Page History

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• State authorities catching up on the Internet
  

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  *\[ detail India proposal for Internet governance body at UN, India/SouthAfrica move at IGF \]*

  
  From its inception, ICANN was meant to operate according to an innovative model of governance, based on equivalent duties and responsibilities for all stakeholders, including state authorities (“governments”) represented in ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC).
  In the first decade of ICANN’s history, state authorities demonstrated an unequal degree of interest in the GAC, but most have become aware of what is at stake, and are now engaged in a debate about their role, with particular emphasis on public policy.
  In this debate, some countries have articulated specific proposals aimed at strengthening the role of states in ICANN. The most recent, proposed by India /provide references/, calls for the setting up of an international body under the aegis of the UN, which would be the ultimate locus of decision in matters of Internet governance.
  In ICANN’s historic and current structure, the role of states is “advisory”, whereas the proposal by India, and others, would aim at placing them above the other stakeholders, thus initiating a complete departure from the very principles on which the multi-stakeholder model is built.
  Some states, aware of having given insufficient attention to Internet matters in general, and to their own representation in the GAC, are now tempted to make up for lost time by proposing or supporting models which would allow them to demonstrate to their population how involved they are, even at the cost of jeopardizing the multi-stakeholder model.

• The dilemma of states, between laisser faire and interventionism  (JJS)
  

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  *\[ refer to ITU activity, Russian complaints, Strickling scoldings \]*

  
  

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  *\[ Why did ICANN need to “affirm its committments”? Who else has ever needed to do that? \]*

  
  In trying to compensate for past indifference or neglect towards Internet matters, a number of states are now reasserting the primacy of the inter-governmental model they are most comfortable with. For some states, the easy way out is to designate an existing inter-governmental body, such as the ITU in Geneva. In this regard, the position of the USA seems to have become ambiguous.
  Why did Washington engineer an “Affirmation of Commitments” (AoC) with ICANN? Was Washington afraid that other governments might want to hand over Internet governance to an inter-governmental agency which would jeopardize the multi-stakeholder system? Was it just a way of extending the previous “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) between the US and ICANN, in a way that softly re-asserted Washington’s oversight?
  Implementing the right model is of importance not only in Internet governance. Some of the major challenges of our time require exactly the multi-stakeholder approach on which ICANN was built, in order to spare our ecosystem and to ensure the sustainability of human activity. The recent international conference on Climate Change (COP-17 in Durban, 5-9 December 2011) was a case in point, and it is the failure of some states to acknowledge the scientific evidence that delivered a mediocre result. In this sense, the Internet has evolved into a structure analogous to our planet’s ecosystem: it is pervasive, and each of its components has an impact on all the others. It is striking to note to what extent some national positions are over-determined by financial and industrial interests, whereas the challenges we face are of greater magnitude than those interests, and deserve a longer-term view. On Climate Change, with Obama as President, the United States (and indeed Canada) are now defending positions on which even China has evolved. On freedom of speech and the protection of human rights on the Internet, the Patriot Act and other features of Homeland Security now place the USA in the same category as Russia, China, Iran...

• • The difficult relationship between ICANN and its own governmental advisory board has long been evident, but came to a (very piublic) head during an emergency meeting held in Brussels June 2011 between the GAC and the ICANN Board, a meeting characterized by some as “marred by name-calling and disagreement”#. A “scorecard” outlining governmental problems with the gTLD program was only partially addressed. Indeed, the very nature of the meetings -- having bilateral talks with the GAC as opposed to having governments as an integral part of cross-community policy design -- led to solutions that disappointed most.
    This relationship remains fragile. The Board explicitly rejected the GAC (along with ALAC) explicitly and directly calling for fee reductions for qualified TLD applicants from lesser developed economies. In its place, the ICANN Board insisted upon its staff’s own formula (never initiated or supported by any stakeholder group) of having needy applicants compete against each other for support from a fixed fund.
    GAC concerns about the need for better involvement of law enforcement related to public protection in matters related to ICANN have been resisted by the domain industry, as witnessed by the curt and argumentative exchanges on the issue during the GAC / GNSO meeting held at the Dakar ICANN conferece in late 2011#.
  • ICANN’s stewardship over the domain name system has already started to see seen its first private sector challenges. After initially denying the request for an .XXX top-level domain, an independent review (launched in response to a complaint by the .XXX applicant) indicated that ICANN broke its own rules in the rejection#. Fearing a subsequent lawsuit by the applicant, ICANN approved the domain and is now the subject of multiple lawsuits from within the industry intended to be served bt the .XXX domain#.
    As well, the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), supported by major advertisers and brands has been a major critic of the new gTLD program, has made representations against the program before the US Congress, and called for a full-scale audit of ICANN’s decision making processes#. It has hinted about the possibility of legal action to stop the launch of the program.

1.2 Threats to the relevance of the DNS

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• Search Engines: Google, Bing, and a number of other general and specialized search and portal sites will allow users to enter the name of a destination (company, place, individual) and find matches. The engine supplies sufficient detail to enable the user to find the appropriate destination regardless of its domain name, or if multiple choices exist. Cybersquatting is virtually eliminated for users who get to sites using this method; misspellings are usually pointed out to the user rather than sending them to “typosquatting” sites, and dangerous sites are flagged or removed
• Web browsers: Incorporating the search engine advantages listed above, both Firefox and Internet Explorer have integrated search engine windows right next to where one would type in a domain name. In Chrome the two are integrated into a single window, so a user need not know the domain of a destination to get there
• URL shortening services: Thanks to these relatively new services, a user need only remember a single domain name (usually very short ones such as “bit.ly” or “goo.gl”) and a code that could be either meaningless or completely descriptive (ie,  bit.ly/companyname)
• Social Media: Most Internet users now need go no further than a single domain to get to most of the Internet content they need: facebook.com. This, along with other social media sites such as Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin, enables end users to find the destinations they want through personal and organizational “home pages” on these sites. Often these sites verify identity for high-profile members, which instills more end-user trust than ICANN’s lax WHOIS system.
  Indeed, both Facebook and Twitter have enabled provided mechanisms by which individuals and companies (Facebook only) can “verify” their accounts. Such verification measures enable users to distinguish “official” sites without preventing fans and critics to offer their own onofficial forum areas. Such mesures, which are provided free of charge and reasonably easy to implement, offer a level of security to individuals and trademark owners while maintaining freedom of comment and end-user trust in the ability to quickly distinguish between primary sites and unofficial ones. There is much for ICANN to learn from these methods from the point of view of enhancing trust of information providers as well as end-users.
• Transition to mobile: As conventional cellphones are increasingly replaced by smartphones with browsing capability, newer methods are used to access web services without any end-user knowldge of the web domains being used. QR codes can be scanned from printed materials, and hundreds of thousands of standalone software applications make use of the Internet without the end-user ever needing to know a domain.
• The Wikileaks case: When Julian Assange made public what turned out to be the largest trove of classified raw material in modern times, the federal authorities in the USA reacted swiftly, condemning the exposure, warning students and military personnel that consulting Wikileaks could lead to prosecution, and blocking access to the website www.wikileaks.org . To counter this act of censorship, many individuals created and posted “mirror” sites on which Wikileaks could be consulted (e.g. www.wikileaks.ch ), with the hope that multiple replication would protect the project against authoritarian removal. Indeed, at one point when wikileaks Internet domains were being blocked by govrenments, organizers encouraged the public to access the site through its IP address, bypassing the domain name service completely. The influence of Wikileaks cannot be overstated, when considering the role it played in documenting the plutocratic practices rampant in, say, the Middle East, and which in turn encouraged activists using social media, who thus bypassed the constraints of the DNS in launching the “Arab Spring”.

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• Reduced growth of volunteer communities
  After an initial growth spurt, interest in ICANN from volunteer communities (that is, those with neither direct nor indirect financial interest in domain-based transactions) is waning. The number of new At-Large Structures joining is only a few per year -- in part thanks to a major reduction in ICANN outreach programs, but also because existing volunteers have felt excluded from the decision-making process. (That is, they must be part of a four-level At-Large infrastrcuture which itself has only advisory capacity through ALAC and has extreme difficulty getting heard (let alone heeded).
  In addition, some organizations wanting to become more fully part of the policy-making process are being shut out. The U.S. Olympic Committee, was refused entry to the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group of GNSO because its “perspective” was seen by existing NCSG members as too commercially oriented.  Being that the USOC -- regardless of its perspective -- is a non-profit entity, such a refusal indicates obstacles to new ideas that may be threatening to the status quo. Keeping such bodies out of the decision-making process only enforces perceptions of ICANN being controlled by an elite group, resisting “contamination” with unorthodox views.
• Disenfranchised stakeholders
  

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  *\[TBA\]*

• Staff turnover as an indicator of cohesiveness
  The current CEO of ICANN has on several occasions countered allegations that staff turnover was unusually high on his watch, by producing tables and figures. Yet many in the ICANN community believe that, as a result of some management choices and style, the cohesiveness within the organization has been eroded. Grievances point at the creation by the CEO of an additional office in California, close to his home; his subsequent absence from ICANN headquarters; the formation of a coterie around the CEO; and significant areas, including international and public relations, being entrusted to personal advisors, with questionable results.
  What is also at stake is the way in which the ICANN Board, and foremost its Chair as the natural interlocutor of the CEO, failed to exercise proper oversight over a substantial period (e.g. when the CEO informed the Board that one of the most senior members of ICANN’s leadership was resigning, barely before the news was out; Directors were dismayed that there had been no prior consultation between the Chair and the CEO).

• ATRT breaches
  

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  *\[TBA\]*

• Reduced morale (and willingness to defend the MSM)
  

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  *\[TBA\]*

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• Conflicts of Interest
  The rapid career change of the Board Chair towards a consultancy for registry parties -- immediately after pushing through a Board vote that will directly benefit his new employer -- may not violate any internal ICANN rules. However, it caused shock within the greater comnmunity and called ICANN’s reputation as a legitimate steward into question. Current practise throughout the policy making processes enables vested interests to actively influence outcomes as long as their interest is declared and made available publicly.
  Indeed, in contract negotiations between ICANN and domain registrars, the registrars (as a major component of the contract-development mechanism iof ICANN) “sit on both sides of the table”. The Vice President of ICANN has said, in testimony to the US Congress, that he must consult with registrars before implimenting a policy recommendation. And while most ICANN meetings are open to the public, a select series of meetings with registrars is closed.
  We note that registrars and registries do not have an independent trade association to  represent their interests within ICANN. The argument has been made that such a trade group is unnecessary because ICANN itself serves such a purpose.
  When this apparent level of control is coupled with ICANN’s poor track record of enforcing its regulations with registries and registrars, and why it tolerates inaccurate WHOIS and other record, the result is a very poor public perception of ICANN as a trustworthy independent agent of governance.

• Failure to be seen as a steward of the public interest.
  Steering ICANN has never been simple. Many in the domain name business (who prefer the term “industry”) argue that although their companies provide the largest part of ICANN’s budget, they have to accept the highly constraining process of a multi-stakeholder structure. Most in the At-Large community consider, on the contrary, that ICANN’s budget is provided for by users worldwide, so that registries and registrars, most of them in affluent countries, are simply intermediaries who take their due on the way, often with huge profit. Objectively, this complexity of the ICANN ecosystem makes it sometimes difficult to reconcile divergent views.
  ICANN, in its ambition to become truly international, should prove, through its action and discourse, that  indeed it considers itself the steward of the public interest.

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• Primary versus secondary stakeholders
  ICANN has clearly established itself as supporting the needs and priorities of the domain industry (Domain operators, registrars, resellers and consultants) over those of the general public which is not involved in the domain name trade.
  The very structors of its “supporting organizations” are limited to the creators, sellers and buyers of domains.
  

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  \[ More TBA \]

• What is the “public interest”
  A debate has recently been launched about ICANN’s commitment to upholding the public interest, as was recommended in the document on “Improving Institutional Confidence”

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  \[provide reference\]

  , and later enshrined in the “Affirmation of Commitments”

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  \[provide reference\]

  . Those who fear that this might somehow stint business opportunities, are now questioning the very notion of “the public interest”, and are resorting to the tactic of demanding its legal definition. And indeed, the difficulty in providing a single definition acceptable to all stakeholders is a convenient tool for procrastination. This demand for definition is reminiscent of the delaying tactics regarding new gTLDs, when some large incumbents, anxious to avoid any disruption to their acquired dominance, argued that additional “economic studies” were required before any step forward. Their views, and business interests, were ably relayed by some politicians at a federal level in the USA.
  If ICANN is to become a truly international entity, providing for an ever wider diversity of users, usages and cultures, it must evolve beyond its US origins to engage the world. But trends are pointing the other way: there is a growing discrepancy between a small number of (largely US) dominant players in the domain name business, and the unfolding reality of billions of Internet users who are emerging mainly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East. If the US were to implement the SOPA draft legislation, its fallout would be felt not only in the US, as countless individuals, communities and businesses around the world would be adversely affected. The rationale behind SOPA is preposterous: what the US will decide, the world shall implement.

• Do domains “add value” to the Internet
  

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  \[TBA\]

• Commodity versus identity
  

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  \[TBA\]

• Diversity versus confusion
  

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  \[TBA\] 

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