By Kieren McCarthy for The Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
The current agreement between ICANN and the US Department of
Commerce (DoC) is due to expire next week, but speculation has been
mounting for months over what will happen to management of the
internet's vital domain name system (DNS).
The US government official in charge of the agreement, Assistant
Secretary John Kneuer made clear in a Senate hearing on Wednesday
that the "memorandum of understanding" (MoU) between it and ICANN
would be extended on 30 September, but refused to give any more
details.
A second Senate meeting in Washington yesterday saw more details
leak out, although both Kneuer and ICANN CEO Paul Twomey remain
tight-lipped. It is now expected that the new MoU will last two
years, although both parties stressed that discussions were still
ongoing and the decision was not finalised.
More signficantly however, at the end of that agreement, the
expectation is that ICANN will finally become an autonomous body,
10 years after it was first created and eight since it was supposed
to break free from government control. The issue of control over
ICANN has become a topic of international controversy because of
the US government's failure to stick to a promise to remove itself
from ICANN's structure.
International anger
With the internet now a global resource, opposition to US
control has gradually built up, culminating in weeks of intense
diplomatic discussion just prior to a World Summit on the
Information Society in November. The outcome of those talks was the
retention of the ICANN/DoC model but since then, tension has never
been far from the surface. Evidence that the Bush Administration
had interfered with ICANN's processes to prevent the creation of a
new .xxx top-level domain was the final straw for many. Also, the
unresolved issue of control risked destabilising vital
international discussions over other, wider internet issues such as
spam, access and security.
Domestic US feeling is hard-set against suggestions that ICANN
be pulled into the United Nations. A compromise solution proposed
by the EU that would see a flexible and lightweight governmental
body take over the US government's role was rejected in Geneva a
year ago. Nonetheless, that EU model has taken root in most
people's minds as the end game if the singular internet system or
"root" isn't to fracture across national borders. Such a split
would effectively destroying the internet's greatest asset –
interconnection.
The DoC and ICANN will try to avoid handing over any oversight
power to governments by giving a larger role to the Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC) within ICANN and then allow the
organisation to become autonomous at the expiration of the new
MoU.
Transition
Despite claims earlier in the week, quoting US Ambassador David
Gross as saying that the US government would not hand over control
of ICANN anytime soon, ICANN CEO Twomey said the situation is very
different. "Firstly, the Administration has committed itself to
private sector management of the DNS and said that it would
transition its role to the private sector. Secondly, it has said it
is supporting ICANN in its function for doing that. And thirdly, as
John [Kneuer] said today, it sees the MoU as the instrument to that
transition," he told us.
Asked if he could therefore see an autonomous ICANN, with all
governmental control run through the GAC, at the end of the next
MoU, Twomey was unequivocal: "Yes."
But he recognised that there is still much to do before the DoC
will cut its ties with the organisation. In particular, Secretary
Kneuer has consistently and publicly questioned ICANN's
accountability and transparency.
Twomey assured us that the ICANN Board was "very aware" of the
issues and in the next few months would issue a "set of principles"
that will revamp the way it carries out its role and hopefully
answer accusations of back-room dealing. He said the transparency
issue is one more of accessibility. The information is all
available on the organisation website but it is not made
accessible, is the argument. In response, ICANN has started
redesigning its website and yesterday announced the hiring of two
dedicated staff to improve its site's content and approach.
Changes afoot
Twomey also promised that the much-derided appeals process
within ICANN would be made easier to locate and run through. The
first report to be released by ICANN's Ombudsman has also added to
the sense that ICANN has started listening to its critics. And a
report out last week by the London School of Economics lends weight
to Twomey's claim to be building ICANN in preparation for autonomy.
It makes some bold statements and stark recommendations for changes
to the GNSO, the consistuency within ICANN that makes most of its
important policy decisions.
But several stumbling blocks remain. Despite persuading the
sceptical owners of country top-level domains such as .uk and .de
to recognise ICANN, the organisation has still to formalise its
relationship with regional internet registries or with the
organisations that run the internet's fundamental root servers.
Until this is done, ICANN is unable to act as an independent force
across the whole Net infratructure.
Also there remains the risk of renewed hostilities between ICANN
and VeriSign, the internet's most powerful company, which runs the
dotcom and dotnet registries. Through judicious use of lawsuits,
VeriSign prevented ICANN from expanding its reach for years. But
last year the two finally reached agreement.
The problem is that the agreement – which hands VeriSign
effective permanent control of all dotcoms and allows it to raise
prices at a time when prices everywhere else are going down - has
angered the rest of the internet community as well as US
politicians. The deal has been held up in Congress where it is
accused of being anti-competitive. ICANN will fear that if the deal
falls apart, all its hard work could fall apart. However as each
day passes, VeriSign has less chance of going back on the deal,
even if it is forced to make concessions to get it through.
At the moment, with those problems a short distance into the
future, Paul Twomey is revelling in having pulled off a job many
thought impossible – pulling administration of the internet
passed VeriSign, the US government and the United Nations without
losing most of it on the way. "I think it went reasonably well," he
told us on his mobile from outside the US Senate.
© The Register
2006
