The Centre for Internet and Society
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CIS Comments: Enhancing ICANN Accountability
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-enhancing-icann-accountability
<b>On May 6, 2014, ICANN published a call for public comments on "Enhancing ICANN Accountability". This comes in the wake of the IANA stewardship transition spearheaded by ICANN and related concerns of ICANN's external and internal accountability mechanisms. Centre for Internet and Society contributed to the call for comments.</b>
<h3><strong>Introduction:</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On March 14, 2014, the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration <a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions">announced its intent</a> to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multi-stakeholder Internet governance community. ICANN was tasked with the development of a proposal for transition of IANA stewardship, for which ICANN subsequently <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/draft-proposal-2014-04-08-en">called for public comments</a>. At NETmundial, ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé acknowledged that the IANA stewardship transition and improved ICANN accountability were <a href="http://www.internetcommerce.org/issuance-of-netmundial-multistakeholder-statement-concludes-act-one-of-2014-internet-governance-trifecta/">inter-related issues</a>, and <a href="http://blog.icann.org/2014/05/icanns-accountability-in-the-wake-of-the-iana-functions-stewardship-transition/">announced</a> the impending launch of a process to strengthen and enhance ICANN accountability in the absence of US government oversight. The subsequent call for public comments on “Enhancing ICANN Accountability” may be found <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/enhancing-accountability-2014-05-06-en">here</a>.</p>
<h3><strong>Suggestions for improved accountability:</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the event, Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) wishes to limit its suggestions for improved ICANN accountability to matters of reactive or responsive transparency on the part of ICANN to the global multi-stakeholder community. We propose the creation and implementation of a robust “freedom or right to information” process from ICANN, accompanied by an independent review mechanism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Article III of ICANN Bye-laws note that “<i>ICANN and its constituent bodies shall operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness</i>”. As part of this, Article III(2) note that ICANN shall make publicly available information on, <i>inter alia</i>, ICANN’s budget, annual audit, financial contributors and the amount of their contributions, as well as information on accountability mechanisms and the outcome of specific requests and complaints regarding the same. Such accountability mechanisms include reconsideration (Article IV(2)), independent review of Board actions (Article IV(3)), periodic reviews (Article IV(4)) and the Ombudsman (Article V).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further, ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy (“DIDP”) sets forth a process by which members of the public may request information “<i>not already publicly available</i>”. ICANN <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/didp-2012-02-25-en">may respond</a> (either affirmatively or in denial) to such requests within 30 days. Appeals to denials under the DIDP are available under the reconsideration or independent review procedures, to the extent applicable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While ICANN has historically been prompt in its response to DIDP Requests, CIS is of the view that absent the commitments in the AoC following IANA stewardship transition, it would be desirable to amend and strengthen Response and Appeal procedures for DIDP and other, broader disclosures. Our concerns stem from the fact that, <i>first</i>, the substantive scope of appeal under the DIDP, on the basis of documents requested, is unclear (say, contracts or financial documents regarding payments to Registries or Registrars, or a detailed, granular break-up of ICANN’s revenue and expenditures); and <i>second</i>, that grievances with decisions of the Board Governance Committee or the Independent Review Panel cannot be appealed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Therefore, CIS proposes a mechanism based on “right to information” best practices, which results in transparent and accountable governance at governmental levels.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>First</i>, we propose that designated members of ICANN staff shoulder responsibility to respond to information requests. The identity of such members (information officers, say) ought to be made public, including in the response document.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Second</i>, an independent, third party body should be constituted to sit in appeal over information officers’ decisions to provide or decline to provide information. Such body may be composed of nominated members from the global multi-stakeholder community, with adequate stakeholder-, regional- and gender-representation. However, such members should not have held prior positions in ICANN or its related organizations. During the appointed term of the body, the terms and conditions of service ought to remain beyond the purview of ICANN, similar to globally accepted principles of an independent judiciary. For instance, the Constitution of India forbids any disadvantageous alteration of privileges and allowances of judges of the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p05125.html">Supreme Court</a> and <a href="http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p06221.html">High Courts</a> during tenure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Third</i>, and importantly, punitive measures ought to follow unreasonable, unexplained or illegitimate denials of requests by ICANN information officers. In order to ensure compliance, penalties should be made continuing (a certain prescribed fine for each day of information-denial) on concerned officers. Such punitive measures are accepted, for instance, in Section 20 of India’s Right to Information Act, 2005, where the review body may impose continuing penalties on any defaulting officer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Finally</i>, exceptions to disclosure should be finite and time-bound. Any and all information exempted from disclosure should be clearly set out (and not merely as categories of exempted information). Further, all exempted information should be made public after a prescribed period of time (say, 1 year), after which any member of the public may request for the same if it continues to be unavailable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS hopes that ICANN shall deliver on its promise to ensure and enhance its accountability and transparency to the global multi-stakeholder community. To that end, we hope our suggestions may be positively considered.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Comment repository</strong>:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All comments received by ICANN during the comment period (May 6, 2014 to June 6, 2014) may be found <a href="http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-enhancing-accountability-06may14/">at this link</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-enhancing-icann-accountability'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-enhancing-icann-accountability</a>
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No publishergeethaIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundialICANNAccountability2014-06-10T13:03:57ZBlog EntryNet Freedom Campaign Loses its Way
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-business-line-may-10-2014-sunil-abraham-net-freedom-campaign-loses-its-way
<b>A recent global meet was a victory for governments and the private sector over civil society interests.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/net-freedom-campaign-loses-its-way/article5994906.ece">published in the Hindu Businessline</a> on May 10, 2014.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">One word to describe NetMundial: Disappointing! Why? Because despite the promise, human rights on the Internet are still insufficiently protected. Snowden’s revelations starting last June threw the global Internet governance processes into crisis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Things came to a head in October, when Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, horrified to learn that she was under NSA surveillance for economic reasons, called for the organisation of a global conference called NetMundial to accelerate Internet governance reform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The NetMundial was held in São Paulo on April 23-24 this year. The result was a statement described as “the non-binding outcome of a bottom-up, open, and participatory process involving … governments, private sector, civil society, technical community, and academia from around the world.” In other words — it is international soft law with no enforcement mechanisms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The statement emerges from “broad consensus”, meaning governments such as India, Cuba and Russia and civil society representatives expressed deep dissatisfaction at the closing plenary. Unlike an international binding law, only time will tell whether each member of the different stakeholder groups will regulate itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Again, not easy, because the outcome document does not specifically prescribe what each stakeholder can or cannot do — it only says what internet governance (IG) should or should not be. And finally, there’s no global consensus yet on the scope of IG. The substantive consensus was disappointing in four important ways:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Mass surveillance</b> : Civil society was hoping that the statement would make mass surveillance illegal. After all, global violation of the right to privacy by the US was the <i>raison d'être</i> of the conference.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, the statement legitimised “mass surveillance, interception and collection” as long as it was done in compliance with international human rights law. This was clearly the most disastrous outcome.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Access to knowledge:</b> The conference was not supposed to expand intellectual property rights (IPR) or enforcement of these rights. After all, a multilateral forum, WIPO, was meant to address these concerns. But in the days before the conference the rights-holders lobby went into overdrive and civil society was caught unprepared.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The end result — “freedom of information and access to information” or right to information in India was qualified “with rights of authors and creators”. The right to information laws across the world, including in India, contains almost a dozen exemptions, including IPR. The only thing to be grateful for is that this limitation did not find its way into the language for freedom of expression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Intermediary liability:</b> The language that limits liability for intermediaries basically provides for a private censorship regime without judicial oversight, and without explicit language protecting the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. Even though the private sector chants Hillary Clinton's Internet freedom mantra — they only care for their own bottomlines.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Net neutrality:</b> Even though there was little global consensus, some optimistic sections of civil society were hoping that domestic best practice on network neutrality in Brazil’s Internet Bill of Right — also known as Marco Civil, that was signed into law during the inaugural ceremony of NetMundial — would make it to the statement. Unfortunately, this did not happen.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For almost a decade since the debate between the multi-stakeholder and multilateral model started, the multi-stakeholder model had produced absolutely nothing outside ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit body), its technical fraternity and the standard-setting bodies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The multi-stakeholder model is governance with the participation (and consent — depending on who you ask) of those stakeholders who are governed. In contrast, in the multilateral system, participation is limited to nation-states.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Civil society divisions</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The inability of multi-stakeholderism to deliver also resulted in the fragmentation of global civil society regulars at Internet Governance Forums.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But in the run-up to NetMundial more divisions began to appear. If we ignore nuances — we could divide them into three groups. One, the ‘outsiders’ who are best exemplified by Jérémie Zimmermann of the La Quadrature du Net. Jérémie ran an online campaign, organised a protest during the conference and did everything he could to prevent NetMundial from being sanctified by civil society consensus.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Two, the ‘process geeks’ — for these individuals and organisations process was more important than principles. Most of them were as deeply invested in the multi-stakeholder model as ICANN and the US government and some who have been riding the ICANN gravy train for years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even worse, some were suspected of being astroturfers bootstrapped by the private sector and the technical community. None of them were willing to rock the boat. For the ‘process geeks’, seeing politicians and bureaucrats queue up like civil society to speak at the mike was the crowning achievement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Three, the ‘principles geeks’ perhaps best exemplified by the Just Net Coalition who privileged principles over process. Divisions were also beginning to sharpen within the private sector. For example, Neville Roy Singham, CEO of Thoughtworks, agreed more with civil society than he did with other members of the private sector in his interventions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In short, the ‘outsiders’ couldn't care less about the outcome and will do everything to discredit it, the ‘process geeks’ stood in ovation when the outcome document was read at the closing plenary and the ‘principles geeks’ returned devastated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For the multi-stakeholder model to survive it must advance democratic values, not undermine them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This will only happen if there is greater transparency and accountability. Individuals, organisations and consortia that participate in Internet governance processes need to disclose lists of donors including those that sponsor travel to these meetings.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-business-line-may-10-2014-sunil-abraham-net-freedom-campaign-loses-its-way'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-business-line-may-10-2014-sunil-abraham-net-freedom-campaign-loses-its-way</a>
</p>
No publishersunilICANNInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-05-27T11:07:04ZBlog EntryNETmundial Day 2
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-2
<b>Fadi Chehade, the ICANN boss, closed NETmundial 2014 with these words "In Africa we say if you want to go first, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together." He should have added: And if you want to go nowhere, go multi-stakeholder.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For all the talk of an inclusive global meeting, there was exactly <span><a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/netmundial/map_no_contrib_govt.html">one governmental submission from the African continent</a></span>, and it was from Tunisia; and the overall rate of submissions from Africa and West Asia were <a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/netmundial/map_no_contrib.html">generally very low</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The outcome document perfectly reflects the gloss that the "multi-stakeholder" model was designed to achieve: an outcome that is celebrated by businesses (and by all embedded institutions like ICANN) for being harmless, met with relief by governments for not upsetting the status quo, all of it lit up in the holy glow of "consensus" from civil society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course there was no consensus. Civil society groups who organised on Day 0 put up their <a href="http://pastebin.com/3uK9KbR0%20">position</a>: the shocking omission of a strong case for net neutrality, ambiguous language on surveillance, weak defences of free expression and privacy. All valid points. But it's striking that civil society takes such a pliant position towards authority: other than exactly two spirited protests (one against the data retention in Marco Civil, and the other against the NSA's mass surveillance program) there was no confrontation, no provocation, no passionate action that would give civil society the force it needs to win. If we were to compare this to other international struggles, the gay rights battle, or its successor, the AIDS medicines movement, for instance - what a difference there is. People fought to crush with powerful, forceful action. Only after huge victories with public and media sympathy, and only after turning themselves into equals of the corporations and governments they were fighting, did they allow themselves to sit down at the table and negotiate nicely. Internet governance fora are marked by politeness and passivity, and perhaps - however sad - it's no wonder that the least powerful groups in these fora always come away disappointed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It's also surprising that there is no language in the outcome document that explicitly addresses the censorious threat posed by the global expansion of a sovereign application of copyright, as seen most vividly in the proposed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA">SOPA/PIPA</a> legislation in the United States. The outcome document has language that seems to more or less reflect the <a href="http://bestbits.net/netmundial-proposals/">civil society proposal</a>, and it's possible that a generous interpretation of the language could mean that it opposes the selective, restrictive and damaging application of what the intellectual property industries want to accomplish on the Internet. But it's puzzling that the language isn't stronger or more explicit, and even more puzzling that civil society doesn't seem to want to fight for such language.</p>
<p>This seems like an appropriate time to end the multi-stakeholder diaries. <a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/netmundial/track_multistakeholder.html">Hasn't the word been used enough?</a> Here is one last instalment. We thank the kind folks who gave us their time.</p>
<p>Q: What does "multi-stakeholder" mean? What is "multi-stakeholderism"?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>A large part of the discourse prior to the NETmundial conference has been centered around the issue of what is the best structural system to regulate a global network – this has commonly been portrayed as a choice between a multistakeholder system – which broadly speaking, aims to place ‘all stakeholders’ on equal footing – against multilateralism – a recognized concept in International law / the Comity of Nation States, where a nation state is recognized as the representative of its citizens, making decisions on their behalf and in their interests.</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>In our opinion, the issue is not about the dichotomy between multilateralism and multistakeholderism; it is about what functions or issues can legitimately be dealt with through each of the processes in terms of adequately protecting civil liberties and other public interest principles – including the appropriate enforcement of norms. For instance, how do you deal with something like cyber warfare without the consent of states? Similarly, how do we address regulatory issues such as determining (and possibly subsidizing) costs of access, or indeed to protect a right of a country against unilateral disconnection?</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>.....The crux of the matter rests in deciding which is the best governance ‘basket’ to include a particular issue within – taken from both a substantive and enforcement perspective. The challenge is trying to demarcate issues to ensure that each is dealt with effectively by placing it in an appropriate bucket.</i> <i>(The full post can be accessed </i><a href="http://www.knowledgecommons.in/brasil/en/multilateral-and-multistakeholder-responsibilities/">here</a><i>).</i><br /><b>Rishab Bailey</b> from the Society for Knowledge Commons (India)</p>
<p class="PreformattedText" style="text-align: justify; "><i>If I would have signed the campaign </i><a href="http://wepromise.eu/">http://wepromise.eu</a><i> as a candidate to the European Parliament I would have made it an election promise to defend "the principle of multistakeholderism".</i></p>
<p class="PreformattedText" style="text-align: justify; "><i>That means that I "support free, open, bottom-up, and multi-stakeholder models of coordinating the Internet resources and standards - names, numbers, addresses etc" and that I "support measures which seek to ensure the capacity of representative civil society to participate in multi-stakeholder forums." Further, I "oppose any attempts by corporate, governmental or intergovernmental agencies to take control of Internet governance."</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>My very rudimentary personal view is basically that it's a bad idea to institutionalise conflicting competences.</i><br /><b>Erik Josefsson</b>, Adviser on Internet policies for the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament</p>
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<p>And so it <a href="http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf">ends</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-2'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-2</a>
</p>
No publisherachalICANNIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-04-25T04:58:26ZBlog EntryNETmundial: Tracking *Multistakeholder* across Contributions
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions
<b>This set of analysis of the contributions submitted to NETmundial 2014 is part of the effort by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, to enable productive discussions of the critical internet governance issues at the meeting and elsewhere.</b>
<div><iframe frameborder="0" height="500px" src="http://ajantriks.github.io/netmundial/charts/cis_netmundial_track_multistakeholder.html" width="750px"></iframe></div>
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<td>Created by <a href="http://ajantriks.net/" target="_blank">Sumandro</a> using <a href="https://developers.google.com/chart/" target="_blank">Google Charts</a>.<br /> Google <a href="https://developers.google.com/terms/" target="_blank">Terms of Use</a> and <a href="https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/treemap.html#Data_Policy" target="_blank">Data Policy</a>.<br /> Data compiled by <a href="http://ajantriks.net/" target="_blank">Sumandro</a> and Jyoti.<br /> Download the <a class="external-link" href="https://github.com/ajantriks/netmundial/blob/master/data/cis_netmundial_track_multistakeholder.csv">data</a><a href="https://github.com/ajantriks/netmundial/blob/master/data/cis_ig_vis_track_multistakeholder.csv" target="_blank"></a>.</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This scatter plot shows the number of times the word *multistakeholder* (including *multi-stakeholder* and *multistakeholderism*) appears across contributions submitted to NETmundial.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">X axis (horizontal) gives the serial number of contributions and Y axis (vertical) gives the number of times the word appears on a contribution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click on the types of organisation below the chart to highlight the corresponding organisations on the chart.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness, and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The visualisations are done by <a href="http://ajantriks.net/" target="_blank">Sumandro Chattapadhyay</a>, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Panday, and with data entry suport from Chandrasekhar.</p>
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<td>Built on <a href="http://getbootstrap.com/" target="_blank">Bootstrap</a> by <a href="http://ajantriks.net/" target="_blank">Sumandro</a></td>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/" target="_blank">Centre for Internet and Society</a>, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/" target="_blank">Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India</a> license.</td>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions</a>
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No publishersumandroICANNIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-04-25T09:53:37ZBlog EntryBrazil passes Marco Civil; the US-FCC Alters its Stance on Net Neutrality
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/brazil-passes-marco-civil-us-fcc-alters-stance-on-net-neutrality
<b>Hopes for the Internet rise and fall rapidly. Yesterday, on April 23, 2014, Marco Civil da Internet, the Brazilian Bill of Internet rights, was passed by the Brazilian Senate into law. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Marco Civil</i>, on which we <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/marco-civil-da-internet">blogged</a> previously, includes provisions for the protection of privacy and freedom of expression of all users, rules mandating net neutrality, etc. Brazil celebrated the beginning of NETmundial, a momentous first day about which Achal Prabhala <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-0">blogs</a>, with President Rousseff’s approval of the<i> Marco Civil</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At about the same time, news <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/568be7f6-cb2f-11e3-ba95-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zmtOMMj0">broke</a> that the US Federal Communications Commission is set to propose new net neutrality rules. In the wake of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/14/net-neutrality-internet-fcc-verizon-court">Verizon net neutrality decision</a> in January, the proposed new rules will <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2147520/report-us-fcc-to-allow-payments-for-speedier-traffic.html">prohibit</a> Internet service providers such as Comcast from slowing down or blocking traffic to certain websites, but permit fast lane traffic for content providers who are willing to pay for it. This fast lane would prioritise traffic from content providers like Netflix and Youtube on commercially reasonable terms, and result in availability of video and other content at higher speeds or quality. An interesting turn-around, as <i>Marco Civil</i> expressly mandates net neutrality for all traffic.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/brazil-passes-marco-civil-us-fcc-alters-stance-on-net-neutrality'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/brazil-passes-marco-civil-us-fcc-alters-stance-on-net-neutrality</a>
</p>
No publishergeethaIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundialICANNMarco Civil2014-04-24T10:05:32ZBlog EntryNETmundial Day 1
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-1
<b>Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's speech at the opening of NETmundial in São Paulo was refreshingly free of the UN-speak that characterised virtually every single other presentation this morning. The experience of sitting for five hours in a room where the word "multi-stakeholder" is repeated at the rate of five mentions per minute is not for the faint-hearted; it almost makes you wish for more of the straight-talking tough-love of people like Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Surveillance was mentioned by a few brave souls. Two peaceful, silent - and rather effective - protests broke out during the opening speeches; one, against the data retention clause in Brazil's otherwise path-breaking and brand-new law for civil rights on the Internet, Marco Civil, and another for honouring US NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and urging <a href="https://twitter.com/Lhunthendrix/status/458975285049053184/photo/1">action against surveillance</a>. Sadly for Brazilian civil society, the Marco Civil protestations went unheard, and Rousseff signed the bill into law in full.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There were lots of speeches. Lots. If you missed them, here's a handy <a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/netmundial/word_freq_org_type.html">visualisation</a> you can use to catch up quickly: just add some prepositions and conjunctions, and you'll have a perfectly anodyne and universally acceptable bureaucrat/politician keynote address.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The afternoon was given over to assimilating previously received comments on the <a href="http://document.netmundial.br/">outcome</a> document and adding new ones from people in the room. Much contention, much continuity, lots of hard work, lots of nitpicking (some of it even useful) and lots of ambiguity; after more consultation - the slog goes on until tomorrow afternoon - the outcome document will be laid to rest. Lunch was excellent: there's a reason the Grand Hyatt São Paulo costs as much as it does.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our quest to plumb the depths of multi-stakeholderism continued: we thank the kind folks who gave us their time and allowed us to record them.</p>
<p>Q: What does "multi-stakeholder" mean? What is "multi-stakeholderism"?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Multi-stakeholderism to me is the ability to engage with every stakeholder and have them in the room, and have them understand that it is not an equal opportunity for all. I also understand that civil society and academia will never be at the same place as business, which has far more resources, or governments, which have the sovereign right to make laws, or even the technical community, which is often missing from the policy dialogue. There are three things which are important to me: (1) Will I be able to make interventions not just in the dialogue but in the decision making process? For me, that is key. (2) Do I have recourse in a process which might be multilateral or inter-governmental - do I have recourse when international treaties are ratified or signed, because they become binding national laws? and (3) What is it that happens to dissent in a process that is not multi-stakeholder? I think even the ITU (the International Telecommunications Union) has taken cognizance of multi-stakeholderism. So it's not new, but it's also not old or accepted, which is why we contest it. We will never have equal stakeholders. And who gets to represent the stakeholder communities? I don't think power imbalances get resolved, and I think it's a deeply flawed process. It's not perfect. But what worries me is the alternative. So give me a better alternative.</i><br /><b>Subi Chaturvedi</b>, Media for Change/ Lady Shriram College (India)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Simply put, multi means many components, and stakeholders are people who have the stakes. So multi-stakeholder means many people who are informed to take the process forward. The process is still on: it's evolving. The idea is that everyone who has an interest should bring it forward, and the dialogue must be balanced. Proof of concept is important - it's not about taking a dogmatic position but a scientific position. Business is concerned about the justification around return on investment.</i><br /><b>Jimson Olufuye</b>, Africa ICT Alliance (Nigeria)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Everyone who has a stake in the use and operation of the Internet should have a stake in the way it is managed. I think we shouldn't be considering this as a power game - it's not winner takes all. Decision making should be as much as possible consensual, where no one has a veto power.</i><br /><b>Getachew Engida</b>, Deputy Director-General, UNESCO (France)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>It is very simple. I think people are complicating matters. It's not a power game. The Internet is fundamentally a global network of interconnected computers. People have become not only consumers of information but providers of information, so the stakes in the media/ICT world are massive. Unprecedented. Therefore, around major issues confronting the Internet, decision making should be as participatory as possible.</i><br /><b>Indrajit Banerjee</b>, Director, UNESCO (France)</p>
<hr />
<p><b>Additional Links</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KemK8YbHrI">Watch Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's speech at the opening of NETmundial</a></li>
<li>Follow Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt on <a class="external-link" href="https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/458996103162376193">Twitter</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-1</a>
</p>
No publisherachalICANNIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-04-24T09:02:49ZBlog EntryNETmundial Roadmap: Defining the Roles of Stakeholders in Multistakeholderism
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-roadmap-defining-roles-of-stakeholders-in-multistakeholderism
<b>NETmundial, one of the most anticipated events in the Internet governance calendar, will see the global community convening at Sao Paolo, with an aim to establish 'strategic guidelines related to the use and development of the Internet in the world.' This post analyses the submissions at NETmundial that focused on Roadmap, towards an understanding of stakeholder roles in relation to specific governance functions and highlighting the political, technical and architectural possibilities that lie ahead. </b>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Introduction</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A technically borderless Internet, in a world defined by national boundaries, brings many challenges in its wake. The social, ethical and legal standards of all countries are affected by technical standards and procedures, created by a few global players. This disparity in capacity and opportunities to participate and shape Internet policy, fuelled by Edward Snowden's revelations led to the development of the Global Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance or <a href="http://netmundial.br/">NETmundial</a>. Set against, an urgent need for interdisciplinary knowledge assessment towards establishing global guiding principles with respect to the technological architecture and the legal framework of the Internet–NETmundial is seen as a critical step in moving towards a global policy framework for Internet Governance (IG). As stakeholder groups from across the world come together to discuss future forms of governance, one of the most widely discussed issues will be that of Multistakeholderism (MSism).</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Multistakeholderism</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The governance structure of the Multistakeholder model is based on the notion, that stakeholders most impacted by decisions should be involved in the process of decision making. The collaborative multistakeholder spirit has been widely adopted within the Internet Governance fora, with proponents spread across regions and communities involved in the running, management and use of the Internet. So far, MSism has worked well in the coordination of technical networking standards and efforts to set norms and best practices in defined areas, in the realm of technical governance of the Internet. However, the extension of MSism beyond truly voluntary, decentralized and targeted contexts and expanding its applicability, to other substantive areas of Internet Governance is proving a challenge. Beyond defining how the process of policymaking should be undertaken, <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/networks-and-states">MSism does not provide any guidance on substantive policy issues of Internet governance</a>. With the increasing impact of Internet technology on human lives and framed against the complexity of issues such as security, access and privacy, the consensus on MSism is further rendered unattainable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The need for contextualizing the model aside, as with most policy negotiations certain open concepts and words have also prevented agreement and adoption of MSism as the best way forward for IG. One such open and perhaps, the most contentious issue with respect to the legitimacy of MSism in managing Internet functions is the role of stakeholders. A key element of MSism is that decisions will be made by and including all relevant stakeholders. Stakeholder groups are broadly classified to include governments, technical community and academia, private sector and civil society. With each stakeholder representing diverse and often conflicting interests, creating a consensus process that goes beyond a set of rules and practices promising a seat at the negotiation table and is supportive of broad public interest is a challenging task that needs urgent addressing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This post aims to add to the discourse on defining the role and scope of stakeholders' decision-making powers, towards a better understanding of the term "in their respective role". Addressing the complexity of functions in managing and running the Internet and the diversity of stakeholders that are affected and hence should be included in decision making, I have limited the scope of my analysis to cover three broad internet management functions:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Technical: Issues related to infrastructure and the management of critical Internet resources</li>
<li>Policy: Issues relating to the developmental aspects, capacity building, bridging digital divide, human rights</li>
<li>Implementation: Issues relating to the use of the Internet including jurisdictional law, legislation spam, network security and cybercrime </li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While this may be an oversimplification of complex and interconnected layers of management and coordination, in my opinion, broad categorisation of issues is necessary, if not an ideal starting point for the purpose of this analysis. I have considered only the submissions categorised under the theme of Roadmap, seeking commonalities across stakeholder groups and regions on the role of stakeholders and their participation in the three broad functions of technology, policy and implementation<b>. </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Towards a definition of respective roles: Analysis NETmundial submissions on Roadmap</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There were a total of 44 submissions specific to Roadmap with civil society (20) contributing more than any other group including academia (7), government (4), technical community (5), private sector (3) and other (5). MSism sees support across most stakeholder groups and many submissions highlight or agree on participation and inclusion in decision making processes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Regionally, submissions from North (24) were dominated by USA (10) with contributions cutting across academia (4), civil society (2), technical community (2) and other (2). Brazil (5) contributed the most to submissions from South (15), followed by Argentina (3). The submissions were consistent with the gender disparity prevalent in the larger technology community with only 12 females contributing submissions. An overwhelming number of submissions (38), thought that the multistakeholder (MS) model needs further definition or improvements, however, suggestions on how best to achieve this varied widely across stakeholders and regional boundaries. Only 16 submissions referenced or suggested Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in its present capacity or with an expanded policy role as a mechanism of implementing MSism on the Internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many submissions referred <b>to issues related to the management of critical internet resources (CIRs)</b>, the role of ICANN and US oversight of IANA functions. A total of 11 submissions referred to or specified governance processes with respect to technical functions and issues related to critical resources with civil society (5) and academia (3) contributing the most. In an area that perhaps has the most direct relevance to their work, the technical community was conspicuous with just two submissions making any concrete recommendations. The European Commission was the only governmental organisation that addressed this issue, recommending an expansion of the role of IGF. There were no specific recommendations from the private sector.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The suggestions on oversight and decision making mechanism were most conflicted for this category of Internet functions and included:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>setting up a technical advisory group, positioned within a new intergovernmental body <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/files/305.pdf">World Internet Organization (WIO)</a> framework;</li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96">splitting IANA functions</a> into protocol parameters, that Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will be responsible for and IP address-related functions retained by ICANN </li>
<li>expanding the role of IGF, possibly creating an <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/cybersecurity-related-international-institutions-an-assessment-and-a-framework-for-nations-strategic-policy-choices/264">IGF Secretariat</a></li>
<li>expanding the role of <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-icann/109">Government Advisory Committee (GAC)</a> to mainstream government representatives participation within supporting organisations, in particular the Generic Name Supporting Organisation (GNRO)</li>
<li>expanding the role of <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/cybersecurity-related-international-institutions-an-assessment-and-a-framework-for-nations-strategic-policy-choices/261">private sector</a> </li>
<li>expanding the role of ICANN with multistakeholder values</li>
<li>expanding the role of <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-ecosystem-naming-and-addressing-shared-global-services-and-operations-and-open-standards-development/243">all stakeholders</a> </li>
<li>implementing changes that <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-and-the-future-of-the-internet/291">do not necessarily require legislative acts</a> or similar hard law approaches and implementation does not necessitate international treaties or intergovernmental structures</li>
<li>establishing a new non-profit corporation <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96">DNS Authority (DNSA)</a> combining the IANA Functions and the Root Zone Maintainer roles in </li>
<li>improving <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/evolution-and-internationalization-of-icann/263">transparency and accountability of current bodies</a> managing CIRs</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">16 submissions referred to <b>issues related to policy development and implementation </b>including developmental aspects, capacity building, bridging digital divide and human rights. All submissions called for a reform or further definition of MSism and included recommendations from civil society (5), academia (4), technical community (2), governments (2), private sector (1) and Other (2). All stakeholder groups across regions, unanimously agreed that all stakeholders within their respective role should have a role in decision making and within public policy functions. There was however, no broad consensus on the best way to achieve this.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Specific recommendations and views captured on who should be involved in policy related decision making and what possible frameworks could be developed included:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>improving <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/bottom-up-oversight-in-multistakeholder-organizations/237">existing intergovernmental organizations</a></li>
<li>creating <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmaps-for-further-evolution-of-internet-governance/65">Internet Ad Hoc Group</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmaps-for-further-evolution-of-internet-governance/65">modularization of ICANN’s functions</a> </li>
<li>creating a <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/one-possible-roadmap-for-iana-evolution/153">stewardship group IETF, ICANN and the RIRs</a></li>
<li>creating an <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/one-possible-roadmap-for-iana-evolution/153">independent IANA</a> as an International NGO with host country agreements governed by its MOUs-defined by the IANA Stewardship Group prior to the signing of MOUs with IANA Partners</li>
<li>creating a <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/democratising-global-governance-of-the-internet/164">'new body'</a> to develop international level public policies in concerned areas; seek appropriate harmonization of national level policies; and facilitate required treaties, conventions and agreements</li>
<li>responsibility of the definition of these policies rests within the <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-future-development-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/196">States as an inalienable right</a></li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/bottom-up-oversight-in-multistakeholder-organizations/237">continuity of bottom-up oversight</a> enables a better view of an organization and thus better accountability as government oversight will destroy multistakeholder character</li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/dsci-submission-on-roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-internet-governance-ecosystem/256">evolving global governance norms</a> that separate DNS maintenance from policies on TLDs, as well as public policies that intersect with nations’ rights to make them</li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/cybersecurity-related-international-institutions-an-assessment-and-a-framework-for-nations-strategic-policy-choices/261">policy makers incrementally develop formal and informal relationships</a></li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/apc-proposals-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/280">dealing with conflict of interest and ensuring pluralism</a></li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/iis-contribution-on-internet-governance-ecosystem-and-roadmap/288">full multi-stakeholder framework</a> including possible establishment of Working Groups where all parties concerned are represented</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">18 submissions referred to <b>issues related to the implementation of standards </b>including issues relating to the use of the Internet including jurisdiction, law, legislation, spam, network security and cybercrime. All submissions called for a reform or further definition of MSism values and included recommendations from civil society (8), academia (3), technical community (3), governments (2), private sector (1) and other (1). Stakeholders from academia (5), civil society (3) and government (1) collectively called for the reform of ICANN guided by multistakeholder values, but did not specify how this reform would be achieved.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Specific recommendations on the improvements of institutional frameworks and arrangements for issues related to implementation of standards included:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>establishment of double system of arbitrage/settlement placed under <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-next-best-stage-for-the-future-of-internet-governance-is-democracy/305">World Internet Forum (WIF)</a> scrutiny and under the neutral oversight and arbitrage of the UN general secretariat</li>
<li><a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/from-forum-to-net-nations/292">new legal instruments</a> in establishing MS model need to be adopted</li>
<li>establishment of the <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/democratising-global-governance-of-the-internet/164">Internet Technical Oversight and Advisory Board (ITOAB)</a> replace the US government's current oversight role </li>
<li>multilateral frameworks with <a href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/dsci-submission-on-roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-internet-governance-ecosystem/256">oversight role of governments</a> </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In summation, the classification of Internet functions discussed above, presents a very broad view of complex, dynamic and often, interrelated relationships amongst stakeholder groups. However, even within these very broad categories there are various interpretations of how MSism should evolve.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To come back to the very beginning of this post, NETmundial is an important step towards a global policy framework for Internet governance. This is the first meeting outside formal processes and it is difficult to know what to expect, partly as the expectations are not clear and range widely across stakeholders. Whatever the outcome, NETmundial's real contribution to Internet Governance has been sparking anew, the discourse on multistakeholderism and its application on the Internet through the creation of a spontaneous order amongst diverse actors and providing a common platform for divergent views to come together.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-roadmap-defining-roles-of-stakeholders-in-multistakeholderism'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-roadmap-defining-roles-of-stakeholders-in-multistakeholderism</a>
</p>
No publisherjyotiICANNIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-04-28T12:51:40ZBlog EntryNETmundial and Suggestions for IANA Administration
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-and-suggestions-for-iana-administration
<b>Following NTIA's announcement to give up control over critical Internet functions, the discussion on how that role should be filled has gathered steam across the Internet governance space.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This post maps the discussion across the NETmundial submissions and presents six emerging evolution scenarios related to the IANA functions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body</li>
<li>Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body</li>
<li>No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body</li>
<li>No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body</li>
<li>Multiplication of TLD registries and root servers</li>
<li>Maintenance of status quo</li>
</ol><ol> </ol>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">I. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The proposal under this category demands for the separation of IANA function from technical policy making, and suggests that the IANA function be transferred to an intergovernmental body.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Such proposal is listed below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl.No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal</th><th>Organization</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th>Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>186</td>
<td>The Next Best Stage for the Future of Internet Governance is Democracy</td>
<td>Global Geneva</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>Geneva, Switzerland</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-next-best-stage-for-the-future-of-internet-governance-is-democracy/305">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-next-best-stage-for-the-future-of-internet-governance-is-democracy/305</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This proposal by Global Geneva seeks the establishment of an intergovernmental organisation called World Internet Organisation (WIO), under which IANA (which is understood to be essentially technical and concerning safety and security of the Internet would be located. WIO would additionally have a special link/status/contract with IANA to avoid unwanted interference from governments. A 75% majority at WIO would be requested to act/modify/contest an IANA decision, making it difficult for governments to go beyond reasonable and consensual demands. WIO would act in concert with World Internet Forum, under which ICANN would be located, whereby it would make policy decisions regarding gTLDs apart from its other present functions.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">II. Separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are certain proposals whereby it is proposed that IANA function should be separated from technical policy making, or ICANN, and IANA function, which is perceived to be a purely administrative one in such submissions, should be handed over to some sort of non-multilateral organisation, which take different forms in each proposal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most such submissions have emerged from the civil society or the technical community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance Project submission envisions the creation of a DNS Authority under whose umbrella IANA would function. The DNS Authority would be separate from ICANN. This proposal has been endorsed by the submissions of InternetNZ as well as Article 19 and Best Bits. Avri Doria’s submission, along with the submission of APC, envisions the establishment of an independent IANA, separate from the technical policy function. Such independence is sought to be preceded by a transition period by a body called IANA Stewardship Group which would be constituted mostly by members from the technical community. IANA is sought to be governed via MoUs with all stakeholders, on the same lines as the MoU between ICANN and the IETF, as described in RFC2860, RFC6220. The focus of these MoUs would not be policy but will be on performance and adherence to service level agreements.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These submissions are listed below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl. No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal</th><th>Organisation</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th>Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>Roadmap for Globalising IANA: Four Principles and a Proposal for Reform</td>
<td>Internet Governance Project</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>North America</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>26</td>
<td>Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem- ICANN</td>
<td>Article 19 and Best Bits</td>
<td>Civil Society<br /></td>
<td>Global</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-icann/109">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-icann/109</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>42</td>
<td>Content Contribution to NetMundial on the Roadmap for the Futher Evolution of the IG Ecosystem regarding the Internationalisation of the IANA Function</td>
<td>InternetNZ</td>
<td>Technical Community</td>
<td>New Zealand</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-contribution-to-netmundial-on-the-roadmap-for-the-futher-evolution-of-the-ig-ecosystem-regarding-the-internationalisation-of-the-iana-function/130">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-contribution-to-netmundial-on-the-roadmap-for-the-futher-evolution-of-the-ig-ecosystem-regarding-the-internationalisation-of-the-iana-function/130</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>60</td>
<td>One Possible Roadmap for IANA Evolution</td>
<td>Avri Doria, Independent Researcher</td>
<td>Other</td>
<td>USA</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/one-possible-roadmap-for-iana-evolution/153">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/one-possible-roadmap-for-iana-evolution/153</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>162</td>
<td>APC Proposals for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem</td>
<td>Association for Progressive Communications (APC)</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>APC is an international organisation with its executive director's office in South Africa</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/apc-proposals-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/280">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/apc-proposals-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/280</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">III. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a multilateral body</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These submissions propose that the IANA function should come under a multilateral body. However they do not suggest the separation of IANA function from policymaking, or from ICANN; or they are at least silent on this latter issue. 2 such proposals come from the civil society and 2 from the government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A list of these submissions is provided below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl. No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal<br /></th><th>Organisation</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th>Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>Roadmaps for Further Evolution of Internet Governance</td>
<td>Association for Proper Internet Governance</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>Switzerland</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmaps-for-further-evolution-of-internet-governance/65">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmaps-for-further-evolution-of-internet-governance/65</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>45</td>
<td>Russian Parliament Submission to NET mundial</td>
<td>State Duma of the Russian Federation (Parliament of the Russia)</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Russian Federation</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/themes/133">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/themes/133</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>121</td>
<td>Contribution from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Global Multiskaeholder (sic) Meeting for the Future of the Internet, 23-24 April 2014 Sao Paulo, Brazil</td>
<td>Cyber Space National Center, Iran</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Islamic Republic of Iran</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-to-the-global-multiskaeholder-meeting-for-the-future-of-the-internet-23-24-april-2014-sao-paolo-brazil/236">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-to-the-global-multiskaeholder-meeting-for-the-future-of-the-internet-23-24-april-2014-sao-paolo-brazil/236</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>125</td>
<td>Towards Reform of Global Internet Governance</td>
<td>The Society for Knowledge Commons</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>India and Brazil</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/towards-reform-of-global-internet-governance/240">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/towards-reform-of-global-internet-governance/240</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">IV. No separation of IANA from policy/ICANN, control of IANA to a non-multilateral body</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These submissions do not consider the issue of separation of IANA function from policymaking, or ICANN, or at least do not state an opinion on the separation of IANA function from ICANN. However, they do suggest that the control of IANA should be held by a non-multilateral body, and not the US Government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many of these submissions also suggest that the oversight of ICANN should be done by a non-multilateral body, therefore it makes sense that the IANA function is administered by a non-multilateral body, without its removal from the ICANN umbrella.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A list of such submissions is provided below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl.No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal</th><th>Organisation</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th class=" tt_icon_asc">Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>46</td>
<td>Norwegian Contribution to the Sao Paulo Meeting</td>
<td>Norwegian government</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Norway, Europe</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/norwegian-government/137">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/norwegian-government/137</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>50</td>
<td>Contribution from the GSM Association to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance</td>
<td>GSMA</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Global</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-gsm-association-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/141">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-from-the-gsm-association-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/141</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td>51</td>
<td>Contribution of Telefonica to NETmundial</td>
<td>Telefonica, S.A.</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Spain</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-of-telefonica-to-netmundial/143">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/contribution-of-telefonica-to-netmundial/143</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td>56</td>
<td>ETNO Contribution to NETmundial</td>
<td>ETNO [European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association]</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Belgium</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/etno-contribution-to-netmundial/148">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/etno-contribution-to-netmundial/148</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td>61</td>
<td>French Government Submission to NETmundial</td>
<td>French Ministry of Foreign Affairs</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>France</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/french-government-submission-to-netmundial/154">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/french-government-submission-to-netmundial/154</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td>63</td>
<td>Nominet Submission on Internet Governance Principles and the Roadmap</td>
<td>Nominet</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>UK</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nominet-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-the-roadmap/156">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nominet-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-the-roadmap/156</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td>64</td>
<td>Submission by AHCIET to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance. NETmundial</td>
<td>AHCIET</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Latin America</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/submission-by-ahciet-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance-netmundial/157">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/submission-by-ahciet-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance-netmundial/157</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td>70</td>
<td>Spanish Government Contribution to the Global Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance</td>
<td>Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, Spain</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Spain</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/multistakeholder-human-rights-stability-gac/165">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/multistakeholder-human-rights-stability-gac/165</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9</td>
<td>80</td>
<td>Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem</td>
<td>European Commission</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Europe</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/177">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/177</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>Roadmap for the Future Development of the Internet Governance Ecosystem</td>
<td>Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Argentina</td>
<td style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-future-development-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/196">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-the-future-development-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/196</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11</td>
<td>97</td>
<td>Orange Contribution for NETmundial</td>
<td>Orange Group</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Deputy to the Chief Regulatory Officer Orange Group</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/orange/199">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/orange/199</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12</td>
<td>106</td>
<td>Submission on Internet Governance Principles and Roadmap for the Further Evolution of the Internet Governance Ecosystem</td>
<td>Kuwait Information Technology Society</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>Kuwait</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/kuwait-information-technology-society-kits-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/214">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/kuwait-information-technology-society-kits-submission-on-internet-governance-principles-and-roadmap-for-the-further-evolution-of-the-internet-governance-ecosystem/214</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13</td>
<td>111</td>
<td>Content Submission by the Federal Government of Mexico</td>
<td>Secretara de Comunicaciones y Transportes, Mexico</td>
<td>Government</td>
<td>Mexico</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-submission-by-the-federal-government-of-mexico/219">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/content-submission-by-the-federal-government-of-mexico/219</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14</td>
<td>114</td>
<td>Better Understanding and Co-operation for Internet Governance Principles and Its Roadmap</td>
<td>Japan Internet Service Providers Association</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Japan</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/better-understanding-cooperation-for-internet-governance-principles-its-roadmap/222">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/better-understanding-cooperation-for-internet-governance-principles-its-roadmap/222</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>15</td>
<td>116</td>
<td>Deutsche Telekom’s Contribution for to the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance</td>
<td>Deutsche Telekom AG</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Germany / Europe</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/deutsche-telekom-s-contribution-for-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/225">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/deutsche-telekom-s-contribution-for-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/225</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16</td>
<td>148</td>
<td>NRO Contribution to NETmundial</td>
<td>NRO (for AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, RIPE-NCC)</td>
<td>Technical Community</td>
<td>Mauritius</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nro-contribution-to-netmundial/259">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/nro-contribution-to-netmundial/259</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>17</td>
<td>146</td>
<td>Evolution and Internationalisation of ICANN</td>
<td>CGI.br- Brazilian Internet Steering Committee</td>
<td>Other</td>
<td>Brazil</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/evolution-and-internationalization-of-icann/263">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/evolution-and-internationalization-of-icann/263</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>18</td>
<td>176</td>
<td>Addressing Three Prominent “How To” Questions on the Internet Governance Ecosystem Future</td>
<td>Luis Magalhes, Professor at IST of University of Lisbon, Portugal; Panelist of ICANN’s Strategy Panel on the Role in the Internet Governance System</td>
<td>Academia</td>
<td>Portugal</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/addressing-three-prominent-how-to-questions-on-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-future/294">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/addressing-three-prominent-how-to-questions-on-the-internet-governance-ecosystem-future/294</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>19</td>
<td>183</td>
<td>NETmundial Content Submission- endorsed by NIC Mexico</td>
<td>NIC Mexico</td>
<td>Technical Community</td>
<td>Mexico</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/netmundial-content-submission-endorsed-by-nic-mexico/302">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/netmundial-content-submission-endorsed-by-nic-mexico/302</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">V. Multiplication of TLD registries and Root Servers</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These submissions are based on the assumption that reform in the current ICANN/IANA administrative structure is impossible as the US government is unlikely to give up its oversight role over both. Instead, these submissions suggest that multiple TLD registries and root servers should be created as alternatives to today’s IANA/ICANN so that a healthy market competition can be fostered in this area, rather than fostering monopoly of IANA.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A list of such submissions is provided below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl.No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal</th><th>Organisation</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th>Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>41</td>
<td>Internet Governance: What Next?</td>
<td>EUROLINC</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>France, Europe</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-governance-what-next/129">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/internet-governance-what-next/129</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>175</td>
<td>The Intergovernance of the InterPLUS</td>
<td>INTLNET</td>
<td>Civil Society</td>
<td>France</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-intergovernance-of-the-interplus/293">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/the-intergovernance-of-the-interplus/293</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>VI. Maintenance of status quo</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These submissions are based on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle, and are of the opinion that there is no need to change the administration of IANA function as it functions efficiently in the current system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A list of such submissions is provided below:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Sl.No.</th><th>Proposal No.</th><th>Name of Proposal</th><th>Organisation</th><th>Sector</th><th>Region</th><th>Link</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>United Kingdom Government Submission</td>
<td>Department For Culture Media and Sport, United Kingdom Government</td>
<td>Government<br /></td>
<td>Government</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/united-kingdom-government-submission/79">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/united-kingdom-government-submission/79</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td>133</td>
<td>Perspectives from the Domain Name Association</td>
<td>Domain Name Association</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td>Private Sector</td>
<td><a class="external-link" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/perspectives-from-the-domain-name-association/249">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/perspectives-from-the-domain-name-association/249</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p>Read more on <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-iana-role-structures" class="internal-link">ICANN/IANA: Role and Structural Considerations</a> (PDF Document, 1215 Kb)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-and-suggestions-for-iana-administration'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-and-suggestions-for-iana-administration</a>
</p>
No publishersmarikaICANNIANAInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-04-23T04:00:49ZBlog EntryCIS Statement at ICANN 49's Public Forum
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann49-public-forum-statement
<b>This was a statement made by Pranesh Prakash at the ICANN 49 meeting (on March 27, 2014), arguing that ICANN's bias towards the North America and Western Europe result in a lack of legitimacy, and hoping that the IANA transition process provides an opportunity to address this.</b>
<p>Good afternoon. My name is Pranesh Prakash, and I'm with the Yale Information Society Project and the Centre for Internet and Society.</p>
<p>I am extremely concerned about the accountability of ICANN to the global community. Due to various decisions made by the US government relating to ICANN's birth, ICANN has had a troubled history with legitimacy. While it has managed to gain and retain the confidence of the technical community, it still lacks political legitimacy due to its history. The NTIA's decision has presented us an opportunity to correct this.</p>
<p>However, ICANN can't hope to do so without going beyond the current ICANN community, which while nominally being 'multistakeholder' and open to all, grossly under-represents those parts of the world that aren't North America and Western Europe.</p>
<p>Of the 1010 ICANN-accredited registrars, 624 are from the United States, and 7 from the 54 countries of Africa. In a session yesterday, a large number of the policies that favour entrenched incumbents from richer countries were discussed. But without adequate representation from poorer countries, and adequate representation from the rest of the world's Internet population, there is no hope of changing these policies.</p>
<p>This is true not just of the business sector, but of all the 'stakeholders' that are part of global Internet policymaking, whether they follow the ICANN multistakeholder model or another. A look at the boardmembers of the Internet Architecture Board, for instance, would reveal how skewed the technical community can be, whether in terms of geographic or gender diversity.</p>
<p>Without greater diversity within the global Internet policymaking communities, there is no hope of equity, respect for human rights -- civil, political, cultural, social and economic --, and democratic funtioning, no matter how 'open' the processes seem to be, and no hope of ICANN accountability either.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann49-public-forum-statement'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann49-public-forum-statement</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIANAIG4allInternet GovernanceAccountabilityICANNNorth vs South2014-06-04T05:31:44ZBlog EntryNTIA to give up control of the Internet's root
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ntia-to-give-up-control-of-internets-root
<b>On Friday evening the U.S. government's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it was setting into motion a transition to give up a few powers that it holds over some core Internet functions, and that this would happen by September 2015. Pranesh Prakash provides a brief response to that announcement.</b>
<p>As it noted <a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions">in the NTIA's press release</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>NTIA’s responsibility includes the procedural role of administering changes to the authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the [Domain Name System (DNS)]. NTIA currently contracts with [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN] to carry out the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and has a Cooperative Agreement with Verisign under which it performs related root zone management functions. Transitioning NTIA out of its role marks the final phase of the privatization of the DNS as outlined by the U.S. Government in 1997.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This move was <a href="http://www.iab.org/documents/correspondence-reports-documents/2014-2/internet-technical-leaders-welcome-iana-globalization-progress/">welcomed by "Internet technical leaders"</a>.</p>
<p>While this announcement cannot be said to be unexpected, it is nonetheless an important one and is also a welcome one. The NTIA seems to have foreclosed any option of the US government's role being performed by any government-led organization by noting in their press release, "NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution," once again reaffirming their belief in American exceptionalism: the NTIA could fulfil its role despite being a government, but now even a body involving multiple stakeholders can't replace the NTIA's role if it is going to be government-led.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this announcement to relax American "stewardship" or "oversight" over some aspects of the Internet's technical functioning cannot restore the trust that has been lost due to actions taken by the US government and US companies. This new announcement won't change the US government's ability to 'tap' the Internet, nor will it affect their ability to unilaterally seize .com/.net/.name/.org/.edu/.tv/.cc/.us and other US-based domain names. Nor will a shift away from NTIA oversight lead to any of the chilling visions that some believe might lie in our future: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-to-relinquish-remaining-control-over-the-internet/2014/03/14/0c7472d0-abb5-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html">the fears of the Association of National Advertisers</a> and of <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/internet-transition-triggers-gop-backlash-104698.html">some politicians and members of the US Congress</a> is based on ignorance of what NTIA's role is.</p>
<p>The European Commission in a communiqué last month noted: "recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have called into question the stewardship of the U.S. when it comes to Internet governance". Unfortunately, the U.S. giving up that stewardship role will not prevent the continuation of their large-scale surveillance, just as the lack of such a stewardship role has not prevented other governments — U.K., India, Canada, Sweden, France, etc. — from engaging in large-scale surveillance.</p>
<p>There are three main benefits from the U.S. giving up this role.<br />
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>First, it will put an end to the political illegitimacy of the U.S. government having a core authority in a global system, somehow making it first among equals;</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Second, will focus light on ICANN, which under US oversight performs the IANA functions, and might, one hopes, lead to needed reform in ICANN's other functions;</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Third, it will allow us to collectively move on from this dreaded political issue at the heart of Internet governance, which nevertheless is of little practical consequence if ICANN's accountability mechanisms are strengthened. As difficult as it may be, ICANN has to be accountable not just to one government or another but to the world, and ensuring that accountability to all doesn't become accountability to none, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-to-relinquish-remaining-control-over-the-internet/2014/03/14/0c7472d0-abb5-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_story.html">as NetChoice's Steve DelBianco put it</a>, is the formidable task ahead of us. <br />
</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Yet, all the ICANN reform in the world will still not lead to a less spied-upon, more open, and more equitable Internet.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ntia-to-give-up-control-of-internets-root'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ntia-to-give-up-control-of-internets-root</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshICANNInternet Governance2014-03-18T18:21:40ZBlog EntryWhat’s In a Name? — DNS Singularity of ICANN and The Gold Rush
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dns-singularity-of-icann-and-the-gold-rush
<b>March 2013 being the 28th birthday of the first ever registered Internet domain as well as the exigent launch of the Trademark Clearing House disguised as a milestone in rights protection by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for it’s new gTLD program, Sharath Chandra Ram, dissects the transitory role of ICANN from being a technical outfit to the Boardroom Big Brother of Internet Governance.</b>
<hr />
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://trademark-clearinghouse.com/">Click to read</a> more about the <b>Trademark Clearing House</b>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a non-profit organization, established in agreement with the US Department of Commerce in 1998, the current arrangement of ICANN has come under serious questions in recent years, with the United Nations wanting the ITU to oversee Internet Governance while Europe seeking more public participation in the decision making process that currently comprises a majority of private stakeholders as ICANN board members with vested interests. In this post we shall look at a few instances that give room for thought about the regulatory powers and methods adopted by ICANN as well as reparatory measures taken to reaffirm it’s image as an able governing body amidst disputes over trademarks and fair competition that might actually call for a wider and objective inclusion in future. An outline of functional and structural arrangements of ICANN maybe found at the <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/FijE7">CIS Knowledge Repository page</a>.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">The Business Model</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier this month, (March 15, 2013) was the 28<sup>th</sup> birthday of <a href="http://www.symbolics.com">symbolics.com</a>, the first ever domain name registered in 1985 through the formal ICANN process. (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.nordu.net/ndnweb/home.html">nordu.net</a> being the first domain name created by the registry on January 1, 1985 for the first root server, nic.nordu.net) Symbolics, that spun-off the MIT AI Lab and specialized in building workstations running LISP finally sold the domain for an undisclosed amount to XY.com, an Internet investment firm that has been proudly boasting about their acquired relic for over three years now. The golden days of fancy one word domain name resale at exorbitant prices are over, as Google’s page ranking crawler now really looks at unique content and backlinks. Nevertheless, those with the same archaic view of a real estate agent still believe that a good domain name does have a high ROI and have managed to find naïve takers who will offer ridiculous amounts. One of many such examples is the plain looking <a href="http://www.business.com">www.business.com</a> that was bought initially for $1,50,000 and changed hands twice from $7.5 million to an absurd $345 million of R.H. Donnelley Inc., that soon filed for bankruptcy!</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The top level domain market however, is consistently lucrative. A TLD registry on an average receives $5 - $7 per domain registered under it. So the .COM registry run by VeriSign which, as of 2013 has over a 100 million registered domains, receives a revenue of $500 to $700 million per year of which a fraction is paid to ICANN periodically on a per-registration or per-renewal basis. Competing registrars and registries across TLDs, their revenue generation practices as well as the application process for new TLDs gradually began to be regulated by ICANN in mysterious ways, as we will see in the following legal case studies.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">VeriSign vs. ICANN</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">VeriSign began to operate the .COM and .NET TLD after taking over Network Solutions Inc. and entering into a contractual agreement with ICANN in 2001. Let’s take a look at some methods used by VeriSign to garner internet traffic and registrant revenue, that were clamped down by the ICANN, which resulted in a lawsuit by plaintiff VeriSign claiming prevention of fair competition and revenue by impeding innovation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Clamping of Site Finder & WLS</i>: In September 2003, VeriSign introduced a Wild Card DNS Service called Site Finder for all .com and .net domains. This meant that any user trying to access a non-existent domain name no longer received the 404 Error but were instead redirected to the VeriSign website with adverts and links to affiliate registrars. Often a result of a misspelled domain, in ICANN’s view, the redirection by VeriSign amounted to typo squatting internet users as within a month VeriSign’s traffic rose dramatically moving it to the top 20 most visited websites on the web. As seen below in this archived image of Alexa’s 2003 traffic statistic (Courtesy: <a class="external-link" href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/">cyber.law.harvard.edu</a>).</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_DailyTraffic.png" alt="Daily Traffic" class="image-inline" title="Daily Traffic" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shortly, in October 2003, ICANN issued a suspension ultimatum pointing Site Finder in violation of the 2001 .Com agreement. This was not the first time ICANN clamped down on VeriSign’s ‘profiteering’ methods. In 2001, ICANN prevented VeriSign’s WLS (Wait Listing Service) that allowed a registrant (through selected participating affiliate registrars of VeriSign) to apply to register an already registered domain in the event that the registration is deleted – a nifty scheme considering the fact that about 25000 domains are deleted everyday!</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Remarks and Submissions</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The long drawn case of VeriSign Vs. ICANN ended on a reconciliatory note, with ICANN bringing the Site Finder service to a halt at the cost of VeriSign walking away happier with a free 5 year extension on the .COM domain (2007 extended to 2012).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the ingenious Site Finder service did pose a huge problem to spam filters, both the WLS and yet another service that VeriSign launched to allow registration of non-English language SLDs were also met with a cringe by ICANN.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>However looking closer, one may realize that the act of ICANN permitting a DNS root redirect service such as Site Finder for all TLD operators (with an acceptable template that also carried information about the 404 error besides other marketing options) meant the first step towards paving the way towards a plausible scenario of multiple competing DNS roots across TLDs being able to interact with each other — a system often argued by network theorists to be the most efficient and competitive model that would reduce the disjoint between the demand and supply of TLDs in a decentralized infrastructure, and that definitely was not in the best interest of ICANN’s monopolistic plan. Hence, this could be seen as a move by ICANN to nip the Site Finder bud while still young</b>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, as brought to public notice in more than one instance (name.Space Vs. ICANN, IOD Vs. ICANN), the vested interests of ICANN board members has come under glaring light. <b>Can the ICANN leadership consisting of members from the very same domain name business industry be able to objectively deal with competing registry services and legal issues?</b> Conspicuous targets have been chairperson Steve Crocker who owns a consulting firm Shinkuro, whose subtle investor is infact AFILIAS INC which runs the .INFO and .MOBI TLDs, provides backend services to numerous TLDs (.ORG, .ASIA, .AERO (aviation)), has applied for a further 31 new TLDs and has it’s CTO Ram Mohan on the Board of Directors of ICANN. Also ICANN Vice Chariman, Bruce Tonkin is Senior Executive at Australia’s largest domain name provider Melbourne IT, and Peter Thrush former chairman of the ICANN Board of Directors is Executive Chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings,Inc which filed 92 gTLD applications in 2012.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Trademark Protection and Domain Names</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Image Online Design (IOD) is a company that since 1996 has been providing Internet registry services using the trademark .WEB (trademark #3,177,334 including computer accessories) registered with the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It’s registry services however, were not through the primary DNS root server maintained by ICANN, but through an alternate DNS root that required prospective users to manually make changes in their browser settings in order to resolve .WEB domains registered through IOD. Despite not running the primary DNS root server for. WEB, by the year 2000 IOD had acquired about 20,000 registered .WEB customers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The beacon of ‘hope’ arrived upon IOD in mid-2000 as ICANN (on advise of supporting organization GNSO) opened a call for proposals for registrations of new TLDs, with a non-refundable deposit of $50,000 for an application to be considered. By then the importance of the .WEB TLD for e-commerce was well known amongst ICANN board members with Louis Touton lobbying for his preferred applicant AFILIAS INC to be given the .WEB TLD, with others raising concerns about IOD’s preregistration of .WEB domains. One of the founding fathers of the internet, Vinton Cerf, the then Chairman of ICANN took a benevolent stance-- <i>"I'm still interested in IOD," he repeated over Touton's objections. "They've worked with .WEB for some time. To assign that to someone else given that they're actually functioning makes me uneasy," he said, prompting board member Linda Wilson to chime in, "I agree with Vint."</i> (<a href="http://goo.gl/d1v6X">http://goo.gl/d1v6X</a> , <a href="http://goo.gl/eV9Jd">http://goo.gl/eV9Jd</a>).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally amidst all the contention, no one was offered the .WEB domain and ICANN announced that all applications not selected will remain pending and those who submitted will have the option of being re-considered when additional TLD selections are made in future. And the future being, 2012, when ICANN invited a new round of TLD applicants, this time with the non-refundable deposit of whopping $185,000 for a single application (1 TLD/application as opposed to the $50,000 in the year 2000 that allowed multiple TLD requests within the same application) to be considered. While 7 new applicants for the .WEB TLD registered their interest, IOD considered their application to be still pending and did not join the new pool that included AFILIAS INC. and GOOGLE.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The litigation of IOD Vs ICANN ended in Feb 2013, with IOD claiming weak causes of action under “Trademark Infringement” and “Breach of Contract” &“Fair Dealing” hinging on the fact that the initial $50,000 application was still pending and never was officially rejected by ICANN. Further, there was not enough room to make a valid trademark infringement, as there was no substantial room for consumer confusion in the .WEB case.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Remarks and Submissions</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The IOD Vs. ICANN case not only increased concerns globally, over the uncertainty associated with the ICANN application process for generic TLDs along with questions regarding the objectivity of its board members, but at the same time has alerted ICANN to take the necessary big sister steps to ensure that it’s well in the game.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The fact of the matter is that the USPTO does not provide trademark protection services for the Top level Domain industry citing the reason that TLDs trademarks do not provide a distinct service mark that can identify or differentiate the service of an applicant from others, and further cannot be used to ascertain the source of an applicant’s services. This view is flawed, as by looking at a TLD, say BBC.com, an informed person can easily say that VeriSign INC manages the service of directing a user to a correct location on the .COM registry. With introduction of new gTLDs, perhaps BBC would shift it’s content to BBC.news, where the source may be an abstracted Registrar and the nature of service being quite evident. And to those registered trademarks, especially those that shall result in substantial brand confusion to the customer if infringed, granting a TLD like .ibm or .bbc may well be granted to the owner of the trademark who may then outsource registry services to a service provider. This shall invert the current model by relegating the role of a TLD registry holder to that of a contracted service provider.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>So the question is, should have the US Department of Commerce, who contracted ICANN in the first place, mediated with USPTO to place the business of a registrar on par with other trades and businesses, and modify it’s trademark infringement policies? And more importantly, will ICANN view this as introducing yet another key stakeholder to the gTLD assignment process?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The answer to the latter is already clear as ICANN being in the top of it’s game decided to take matters into its own hands and on March 26, 2013) launched</b> <a href="http://trademark-clearinghouse.com/"><b>http://trademark-clearinghouse.com/</b></a><b> with a new set of guidelines for accepted trademarks and a mechanism that allows trademark holders to submit their application to a central repository.</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Accepted trademark holders shall be given priority to register gTLDs during the ‘sunrise’ period. Deloitte Enterprise Risk Services have been assigned the responsibility of evaluating submitted trademarks while IBM shall maintain the actual database of trademarks by the later half of 2013.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The tip of the iceberg is well in scope of view. ICANN46 is currently being hosted in Beijing, at the China Internet Network Information Centre (CINIC) from April 7 to 11, 2013 while hopefully parallel discussions will happen on all other global forums to hopefully re-consider a future of multiple competing DNS root servers towards healthy competition that is decentralized.</p>
<hr />
<p><b> Key References</b></p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.icann.org/en/news/litigation">http://www.icann.org/en/news/litigation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/tlds/">http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/tlds/</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Lynn, S. [2001] “Discussion Draft: A Unique, Authoritative Root for the DNS” Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 28 May, 2001.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Internet Architecture Board [2000] “IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS Root.” RFC 2826, Internet Society, May 2000.</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dns-singularity-of-icann-and-the-gold-rush'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dns-singularity-of-icann-and-the-gold-rush</a>
</p>
No publishersharathICANNInternet Governance2013-03-31T05:35:33ZBlog EntryControl Shift?
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-control-shift
<b>The USA has ceded control of the Internet over to Icann, but only partially. (This post appeared as an article in Down to Earth, in the issue dated November 15, 2009.)</b>
<p>After dominating operations of the Internet for decades Washington
has said it will relinquish some control. On September 30, the US
department of commerce decided to cede some of its powers to the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body
which manages the net’s phone book—the Internet’s Domain Naming System
(dns).</p>
<p>The system deals with online addresses: human understandable names
(like google.com) are made to work with computer understandable names
(81.198.166.2, for example). Managing this is critical because while
Madras can be a city in both Tamil Nadu and Oregon, everyone wishing to
go to madras.com must be pointed to the same place. For the Internet to
work, everyone in the world must use the same telephone directory.</p>
<p>The Internet is not a single network of computers, but an
interconnected set of networks. What does it mean, then, to control the
Internet? For those wishing to access YouTube in late February 2008, it
seemed as though it was controlled by Pakistan Telecom—the agency had
accidentally blocked access to YouTube to the entire world for almost a
day. For Guangzhou residents, it seems the censor-happy Chinese
government controls the Internet. And for a brief while in January 1998,
it seemed the net was controlled by one Jon Postel.</p>
<p>Postel was one of the architects of the Internet involved from the
times of the net’s predecessor arpanet project, which the US department
of defence funded as an attack-resilient computer network. He was
heading the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (iana), an informal body
in de facto charge of technical aspects of the Internet, including the
domain network system. But iana had no legal sanction. It was contracted
by the department to perform its services. The US government retained
control of the root servers that directed Internet traffic to the right
locations.</p>
<p>On January 28, 1998, Postel got eight of the 12 root servers
transferred to iana control. This was when the defence department was
ceding its powers to the commerce department. Postal soon received a
telephone call from a furious Ira Magaziner, Bill Clinton’s senior
science adviser, who instructed him to undo the transfer. Within a week,
the commerce department issued a declaration of its control over the
dns root servers—it was now in a position to direct Internet traffic all
over the world.</p>
<p>Soon after, the US government set up ICANN as a private non-profit
corporation to manage the core components of the Internet. A contract
from the department of commerce gave the organization in California the
authority to conduct its operations. iana and other bodies (such as the
regional Internet registries) now function under ICANN.</p>
<p>Right from the outset, ICANN has been criticized as unaccountable,
opaque and controlled by vested interests, especially big corporations
which manipulated the domain name dispute resolution system to favour
trademarks. Its lack of democratic functioning, commercial focus and
poor-tolerance of dissent have made ICANN everyone’s target, from those
who believe in a libertarian Internet as a place of freedom and
self-regulation, to those (the European Union, for instance) who believe
the critical components of the Internet should not be in the sole
control of the US government.</p>
<p>The department of commerce has from time to time renewed its
agreement with ICANN, and the latest such renewal comes in the form of
the affirmation of commitments (AoC). Through the AoC, the US government
has sought to minimize its role. Instead of being the overseer of ICANN's working, it now holds only one permanent seat in the
multi-stakeholder review panel that ICANN will itself have to
constitute. But two days after the AoC, ICANN snubbed a coalition of
civil society voices calling for representation; the root zone file
remains in US control. It is too early to judge the AoC; it will have to
be judged by how it is actualized.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-control-shift'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-control-shift</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshICANNInternet Governance2011-08-02T07:22:12ZBlog EntryThe ICANN-US DOC 'Affirmation of Commitments' - A Step Forward?
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-icann-us-doc-affirmation-of-commitments-a-step-forward
<b>On 30 September 2009, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) signed an Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) with the US Government's Department of Commerce. For those of us who are concerned that the Internet should serve the global public good, is the new arrangement a step forward? An assessment. </b>
<p>On 30 September 2009, ICANN signed an Affirmation of
Commitments (AoC) with the US Government's Department of Commerce.
ICANN is the not-for-profit public-benefit corporation that
coordinates the Internet's naming system. The Affirmation has been
widely hailed for the loosening of US-ICANN ties that it implies.
The unilateral control that the US exercised over the organisation
had for long been criticised in various quarters as inappropriate for
a – by now - global resource such as the Internet. A central
instrument of this control was constituted by the reviews that the
US's NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information
Administration) would conduct of the organisation, based on which the
country's Department of Commerce would rework and renew its contract
with ICANN. With the signing of the AoC, reviews will henceforth be conducted by panels to
be appointed by the Chair of ICANN's Board of Directors, as well as
the Chair of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) in consultation
with the other members of the GAC. Since the Affirmation of
Commitments is of long standing – unlike earlier Memoranda of
Understanding, which had a limited validity – and since the US has
demanded for itself a permanent seat on only one of the four panels
that the AoC institutes, the US has indeed given up significant
amounts of the control that it wielded over the organisation so far.</p>
<p>A clear step forward? Well, not
necessarily – and in many ways it is too early to tell. Because
while the denationalisation of ICANN was high on many stakeholders'
agenda, so was the strengthening of ICANN as an accountable tool for
global governance. And where the latter is concerned, the AoC falls
sorely short. Although ICANN likes to posit itself as an
organisation rooted in communities, where policy is developed from
the bottom up, this wonderfully democratic discourse stands in rather
ugly contrast to the quite questionable practices that are all too
frequently reported from the organisation (the rather stepsisterly
treatment meted out to noncommercial users in ICANN in recent times,
for example, immediately comes to mind [1]<a class="sdfootnoteanc" name="sdfootnote1anc" href="#sdfootnote1sym"></a>).
At the root of this contradiction seems to lie the fact that, while
ICANN may be a public interest organisation on paper, in practice it
is heavily dominated by large businesses, in particular those
US-based, who seem to be willing to go to considerable lengths to
defend their interests. The AoC has done nothing to check these
tendencies. The review panels suggested are an internal affair,
where those who develop policy will get to appoint the people who
will assess the policy development processes, and most of those
appointed, too, will come from within the organisation. While the
suggested wider involvement of ICANN communities, including
governments, in reviewing the organisation is a welcome move, it
remains to be seen, then, to what extent these review panels will
have teeth – in any case their recommendations are not binding.
But some go even further and argue that the AoC has effectively
removed the one democratic control that existed over ICANN's Board:
that of the US Government. As the communities that supposedly make
up ICANN do not have the power to unseat the Board, the Board now is
effectively accountable... to none.</p>
<p>Since it does not directly address
accountability problems within ICANN, the AoC is not so much an
improvement, then, as simply a change: it has closed a few old doors,
and opened some new ones. Whether this is for good or for bad
remains to be seen: in the absence of clear structures of control and
oversight, the shape of things to come is never fixed.
For those within ICANN who genuinely want to work towards an
Internet in the service of the public good, rather than of big
business, there is, therefore, a tough task ahead of trying to ensure
that the most will be made of the opportunities that the new
arrangement does provide. Considering ICANN's institutional culture,
this will undoubtedly mean that much of their energy will need to be
invested in simply trying to shape new procedures and frameworks of
governance in more democratic and accountable directions, eating into
valuable time that could and should have been devoted to policy
development instead. Indeed, irrespective of the final
outcome of the AoC, the spectre of ICANN's lack of accountability and
its glaring democratic deficit, for now, remains. And for a forum
such as ICANN, that is unbecoming to say the least.</p>
<p>1] For
more information, please see
<a href="http://ncdnhc.org/profiles/blogs/ncuc-letter-to-icann-board-of">http://ncdnhc.org/profiles/blogs/ncuc-letter-to-icann-board-of</a>,
<a href="http://ncdnhc.org/profiles/blogs/top-10-myths-about-civil">http://ncdnhc.org/profiles/blogs/top-10-myths-about-civil</a>,
and
<a href="http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/2/4338930.html">http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/2/4338930.html</a>.</p>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<p class="sdfootnote"><a class="sdfootnotesym" name="sdfootnote1sym" href="#sdfootnote1anc"></a></p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-icann-us-doc-affirmation-of-commitments-a-step-forward'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-icann-us-doc-affirmation-of-commitments-a-step-forward</a>
</p>
No publisheranjaPublic AccountabilityICANNinternet governance2011-08-02T07:16:09ZBlog Entry