Previous institutional developments monitored by the Internet Governance Project are listed below.
Institutional Developments Archive
- The Burr proposal: Beginning of the end of unilateral control of the DNS Root? - 18 July 2006
The results of the recent NTIA consultation made it clear that there is no real public or industry support for unilateral control of the DNS root by the U.S. government. A global campaign orchestrated by IGP generated comments from 32 countries in seven regions arguing against it. IGP's official filing offered a detailed rationale for that position. Several ccTLD operators incorporated similar positions into their comments. Even those not so enthusiastic about internationalization, such as the Washington-based, business-supported public interest group Center for Democracy & Technology, damned US control with faintest of praise. But what was perhaps most noteworthy was the almost complete absence of any strong or extended comments in favor of the current oversight situation.
The latest and most interesting sign of the handwriting on the wall is a proposal being circulated by G. Beckwith Burr, the former Commerce Department official who mediated the creation of ICANN in 1998. Entitled, "Steps the U.S. Government Can Take to Promote Responsible, Global, Private Sector Management of the DNS," the four step proposal can be downloaded here.
The well-thought out proposal asks the US to begin by "clearly articulating the purpose of residual governmental authority over the root," and asks for a commitment not to use that authority except to "preserve the technical stability and security of the Internet and/or the DNS." It then proposes the immediate creation of an international working group that would monitor changes in the root. The composition of the proposed group and the procedures by which it would organize consultation and intervention are interesting and deserve careful scrutiny, as they are likely to be the controversial elements of the plan. The proposal also asks the US to "lead by example," eschewing intervention in ICANN and demonstrating commitment to the principle of private sector and civil society governance with governments in an advisory role. Finally, it calls for strengthening ICANN's accountability mechanisms.
Burr is circulating the proposal and asking for endorsements. So far, she has received at least one endorsement, from telecom industry lobbyist Marilyn Cade. IGP has not endorsed the proposal at this time, but is studying it and will issue an analysis later. However, the first, third and fourth steps of the proposal correspond closely to what IGP has already proposed in its NTIA comments. - New WHOIS definition survives Marrakech ICANN meeting - 01 July 06
For now, it appears that the new, more technically focused and privacy-friendly definition of the purpose of Whois survived the Marrakech meeting. The U.S. Government and the copyright and law enforcement interests mounted a major onslaught against the GNSO action, using the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as their pressure point. But it became clear during a lively GAC-GNSO open meeting that there is no unity among goverments on this issue. The Whois Task Force of the GNSO will continue its work based on the current definition. But there is still a lot of uncertainty about how to apply the new definition and how and to what extent law enforcement interests will be acommodated under it.
On April 12 the GNSO redefined the purpose of Whois in a way that prepared the way for restricting publicly displayed data to that required to meet ICANN's basic technical coordination mission. Ever since then, ICANN has received about a dozen letters from organizations or interest groups either objecting to or supporting the new purpose definition. A number of copyright associations, such as INTA and AIPLA, have weighed in -- but so did the European Commission's Article 29 Working Group and other privacy advocates. For what may be the first time in its history, ICANN has adopted a neutral approach to publishing correspondence on a controversial issues on its website. You can see the results here.
In one of the high points of the meeting, Nokia trademark lawyer Lucy Nichols, one of three GNSO Councillors representing the intellectual property constituency, said that while she had voted against the new formulation the vote was over, her position had lost, and it was time to move on. The remark enraged her colleagues, known for their intransigence during the Whois debates and their repeated tendency to work through the US government whenever they fail to get what they want from ICANN processes. We probably won't see Nichols on the Council for much longer, but she is not that isolated; other trademark lawyers approached various people on the other side of the fence during the meeting in a similar spirit. There is a growing sense that this issue needs to be resolved. As Board member Susan Crawford put it, "world wars have taken less time than the Whois debates."
At an unprecedented joint GAC-GNSO meeting of two hours on Monday, US Commerce Department official Suzanne Sene continued her practice of only permitting law enforcement agencies to speak before the GAC on the Whois issue. (After several GAC-organized Whois sessions, not a single data protection official has ever been allowed to speak.) Three speakers, the Dutch telecommunication regulator, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Japanese consumer protection agency, were allowed to make their case for why Whois data should be available.
But this was not a typical GAC meeting -- the attending public was actually allowed to ask questions. Milton Mueller of Internet Governance Project opened the discussion with three pointed questions, 1) asking spam regulators how open, unlimited publication of contact addresses and emails could possibly be construed as necessary to fight spam; 2) whether ccTLDs that shield data for privacy reasons had produced insurmountable law enforcement problems; and 3) whether national laws, such as requiring commercial web site operators to publish their data, could provide what these consumer protection agencies needed while allowing ICANN's approach to focus on a more limited technical coordination role. The Dutch regulator immediately admitted that he did not think the data should be totally open but wanted a tiered access system; the FTC representative basically ducked all three questions, but tried to claim that Whois was not a source of information for spammers. He was corrected by several questioners later and backed down from that position.
In various presentations, the GNSO's Chair Bruce Tonkin tried to explain the new purpose definition and contended that it had been misunderstood, but mostly he only managed to muddy the waters, at times seeming to claim that the new purpose definition would be no more restrictive than the current, wide-open Whois. Tonkin tried to accommodate the US governmental pressure by asking the Council to clarify its new purpose definition and for those who voted for it to explain why they did so. The confusion sown by Tonkin was reflected in the GAC communique, which reads in part: "The GAC appreciates the interpretation of the GNSO Council Chair that formulation 1 does not imply that a decision has been taken to remove any data from public access."
Still, the final GAC communique that emerged was forced to admit that there was no unity among governments: "Some ...GAC members also expressed concerns regarding the implications for enforcement of laws of the recent GNSO Council decision on a definition on the purpose of WHOIS data. Some GAC members expressed concerns that formulation 2 [the status quo definition] would also not provide an appropriate definition for the purposes of WHOIS." - NTIA issues call for public comment on the future of ICANN and its political oversight - 23 May 2006
In a flashback to the 1998 global debate over the formation of ICANN, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced today it would seek public comment "on the continuation of the transition of the technical coordination and management of the Internet domain name and addressing system (Internet DNS) to the private sector." In addition, the DoC will hold a public meeting on July 26, 2006, in Washington D.C. to discuss issues associated with the progress of the transition in light of the impending expiration of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between DoC and ICANN on September 30, 2006. Comments are due on or before July 7, 2006, and can be submitted to DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov ...read the NTIA notice and comments and view the expiring MoU - .XXX Challenge - 19 May 2006
On Friday, May 19, 2006, ICM Registry announced that it would file a reconsideration request with ICANN. ICM Registry applied for the .XXX top level domain from ICANN and was turned down May 10 following pressure on ICANN from the US government. It is also filing a judicial appeal under the Freedom of Information Act to challenge redactions and omissions from the internal US government documents released to it under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. In connection with its judicial appeal, ICM Registry released 88 pages of documents obtained under the FOIA showing how the U.S. handled its application. Even with the major redactions, these documents show how US supervision of ICANN was influenced by domestic political pressure. They leave no room for doubt that the US altered its policy toward ICANN in response to this pressure, and that it actively worked in tandem with ICANN to conceal the nature and significance of US governmental influence over ICANN from the media. ...Read the IGP summary of the FOIA'd documents and view the documents themselves - ICANN votes against .xxx, Board
members and EU dissent - 10 May 2006
In a move with negative ramifications for it's institutional credibility, the ICANN Board voted 9-5 against a proposed agreement for a .xxx Sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD). Board member Susan Crawford, who voted in favor of the agreement, issued a strong dissent arguing that "we should not run the risk of turning ICANN into a convenient chokepoint for the content-related limitations desired by particular governments around the world." The EU meanwhile highlighted the correspondence between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce over .xxx as a clear case of political "interference," calling for "the need to make ICANN independent quickly." ...read Crawford's statement and the EU statement - ARIN hit with lawsuit surrounding
IP address allocation - 28 April 2006
A lawsuit filed against IP address allocation and assignment authority ARIN raises important questions about property rights and the allocation of the IP address space. Gary Kremen, winner of a long legal battle over the sex.com domain name, won a court decision in 2001 giving him the assets of the person who stole the sex.com domain from him back in 199X. Among those assets was a significant block of IP addresses. When Kremen attempted to recover the IP addresses, ARIN's management applied its standard policies which require detailed information about the customers, assets, engineering, topology, and deployment schedules of its network. Kremen balked.
Kremen's lawyer, X Kronenberger, claimed in the press that "ARIN hands out IP addresses in a kind of contract of adhesion...in addition to the applicant having to give extensive details about how they intend to use the block of addresses, ARIN can take the block away without any justification."
ARIN has not publicly commented on the case, but its philosophy has typically been that IP addresses are public resources not subject to private ownership and that it assumes the role of "steward" or central planner for these resources. ...read the legal brief - US creates Global Internet Freedom Task Force - 14 February 2006
The US Statement Department launched the Global Internet Freedom Task Force in order to ensure "a robust US foreign policy response" to the international issues and human rights concerns caused by the expansion of the Internet including: "the use of technology to restrict access to political content and the impact of censorship efforts on US companies; the use of technology to track and repress dissidents; and efforts to modify Internet governance structures in order to restrict the free flow of information..." - US Government re-asserts its control over Internet DNS - 30 June 2005
In a short speech setting out "U.S. principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System," Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Gallagher stated that the U.S. Government will "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." As a newcomer to the debate, Mr. Gallagher probably was unaware that the Commerce Department's "historic" role is less than 7 years old, and was accompanied by explicit promises to release that power to the private sector after two years. Until only a few months ago, the US was announcing its intention to terminate its oversight role in the middle of 2006. For documentation of the vacillation in US policy, see Michael Froomkin's blog. IGP is developing a response which will be aired at its July 28 event in Washington D.C.
