By Kieren McCarthy for The Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with
permission.
In an official statement, Nominet's legal and policy director
Emily Taylor said the company preferred Argentina's proposal over
the other seven on the table including one by the EU and put
forward by the UK government.
That proposal would see things continue pretty much as they are
but with the creation of a worldwide forum in which governments,
private sector, civil society and international organisations would
all play a part.
"From Nominet's perspective, nothing radical needs to change in
internet governance," Taylor said. "Intervention by governments
worldwide, each with their own political agenda and cultural
beliefs to uphold, threatens to consign the internet to a future of
over-regulation."
The issue of internet governance who should run the
internet and how exploded last month at a UN conference in
Geneva. The United States, which currently has unilateral overall
control of the internet, wants the status quo to stay the same,
whereas most countries, particularly Brazil, China and Iran, want
control to be shared among many governments.
Late in the conference, the EU arrived with a radical proposal
that spliced the two sides together in an effort to reach
compromise.
Of that effort, Nominet says: "We do not see the EU and US
positions as fundamentally incompatible: the EU position does,
after all talk about 'not replacing existing structures' and
emphasises 'complementarity' between different actors."
Despite there being eight proposals (from Africa, Argentina,
Brazil, Canada, EU, Iran, Japan and Russia), there are essentially
three models being proposed.
- The status quo: The system continues as is
with ICANN in charge and a new forum is created that comes up with
solutions to public policy issues i.e. dealing with spam or
cybercrime or new top-level domains. (Africa, Argentina,
Canada)
- The hybrid: A new forum is created as well as
a new body that is given overall control of ICANN. Essentially the
hands-off US government role is replaced with a more hands-on
international government consortium. (EU, Japan)
- The government approach: A new body run by
governments which takes over from ICANN. (Brazil, Iran,
Russia)
It is hardly surprising that Nominet would go for the more free
market approach being a company that has benefitted from a gentle
hand on the controls. Plus, of course, being the UK, Nominet has
little to fear from, or to be ideologically opposed to, the current
US-led and run internet.
Nominet's Taylor summed up the company's position: "Amidst calls
for international intervention to avoid dominance of the Internet
by a single state, Nominet believes that we should be looking to
take more a pragmatic, incremental approach to internet governance
and not seek to completely overhaul a model that allows for
flexibility, innovation and is founded on private sector
investment. We hear the political debate with regard to the root
zone our perspective is operational: it should be secure and
authoritative. Requests for changes must be authenticated and acted
on quickly."
Nominet's fear is that the EU
proposal would see governments fight out world political issues at
the top level of the internet, as opposed to letting the internet
get on with its own thing a situation that undeniably led to
its enormous success.
The EU is extremely keen to spell out however that it sees the
governmental body it proposes as being very hands-off. The issue is
simply: why should the US government remain in control of a vital
global resource?
© The Register
2005
