a contract to operate from the US
government, despite concerns of many stakeholders.

ICANN claims its mission to be technical co-ordination. (ICANN website).
However, because of the eccentricities and incomplete nature of Internet
governance structures, ICANN has consistently worked in areas that cannot be
regarded as technical co-ordination.

For instance, in 1999 it succeeded in establishing a Uniform Dispute
Resolutions Policy (UDRP) for the top level domains; hardly a technical
co-ordination task, but certainly a useful one for development of the new
media.

Similarly eccentric is the role of ICANN in creating a competitive
environment in DNS, part of its contract with US Department of Commerce.
This would normally be seen as a regulatory body's responsibilities, not a
technical co-ordination task.

Public policy matters where ICANN is active include intellectual property
issues and security. Public policy matters where ICANN is not active include
spam and consumer protection. Once again, the logic of involvement and
non-involvement is not easy to follow.

Perhaps partially as a result of this mission confusion, ICANN does not
handle public policy well or effectively. An example of this was its recent
attempts to gain widespread public input in to the WHOIS database and
privacy issues."

(end quote from 2004)

Which leads us to where are we going.

If we are interested in Internet governance, we need to look well beyond
ICANN and its current brief. The options seem to be 

1. a complete rebuild and extension of scope of the current body under US
surveillance 

or 

2. something new with a structure more suitable to the Internet's needs. 

I don't usually engage in ICANN debates because I think the latter - a new
body structured to needs - is the way forward. We need to move beyond a
preoccupation with registries and registrars if our purpose is evolution of
a suitable internet governance structure.

Ian Peter
Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd
PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000
Australia
Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773
www.ianpeter.com
www.internetmark2.org
www.nethistory.info

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee McKnight [mailto:LMcKnigh at syr.edu] 
Sent: 10 April 2007 05:50
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; shailam at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [governance] [governance} Lets Regroup...Where are wegoing?

Shailam,

I have 10 minutes, here's my instant historical summary:
1) ICANN has striven since founding to focus on technical issues, and
since founding has bumped into techno-policy issues that touch on rights
of businesses (and individuals) of various sorts, and various parts of
national governments and also other civil society actors
a) Forget details of .xxx, or any other case, by now most on this list
admit that ICANN is an industry regulator, perhaps too captured by the
first special interests at the table (say, trademark holders)
a)1 - never mind the man (or woman) behind the curtain from the US dept
of commerce - or do mind, but they're not ready to go away just yet (
some theorize never)
b) .XXX just made it obvious that status quo fiction of ICANN just
doing technical things is just not plausible

2) some say ICANN must return to its original state which never really
existed, IMHO, when all it did was technical coordination

3) Others say the animal evolves but stays as a techno-regulator
primarily, with GAC/governmental and other civil society input  (and
really, wasn't it also silly that IGF I had to whisper about ICANN as He
Who Shall Not Be Named?)

4) A second entity IGF, has just been created, while on wobbly feet
some say it must evolve into a different animal, others say wait until
is has talked for 5 years as per the original plan

5) A third instituion or mechanism - some calling it a framework
convention, others a policy task force, others a refitted ICANN with
extensions - is now also up for debate.

6) As per Karl Auerback's historical reminder, it is still early in
this story, so let's do keep that in mind, and recognize all in all that
things are progressing...well at least I think so!

My time's up, but that's the story in my nutshell.

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile

>>> shailam at yahoo.com 4/9/2007 3:25 PM >>>
Hi All

  Since we all have strong views on this and have responded heatedly
from our respective positions, may I suggest  that we regroup and
establish some clear issues and concepts and then proceed to outline our
position as Civil Society and as Private Sector.

  My suggestion is that that one or two amongst us who REALLY
understand the issues surrounding use of    xxx and the issues of
Consumer protection and ICANN 's  role and objectives, outline these
clearly for all of us.We can the proceed to create some consensus.

  Shaila Rao Mistry
  President
  Jayco MMI

  Moderator, Next Gen
  IFUW

  conventional wisdom ?..... takes you some of the way...
  challenge assumptions !!....... GO all the way !

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