The United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union are trying to wrest control of domain names and DNS and IP addresses from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This battle manifests itself through the United Nations-created World Summit on the Information Society and the ITU-led Working Group on Internet Governance.
Both the United Nations and the ITU have their reasons for trying to take control of these vital resources from ICANN. For the United Nations, ICANN represents a body that transcends the nation state structure and could become a model for similar efforts covering subject matter most appropriately dealt with at a global level.
For the ITU, gaining control of core Internet resources represents an opportunity to put the Internet genie back in the bottle and gain a greater measure of relevance in the IP networking world. The ITU doesn't see itself as merely an overseer of the old circuit-switched networks, which it presides over today. Rather, it views itself as the overseer of all networks, including the Internet.
While ICANN has its flaws, it also possesses important and unique characteristics. Two are worthy of special note.
First, ICANN's form of governance explicitly includes policy, technical, business and user interests under one roof. Each interest group has a formal role and voice in both policy making and governance. Each has a stake in the proceedings, and each is an important part of the system. (Yes, users' voices need be heard more, and as an active participant in the ICANN process and member of the 2005 ICANN Nominating Committee, I will continue to work toward that goal.) Having these combined interests explicitly inside the process avoids some of the perversions that we have seen in other forms of governance, campaign finance being perhaps the starkest example.
Second, ICANN is a truly global organization. It is global in the sense that the individuals involved each represent one of the above-mentioned interests but not national governments. This is an important concept, in that the Internet is truly a global resource, but it is this unique element that creates the greatest challenge. We have no model for managing a global resource of this nature. There are numerous models for managing international resources--resources being managed between nations--but that is not what the Internet is.
In this regard, ICANN mirrors the Internet in that it works by "rough consensus." The checks and balances are systemic. This is what has allowed for the price of domain names to drop by 50 percent to 75 percent over the last five years, while service levels have increased dramatically. This is what has allowed the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Process to eliminate cybersquatting of trademarks.
The World Summit on Information Society contains 40 delegates, including members from Cuba, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Pakistan, Syria, Russia and Egypt. If the United Nations controlled domain names and IP addresses, the ability of countries to censor the Internet would be greatly enhanced, as would the ability to tax or impose other regulatory burdens on these resources in order to fund unrelated projects of any kind.
In fact, if the United Nations and the ITU were successful, it is not difficult to envision a balkanization of the Internet, as whole portions of the network decided they did not want to rely on the United Nations and the ITU for their single authoritative root. If that balkanization were to take place, the damage to the global economy would be incalculable.
In addition, these Internet governance positions would not be plum United Nations postings. We could expect to see the likes of Internet pioneer Vint Cerf replaced by some dictator's wife's third cousin.
To be clear, ICANN is a not-for-profit California corporation that nominally reports to the U.S. Department of Commerce. It operates under a memorandum of understanding with the agency that is reviewed and renewed in six-month intervals.
Despite this, ICANN is not American--it is global. There are three Americans on a 15-person board of directors. There are six Americans on the 22-person generic names-supporting organization council, the main policy-making body. Two Americans are on the 10-person at-large advisory council. There has not been a meeting in the United States since November 2001, and the earliest possibility of a U.S. meeting is in June 2007, a 17-meeting gap. (The last North American meeting was in Montreal in June 2003, and the next is in Vancouver, British Columbia, in December.)
As for it being representative, ICANN has always had one prerequisite for involvement: a willingness to take the time and effort to participate. There is active representation from Internet communities from around the world. The level of participation, the quality of participation and the output of the process have steadily improved over ICANN's history.
Neither the United Nations nor the ITU can make any of these claims. Participation in their processes requires a position with a national government or a telecommunications monopoly, neither of which are known for their deep appreciation and understanding of the Internet.
There is no doubt that both the United Nations and the ITU are much more adept at politics than either ICANN staff or the vast majority of participants in the ICANN process. That makes the threat here all the more real.
It is important to remember that we all rely on the rich ecosystem that is the free Internet. We are all beneficiaries of the innovation it spawns, the information it provides and the interaction it supports. We cannot take this for granted.
Companies that rely on a free Internet--and there are few technology companies that don't--need to become active in the ICANN process through the business or ISP Constituencies. Other institutions and nonprofits need to get involved through the noncommercial constituency.
Companies, institutions and individuals from around the world that have access to their governments' decision makers need to let them know that the Internet needs to stay free and that supporting ICANN supports that principle. Individuals who care about the future of the Internet and believe they can contribute to creating a better ICANN and preserving a freer Internet should think about the ICANN-nominating committee's call for Statements of Interest, which seeks qualified candidates to help the organization move forward.
The Internet has contributed more to freedom, education and innovation than any other advance of the last number of decades. It deserves to be protected from the people and the institutions that do not share an appreciation for preserving the values on which the Internet was founded.
Biography
Elliot Noss is president and CEO of Tucows, an Internet services company. Tucows is a domain name registrar and both participates in the ICANN process and benefits from it. Noss is a member of the 2005 ICANN Nominating Committee.
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I don't use the term "hacker" in the loose sense the average citizen is familiar with (ie the random teenager who brings a company to its knees just to get his kicks and to show his power.) I use it in the truer sense that Hackers are the beloved members of the IT industry that help move the internet along. The biggest example of true hackers are at opensource sites like www.sourceforge.net.
What the politicians don't realize by doing something like this is that they are attempting to remove the technical experts from their leadership positions because they aren't politicians not because they don't do an excellent job.
Why do the governments of the world have the desire to put their hands in everything, especially where they not only don't belong but aren't qualified for.
I imagine that if the UN does manage to wrest control from ICANN there will end up being two versions of the internet. The government controlled version which will have the ammenaties that we have become accustomed to and the "underground" which will have to take a step backward and in turn will have more support from the people that really know the internet and how it works.
I suppose what my point is I would rather type www.google.com into my browser instead of 66.102.7.104 it is just easier. ICANN made that possible not the UN not the US not any government on the planet can claim responsiblity.
We need to protect the internet from those who are trying, yet would fail, to protect us.
As users we fight for the involvement of ITU and their cooperation with ICANN so we/the world cease to be under the single ICANN and USG dominance. The USG supports the WSIS against ICANN for the simple reason as everyone: ICANN does not deliver and IAB/IESG/IEFT does not listen to ICANN and to users. IETF never wanted to care about ICANN's call for experimenting DNS development, so now we are going to face what we did not experiment. This may be surprising. No chance that ICANN can address that mess. May be ITU can help if they join forces.
In democracy States are here to protect the rights of citizens (even in the USA I suppose). Only non technically informed people (or politically biased/disinformed people) can fear ITU involvement. A broad part of the Internet concepts come from ITU or have beed developed in common. ITU is the bad guy which invented ADSL, low cost banwidth, etc. Opposing ICANN and ITU is as suprising than opposing arms and legs. Since some keep doing it, 190 unanimous Govs asked ICANN to leave the room (Twomey was not happy) and requested the head (UN Secretary) to document that arms/legs story. To understand what to do.
If some hackers want to stay with current Internet, there is no problem. The current version of Internet is technically a complete default version. What we need is to use the differnt parameters towards some more adequate offers. ICANN has asked IETF to experiment this four years ago. IETF is not interested (at least for the time being).
We will see. If someone hi-jacked the internet, it is ICANN and the pity is it does not know what to do with it... just to keep it the way it was in 1986. Some love antics. Not much useful.
- At-Large and individual user representation...
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by mnemonician
June 9, 2005 9:32 AM PDT
- In his article, Elliot Noss makes the point that:
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Reply to this comment
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(4 Comments)"ICANN's form of governance explicitly includes policy, technical, business and user interests under one roof. Each interest group has a formal role and voice in both policy making and governance. Each has a stake in the proceedings, and each is an important part of the system. (Yes, users' voices need be heard more, and as an active participant in the ICANN process and member of the 2005 ICANN Nominating Committee, I will continue to work toward that goal.)"
When ICANN was first formulated, provision was made in its By-Laws for the representation of individual users/registrants via the ICANN At-Large membership and called for a total of nine globally elected At-Large ICANN Board Directors. Sadly, one of the first major organizational moves by ICANN was to whittle way at the At-Large directorates and finally to do away with the token two -of an originally slated total of nine- ICANN At-Large Directorships! Simply put, ICANN went from being an open and representative organization that held the first successful global election in history, to a functionary of corporate interests and IP lawyers. What difference will it really make to users and individuals at this point if the ITU or the UN do take control of the Internet's DNS...? Fact is, the international telephone system works just fine and individual users have about as much say in its functioning as they do in ICANN.
If ICANN apologists wish to impress upon individual users the benefits of ICANN internet oversight, they really must account for the fact that ICANN has done very little for (and actively selected against) representing the interests of the overwhelmingly vast majority of the DNS system's users: individual registrants and small business.