[governance] Fwd: [afnog] Breaking News: Kenyan Internet Community comes face to face with new Legislation

[McTim]

FYI, an thorny IG dilemna arising:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
<snip>

Apologies for cross-posting:

It took a KENIC (KEnya Network Information Center, www.kenic.or.ke)
Annual General Meeting for the Kenyan Internet community to digest the
implication of the a Kenyan ICT Legislation passed more than five
months ago.  The law which included sections that touched on the
Media, IT, Telecommunication and Postal Services has faced stiff
resistance from the Media fraternity while the Internet Community kept
a low if not a dead profile.


It was at the KENIC general meeting held today in Nairobi that the
Internet Community grappled with the implication of the IT section on
the operation of the .KE namespace.  The law specifies that all second
level .KE internet domain names must be licensed by the country's
converged Regulator, Communication Commission of Kenya.  The law
requires that all Registries - those who manage the internet domains -
must apply for a license by the 2nd of June 2009.



KENIC, a public-private-partnership has under the ICANN Policies been
managing the .KE namespace including the 2nd level sub-domains such as
xyz.CO.KE, xyz.OR.KE, etc. From 2nd June 2009, KENIC must seek
permission from the Regulator to continue managing these sub-domains.
In an effort to comply with the law, the KENIC Board requested the
community to support a resolution that a new legal entity (Special
Purpose Vehicle, SPV) be created in order to apply for the license
from the Regulator as well as compete with other potential entities
that are set to fight in that space.



The proposals opened up heated discussions with some members wondering
if KENIC was ceding its hard-won rights & control over the .KE
namespace to an exclusive and single entity.  The current governance
structure for KENIC provides for a Multistakeholder Partnership over
the whole .KE namespace and has the Govt, Academia, Private
Sector/Telcos and Civil Society Board Representation that is wholly
accountable to Internet Users during Annual General Meetings.
Effectively, the new law takes part of this mandate and places it
under one or two of these Stakeholders that is the Regulator/Govt.



Members wondered about the criteria that would be used by the
Regulator to award the management licenses to various competitors.
Others wondered about the potential conflict between the local
legislation and the ICANN policies given that KENIC has currently been
operating under ICANN policies but now has to take cognizance of the
local law.  For example, if the Regulator granted a license to someone
else to manage the "co.ke" subdomain BUT the local internet community
for one reason or the other instructed the KENIC Board NOT to accept
and transfer the delegation from KENIC how would that be resolved? And
yet other members wondered to what extend the proposed SPV would
cannibalize their existing markets and services.



It has taken five months of silence but clearly, the Kenyan Internet
community is just beginning to understand and feel the heat of some
sections in the ICT law that had previously been hijacked and labeled
"Media law" at the expense of IT practitioners.  It will be
interesting to see how this plays out before and after the 2nd of June
2009 - the date when all subdomain managers must be licensed by the
Regulator.



walu












_______________________________________________
afnog mailing list
http://afnog.org/mailman/listinfo/afnog



-- 
Cheers,

McTim
http://stateoftheinternetin.ug
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance