AW: [governance] U.N. takeover of the Internet must be stopped, U.S. warns

Fri Jun 1 04:39:45 EDT 2012

Hi Marilia,

I fully support the spirit of your mail. Good and reasonable points. I wrote an article "Beyond ITU vs. ICANN" ten years ago and, as you have outlined, unfortunately the "good guys vs. bad guys" mechanism continues (very often without any justifiable reason or just for a domestic purpose (in the US) to be treated by an un-informed broader public as the "saver of the freedom of the Internet" in an election year). So far so god (or bad).

But let me take your points one step further and comment on one concrete point:

You say: "a) there is no way to justify US privilege position with ICANN. That needs to be changed;"

I agree in principle but I would like to find out what in your opinion are the privileges your are talking about. IMHO the AoC has ended a lot of the "privileges" which were the subject of criticism in Tunis. The remaining "privileges" of the USG are
a. the right to authorize the publication of TLD zone files in the root (related to the IANA function which includes, inter alia, a trilateral contractual arrangement with ICANN and VeriSign, the manager of the Hidden Root Server) and 
b. to have a permanent seat in the A&T Review team. 

Interestingly, the controversial .xxx case had a rather unnoticed sideeffect. It demonstrated that the USG executes its "authorization function" as a neutral stewart of the Internet community. As you remember, the USG - following pressure from the US Congress and parts of the US public opinion - was rather critical against .xxx. The EU Commissioner Nelly Kroes wrote a letter to Strickling just after the San Francisco ICANN meeting (where the ICANN Board voted in favour of .xxx) and encouraged him to postpone or stop the authorization of the publication of the .xxx zone file in the root. But NTIA, which is the responsible unit within the USG/DOC, followed just the ICANN/IANA procedure and respected the outcome of the (controversial) transparent and bottom up process executed by ICANN. 

What would be your proposal to change this procedure? Do you propose an alternative mechanism for the authorization of TLD zone files in the root? With the new gTLD programm we will have probably hundreds of controversial cases soon.  Ideas to transfer this function to an intergovernmental body (a UN like Internet Security Council as discussed by WGIG in 2005 or a G 12, as proposed by EU Commissioner Reding in 2010) proofed to be bad ideas. To give the proposed CIRP an authority to approve finally TLD strings (as it was indirectly intended in the Indian proposal which wanted to give oversight functions over ICANN to the CIRP, which would include certainly also the authorization issue) is obviously also a bad idea. 

To give the GAC - where all governments have an equal role - an "early warning" and "advice" option under the established new gTLD program seems to me reasonable. Do you believe this is not sufficient and another body should be established to make the final decision? What would happen if all the 2000 new gTLD proposals - after they are adopted by ICANN - would need an authorization decision backed by a consensus among the members of an intergovernmental council of 12, 51 or 190 UN member states? With other words, do you have any concrete idea how the existing (and working) mechanism for the authorization of TLD zone files in the root can be further improved (enhanced) respecting also the interests of developing countries and civil society in a better way without damaging the future development of the Internet?

The second point: The permanent seat for the USG in one of the four AoC review teams. What is your proposal here? I agree fully, that the review sofar did not produce the expected results. The (mutlistakeholder and decentralized) review mechanism as such is an interesting innovation and has great potential to be developed into an oversight mechanisms with "hard teeth". The first round was done in a rush. Both the governmental representatives from China and the EU were not satisfied with the procedures. The outcome was rather weak and very general. Implementation of even this weak recommendations takes time. However lets wait what the other reviews teams will produce. We will have more knowledge if the four reviews are completed. 

A second round has to go far beyond. In my eyes, the "transparency and accountability" review is central and one should start already now to prepare for the second round which starts 2013/2014. The good thing is, that civil society (via the ALAC) has also a permanent seat in this review! Any concrete proposals how to improve this mechaism? 

Wolfgang

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