[governance] [bestbits] Fwd: Is the Internet Really Free of US Control?

Mon Oct 17 09:07:07 EDT 2016

On Monday 17 October 2016 05:20 PM, Marianne Franklin wrote:
>
> Dear Parminder
>
> Thanks for sending over this piece in a growing literature on ICANN
> and it future.
>
> Just to note that Pranesh's less than celebratory analysis for the
> ICANN transition has been published on the openDemocracy series, Human
> Rights and the Internet, at
> https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaLiberties/pranesh-prakash/jurisdiction-taboo-topic-at-icann.
>
>
Thanks Marianne,

Yes, absolutely not at all celebratory! I had read it a few months back,
and should have had it in my mind when I made that comment. But then,
isnt it surprising that when two of the very few CS groups in India
consider that not much has happened with the so called 'transition' in
terms of loosening of US control over ICANN, there is simply no murmurs
in the CS community globally to actually take this issue up - in a
political manner, like making a statement and so on. I may repeat what I
have said so many tomes earlier - in all the multistakeholder meetings
that I saw organised in India in the transition processes it was always
concluded that there are two key issues to sort out - an 'external'
oversight mechanism, and jurisdiction issue. What we have is an
oversight which is hardly external, and the jurisdiction issue is being
completely buried. But still it seems that everyone -- more or less -- 
is just celebrating the 'transition' with no critical take being adopted.

As Pranesh's article points out, seeking a host country agreement or in
other words jurisdictional immunity for ICANN from the US was the demand
of Internet Governance Caucus in 2005. The all round social- political
importance of the domain name system has only greatly enhanced in the
last 10 years, and so the US's jurisdictional control over it should be
ever less acceptable -- but why is no major civil society group today
able to get up and say the same thing which IGC said and asked for in
2005? Especially when a process is actually taking place which is
formally examining the jurisdiction question. I sometimes participate in
that ICANN WG on jurisdiction, where every effort is on to bury this
question - and i finds almost no civil society voice there.

People here may want to ponder this question - has the US stranglehold
on the IG discourse actually tightened since then - meaning WSIS in
2005? Or perhaps there could be other reasons, which I did not think of,
and others can enlighten me on. (not addressed to you Marianne :), it is
general)

Parminder

PS: Excuse me to cc this to IGC list, where a similar discussion is
on... Those who respond may exercise discretion whether they want to
respond to both elists or one of them.

> best
>
> MF
>
>
> On 15/10/2016 15:48, parminder wrote:
>>
>> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>> Subject: 	Is the Internet Really Free of US Control?
>> Date: 	Sat, 15 Oct 2016 20:11:26 +0530
>> From: 	parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
>> To: 	governance at lists.igcaucus.org <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>,
>> &lt <" bestbits\""@lists.bestbits.net>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi All
>>
>> I wrote this commentary piece in the Economic and Political Weekly of
>> India on ICANN's oversight transition. For such an important and
>> multi-faceted event, it is surprising that I have come across no
>> article that is other than absolutely celebratory about it, and
>> catches properly the different nuances that are involved. Such a
>> monochromatic discourse in the global IG space is not a good
>> indication. There is an especial lack of views from a progressive and
>> social justice perspective, and from the geopolitical South, both of
>> which I have tried to catch in this brief article. 
>>
>>
>>   *Internet Governance: Is the Internet Really Free of US Control?*
>>
>> "The recent decision of the United States government to cede its
>> control over the internet’s naming and addressing system to the
>> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a
>> US-based international non-profit body, is heralded as a significant
>> step towards the globalisation of internet’s core infrastructure. But
>> with ICANN having no special jurisdictional immunity and subject to
>> the whims of the judicial and legislative branches of the US
>> government as well as many of its executive agencies, the decision
>> seems more symbolic than meaningful."
>>
>> http://www.epw.in/journal/2016/42/web-exclusives/internet-governance.html
>>
>> Comments are welcome.
>> parminder
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
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>
> -- 
> Marianne Franklin, PhD
> Professor of Global Media and Politics
> Convener: Global Media & Transnational Communications Program
> Goldsmiths (University of London)
> Department of Media & Communications
> New Cross, London SE14 6NW
> Tel: +44 207 9197072
> <m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk>
> @GloComm
> http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/franklin/
> Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet)
> Steering Committee/Former Co-Chair Internet Rights & Principles Coalition )
> www.internetrightsandprinciples.org
> @netrights
>
> Special Series Editor, Human Rights and the Internet 
> https://www.opendemocracy.net/hri
>
> Digital Dilemmas: Power, Resistance and the Internet (Oxford University Press) 
> http://global.oup.com/academic/product/digital-dilemmas-9780199982707?cc=nl&lang=en&q=Digital%20dilemmas&tab=reviews# 
>
> Championing Human Rights on the Internet (I-VI) 
> https://www.opendemocracy.net/marianne-franklin/championing-human-rights-on-internet-part-six-summing-up-too-much-or-not-enough
>
> “What does (the Study of) World Politics Sound Like?” 
> co-authored with Matt Davies in World Politics and Popular Culture: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies
> http://www.e-ir.info/2015/04/22/edited-collection-popular-culture-and-world-politics/   

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