By Kieren McCarthy in Tunis for The Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with
permission.
But three days before that, starting midday Sunday 12 November,
will begin the discussions on what is the most controversial aspect
of this entire process internet governance
The issue is world news, stretching from the BBC to the
Washington Post to the China Post. Put simply it is this: because
of the way the internet came about, the US government created the
institutions that have effective oversight of the internet
and it has effective control over them.
With the internet now undoubtedly a global medium, the world's
governments want more of a say in how it is run. The United Nations
created a team of international experts to come up with a new model
for running the internet. Unfortunately, because of the widely
differing views, it could not agree on one model, but rather
offered four. Each of these models, however, foresaw the US
government handing over its overall control to an international
body.
The problems stem from the US government stating immediately
before publication of this report that it had no intention of
handing over its "historic role". Many thought this was a clever
bargaining tactic for future discussions. But the US administration
stuck with this line throughout the last discussions before the
Summit in Geneva in September, causing increasing frustration and
anger among some countries.
Then, just before the end of that conference, the UK, as
representative of the EU, stunned everyone by suggesting a hybrid
solution between the US on one hand and Brazil, China, Iran and
others, on the other.
That solution envisaged the US handing over ultimate control of
the body that oversees the internet to a forum
of world governments. Plus, the creation of a new forum would pull
the public policy decision-making part of ICANN into a more open
and international area.
With the EU having undermined the US position in the hope of
forming consensus, the US and ICANN looked isolated and
out-of-touch, even though the resilient and resourceful US
ambassador David Gross and the savvy head of ICANN Paul Twomey both
stood firm.
Since that point there have been no formal discussion between
governments. But much has happened in between and there has been
subtle shifts of position in preparation for the next round of
fighting.
The interesting point to note is that there will have to be some
kind of breakthrough at the Summit. There is no way a whole model
will be agreed to but there is very, very strong pressure for there
to be an intellectual resolution to the problem.
Usually when there are intractable differences between
governments at the UN, what is produced is a wishy-washy document
that says nothing at all. Governments very rarely take the step of
storming out of a conference, or of pushing a vote, because they
don't need to. Not that a vote would make much difference because
UN lawyers have told us that the Summit does not count as a full
and binding meeting of the UN where a vote would be
virtually impossible for a government to ignore. However, World
Summits are very few and far between and do carry enormous
weight.
The reason why a bland statement that says nothing about
internet governance is unlikely however is because it would, by its
existence, mean a continuation of the status quo with the US
government running the show. And that is precisely what the
argument is about in the first place.
In the intervening months however, the US and ICANN have
recovered from their bruising and with some frantic lobbying and
behind-the-scenes work managed to shift the discussion back towards
them.
ICANN has finally come
to agreement with VeriSign – in return for handing VeriSign an
apparently eternal monopoly on all dotcoms, VeriSign agreed to
recognise ICANN as an authority over it. This boosts ICANN's
credibility enormously. On top of that, ICANN has been planning
organisational changes to make itself more amenable to governments
which it hopes to pull out like a rabbit from the hat at the right
moment.
The US government in its own inimitable fashion has been firing
broadsides against everyone opposed to its continuation. It has got
large numbers of (US) internet companies to
come to its defence, stating exactly why the status quo should
remain. It has alsothrough the more-than-willing and
disturbingly partisan US press put out acres of
misinformation with regard to what will happen if the current
system is changed.
The
UN is trying to control the Internet, headlines have screamed.
It
will mean the end of free speech, bellow others.
China and Cuba will control what people read, others have
bleated.
Wrong, nationalistic and horribly simplistic though these
arguments are, the sheer quantity and fervour is extremely
effective as a lobbying tool. It got so bad that UN
secretary-general Kofi Annan wrote an
editorial for the Washington Post earlier this month
criticising the "growing chorus of misinformation". The UN had no
intention of "taking over" the internet, Annan stressed. "The
United Nations wants only to ensure the internet's global reach,
and that effort is at the heart of this summit."
Even the UK/EU has grown exhausted by the focus, with its
representative David Hendon telling an audience at Chatham House in
London earlier this month that the "obscure" detail over who ran
the Domain Name System had seen him inundated with interview
requests. He would much rather get the issue sorted and so be able
to get on with the "more important things".
The reality is though that many, many countries across the world
are not comfortable with the US having overall charge. The US is
successfully arguing several points about how by it being in charge
it has kept the Internet free and open. But at the same time, the
EU has repeatedly said (but has been carefully ignored in the press
because it damages the story), it has no intention whatsoever of
letting governments impose new controls over the internet. The UN
is saying exactly the same.
The big question is: will the US hang on until it has wrung as
much as it can from everyone else before letting go, or will it
insist on retaining control, thereby creating an almighty political
argument with an uncertain resolution? The most ironic element of
all of this is that ultimately, in the wider sense, US control is
not important to the internet. The internet can and will skirt past
any obstacles to its progress if there is even a glimmer of an exit
light. But that is a technical argument and the political realities
are very different. Internet governance has become very important
and potentially dangerous precisely because governments have
started arguing over it.
The most dramatic manifestation of this is that not a single
government or international organisation has yet to draw up an
alternative model of how the internet would be governed. It is all
principles and semantics.
Instead, it has come down to a series of highly intelligent and
well informed geeks to explain the practicalities of running the
internet in a different way. The Internet Governance
Project produced a paper
[pdf] at the start of the month that made a real-world review of
how the net is run and how the current mechanisms can and should be
changed to usher in the new era of the internet.
Philosophies and ideologies were thin on the ground, replaced
with the engineer's credo of "find it, fix it". No matter what the
political outcome, there is at least one paper that explains what
has to be done.
© The Register
2005
