And G20? Re: [governance] Internet G8 meeting

[Avri Doria]

On 12 May 2011, at 09:51, McTim wrote:

> On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Avri Doria <avri at ella.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 12 May 2011, at 09:00, McTim wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> whatever happened to focusing on ACTUAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE
>>> activities, instead of talking endlessly about shapes of tables for
>>> potential IG bodies???
>> 
>> 
>> The so called actual internet governance activities are also political affairs and also largely controlled by business interests.   And tell me, where is it written that these activities should have a monopoly, especially if that monopoly is rigged.
> 
> As Karl has so often pointed out, you can start your own root.

Sooner or later someone will succeed.

The root is after all, just a glorified "phone book", translating one kind of name into another kind of name (we pretend that IP addresses are numbers, but they really are just names constructed of digits).  

At this point ICANN's root has the trust and the mindshare, but that is a fragile thing and ICANN could easily lose the trust/mindshare.  Initiating support for another root just requires a bit of energy that  so far, no one has managed.  Sooner or later, one will emerge - someone just needs to put in the effort.  

Count on it.

> 
>> 
>> Civil society needs to participate in any and all activities and needs to stand up to the business and government interests in all fora..  Are you suggesting that civil society leave certain venues only to business interests?
> 
> I am suggesting that this caucus spends all of its time and energy on
> "stuff"  that makes zero (or near enough to zero) impact on the
> Internet.

I think you misjudge the vectors that might have an influence now or in the future.    I think civil society has to find a way to participate in all of it, and not just the ones who currently seem to be key.

> 
>> 
>> I think civil society must participate in all of it and not limit itself to a few venues.
> 
> Agreed, but we focus on IGF (and now Gs 8 & 20) and not on processes
> where actual policy is made.
> 

Many of us do focus in ICANN.  And though it sometimes seems like a losing proposition for civil society, lots of people keep banging their heads against that particular brick wall.

As for the RIRs, they have a self declared control on IP addresses.  One that is only partial over IPv4, but will be complete over IPv6 (could this be a reason for pushing it so hard?).  Replacing IP addressing is hard, a lot harder, than replacing DNS naming.  But also this control is more prone to national attack and thus requires more energy to defend.  The policy making of these organizations is open, but it is particularistic and takes a high degree of energy and expense for people to have an effect on.  So yes, it is good that people get involved in RIPE and ARIN etc...  and civil society is involved Milton has led the way and as you intimated once, we need more Miltons to take on the RIRs.

But even among the RIRs coordination is an iffy thing, and one that certainly does not seem to be open to the rest of us.   If we want to have any sort of voice at the NRO level, or on its shadow puppet the ASO,  we need to apply multistakeholder pressure from outside. Multistakeholder pressure requires governement particpation at this point in history and thus yes, we need to work with individual governments, G8, G20, ..., the OECD, the UN etc.  And we even need to work with business and the internet community, we just should not be overtaken by any them, and should not assume their good will toward civil society.

a.

ps: if it seems that i have become more outspoken all of a sudden it is because i no longer have any role that requires me to be neutral.  as someone said, i am free now.

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