Rod on Internet governance
Hi, This is relevant to the thread about whether to discuss ICANN's strategic response to global Internet governance debates at the Council-Board dinner. In light of all that that has gone on over the past few years and the continuing discontent of a majority of governments with ICANN's constitutional structure, is it enough to simply argue that any departure from the status quo would make ICANN less "nimble"? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/icann-head-warns-against-putt...
Bill I generally agree with Rod's views here but to add few things (many more could be added) that the Council might want to be aware of that are likely fall into the governance area issues besides "names and addresses". (With my techie beanie on :-) too: - Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the foundational routing mechanism of the Internet; it has scaled far beyond what was reasonable with the growth of the Internet. (It isn't really a protocol but a giant table containing all the networks on the Internet and their links; worked fine in 1990.) It needs to be replaced to ensure long term Internet stability but the technical solutions so far encroach on the "perceived anonomity of the Internet"; so that remains at an impass for the moment. This is also the fundamental reason that the RIR's continue to hold the reigns on IPv6 address allocations so tightly too (an ITU issue..). And why there are restrictions being considered by the RIRs for some types mobile routing services (we are trying to fix this via new mobile routing protocols) to avoid global routing storms within BGP. - DNS Take your pick here; WHOIS, take-overs, botnets, etc. Some type of really active governance and control measures are being called for from lots of places to control cyber criminal activity. - Having just sat through two days of high level cyber security meetings, it seems likely that for at least some things that in the near future an "Internet ID" is likely to be required (i.e. your banking). The economies and national infrastructures of probably 50 nations at least are mostly or highly dependent on a functioning Internet; not mention international finance and trade. And cybercrime is now the top source of income for "organized crime" around the globe. Beyond "naming and addressing" today the Internet is mostly run by "gentlemen's agreements". Maybe that's good enough but it probably deserves at least some discussion. Take care Terry PS: And I think it is safe to say that the Internet in 2015 will likely look different than today. The question is "how much"? PPS: I'm fine with the other dinner topics but we all should be aware of the other pressures on ICANN and the Internet. -----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of William Drake Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 2:57 AM To: GNSO Council List Subject: [council] Rod on Internet governance Hi, This is relevant to the thread about whether to discuss ICANN's strategic response to global Internet governance debates at the Council-Board dinner. In light of all that that has gone on over the past few years and the continuing discontent of a majority of governments with ICANN's constitutional structure, is it enough to simply argue that any departure from the status quo would make ICANN less "nimble"? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/icann-head-warns-against-putt ing-internet-addresses-under-un-control/article1579820/
Bill: I wanted to share with you and the GNSO Council List Barbara Clay's note on this article. Regards, David ========================================================================= Barbara Ann Clay - VP Marketing & Communications The Reuters story, based on an interview with Rod which I attended, doesn¹t capture what he actually said and we have protested to the journalist and to his editor. The journalist asked what changes could come in the context of the Affirmation of Commitments, and Rod said he would not speculate. He then asked if ICANN would ever cede authority to a UN body or a G12 type group. Rod responded that this would be hard to imagine, but that ³it would be up to the [ICANN] community to decide². He then said that his role is to run the staff and lead the organization, and not to say what ICANN¹s stakeholder groups will decide in the future. That part of his answer is not in the story and without it, the article leaves the incorrect impression that Rod stated active opposition to a UN ³takeover², a subject on which he remained studiously neutral in the interview. He did not ³caution² or ³warn² anyone on this or any other subject. In my protest, I stated that the problem is not just that any decision on this would not be in Rod¹s hands. It is that ICANN has a bottom-up decision-making structure that Rod respects; that is why he stressed that ³it¹s up to the community to decide² and laid out his exact and limited role as leader of the organization. So while the quotes that appear in the article are - strictly speaking - accurate, the headline and the terms ³warns² and ³cautioned² considerably overstate his comments and the article does not correctly reflect what he said. ========================================================================== On 5/27/10 11:56 AM, "William Drake" <william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:
Hi,
This is relevant to the thread about whether to discuss ICANN's strategic response to global Internet governance debates at the Council-Board dinner. In light of all that that has gone on over the past few years and the continuing discontent of a majority of governments with ICANN's constitutional structure, is it enough to simply argue that any departure from the status quo would make ICANN less "nimble"?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/icann-head-warns-against-putt... g-internet-addresses-under-un-control/article1579820/
David A. Olive Vice President, Policy Development ICANN Office: 310.578.8617 Cell: 202.341.3611
Hi David, I certainly sympathize with Rod's predicament. Five years ago I did a thing in Madrid for the Telefonica Foundation and they set up some interviews that resulted in newspaper articles with completely botched renditions of my comments. The worst was El Pais, which took my noting that there are developing countries who'd like the UN to play a bigger role in Internet governance and turned it into a headline "La ONU debería centralizar el gobierno de Internet" ("The UN should centralize the governance of Internet") glowering over my pic. I wrote asking for correction but the thing lives on in Google space, prompting the occasional puzzled email. Presumably Rod will have better luck getting a response than I did. Beware of journalists writing about IG, for they generally know not what they say. Best, Bill On Jun 2, 2010, at 4:22 PM, David Olive wrote:
Bill:
I wanted to share with you and the GNSO Council List Barbara Clay's note on this article.
Regards, David
=========================================================================
Barbara Ann Clay - VP Marketing & Communications
The Reuters story, based on an interview with Rod which I attended, doesn’t capture what he actually said and we have protested to the journalist and to his editor.
The journalist asked what changes could come in the context of the Affirmation of Commitments, and Rod said he would not speculate. He then asked if ICANN would ever cede authority to a UN body or a G12 type group. Rod responded that this would be hard to imagine, but that “it would be up to the [ICANN] community to decide”. He then said that his role is to run the staff and lead the organization, and not to say what ICANN’s stakeholder groups will decide in the future.
That part of his answer is not in the story and without it, the article leaves the incorrect impression that Rod stated active opposition to a UN “takeover”, a subject on which he remained studiously neutral in the interview. He did not “caution” or “warn” anyone on this or any other subject.
In my protest, I stated that the problem is not just that any decision on this would not be in Rod’s hands. It is that ICANN has a bottom-up decision-making structure that Rod respects; that is why he stressed that “it’s up to the community to decide” and laid out his exact and limited role as leader of the organization.
So while the quotes that appear in the article are - strictly speaking - accurate, the headline and the terms “warns” and “cautioned” considerably overstate his comments and the article does not correctly reflect what he said.
==========================================================================
On 5/27/10 11:56 AM, "William Drake" <william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch> wrote:
Hi,
This is relevant to the thread about whether to discuss ICANN's strategic response to global Internet governance debates at the Council-Board dinner. In light of all that that has gone on over the past few years and the continuing discontent of a majority of governments with ICANN's constitutional structure, is it enough to simply argue that any departure from the status quo would make ICANN less "nimble"?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/icann-head-warns-against-putt... g-internet-addresses-under-un-control/article1579820/
David A. Olive Vice President, Policy Development ICANN Office: 310.578.8617 Cell: 202.341.3611
*********************************************************** William J. Drake Senior Associate Centre for International Governance Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva, Switzerland william.drake@graduateinstitute.ch www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html ***********************************************************
participants (3)
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David Olive -
Terry L Davis, P.E. -
William Drake