Memo to John Markoff: There are no “do overs” in history

Think for a moment of the enduring legacy of African slavery in America. Think of the way it tainted this country's culture and politics; think of the bloody Civil War, the ghettos and race riots after emancipation, the distorted interpersonal relations, the segregated housing patterns. What if we could roll back the clock and ensure that our society was “designed” so that slavery was never permitted?

Would you give me 20 million dollars to conduct research on that possibility? Would you think I was an honest man if I implied that my research would “fix” racism? Probably not.

But what if I told you that my computer science lab was working on a “new Internet” that would solve all the security and privacy problems of the existing one? Would you find this claim more credible than a proposed retroactive solution to the problem of slavery?

Could DoC nominee benefit Internet governance, help globalize ICANN?

Wednesday's announcement by the Obama administration, that former Washington state governor Gary Locke has been nominated as the next Secretary of Commerce could be a good sign for Internet governance, and the continued globalization of the ICANN regime. The Chinese-American Locke brings key political capital and experience to the table. He is well respected within and has access to the most senior levels of the Chinese government. And his firm, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, has deep expertise in Internet policy, having represented companies in China and on ICANN issues related to free expression. But, if confirmed, he will have his work cut out for him.

2nd International Workshop on Global Internet Governance: An Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction

The a href=”http://giganet.igloogroups.org/”>Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) invites you to participate in a scholarly workshop to be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 11 May 2009. This full day workshop is organized in cooperation with three thematic sections of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA): International and Intercultural Communication (IIC), Communication and Democracy (CD), Communication, Law and Policy (CLP) sections. Building on the success of its first edition in Paris, France, in June 2008, the purpose of this workshop is the presentation and discussion of work-in-progress in Internet Governance-related research with the aim to identify emerging research themes and design a research agenda.

Field Guide to the ICANN Reforms (Part 2): September 2006 Diagnosis: The GNSO Needs Fixing

The current round of ICANN reforms started in September 2006, when the London School of Economics Public Policy Group released a report assessing ICANN's Supporting Organization that makes policy for domain names. In its recommendations, LSE suggested that GNSO be restructured into three basic groupings: Registration Interests (registries and registrars), Businesses, and Civil Society. There was no way around it: in addition to some sensible but less controversial changes, ICANN’s own hired experts were proposing a major redistribution of power in the GNSO.

A Field Guide to the ICANN Reforms

Important changes are taking place in ICANN’s representational structures. They are the most sweeping changes in ICANN since the so-called “evolution and reform” process of 2001-2. The new changes will directly affect opportunities for people to participate in ICANN – hopefully in a more positive way. Indeed, there are some (potentially) good things about the planned reforms, such as a more balanced representation of commercial and noncommercial users and more flexible working group structures. But there are also serious problems and dangers in this effort.

That is why the Internet Governance Project is initiating a series of blogs explaining and analyzing the structural changes underway in ICANN. If you think reading about this topic is about as appealing as getting a tetanus shot, we sympathize, and promise to make it as lively and interesting as possible. At the very least, we guarantee that reading this unfolding report will be more pleasurable than reading the 23 different ICANN staff reports, 5-6 Board resolutions, months of Council minutes and multiple email lists you would have to monitor to piece it all together for yourself.

EU posts online consultation results on “Internet of Things”

Europe is very interested in the Internet of the future, having ceded to the United States so much of the standards and governance of the Internet of the past. A September 29, 2008 European Union staff working paper, “Early Challenges to the Internet of Things,” shot some policy concerns across the bow. How should the IoT be regulated? EU seemed especially concerned about the apparent linkage between the Object Naming System (ONS) used by EPC Global (contracting with VeriSign) and the U.S.-controlled DNS root. Comment upon and responses to this staff paper are now posted online. If you are interested in the evolution of thinking about IoT a look through these comments might be rewarding.