Will the Net die in September? Marrakech preview

The [tag]Internet[/tag] overseeing organisation [tag]ICANN[/tag] is meeting in [tag]Marrakech[/tag] starting on Saturday and it looks as though there is going to be much to discuss, some of it planned for, and some of it that people will seek to avoid. But one question rises about all others: what will happen to the Internet on 30 September 2006?

Here is my account of what is going to happen, why and what it all means.

First off, here are the things that ICANN hopes to discuss, because it has set aside particular times and rooms:

  • Internationalised Domain Names ([tag]IDN[/tag]s). Otherwise known as the rest of the world being allowed the Internet in their own language. This is one of the most fundamental areas for the future of the Net, and one where ICANN has been an embarassing failure thanks to the North American mentality. But, give it its due, the whole WSIS process had seen ICANN get its act together and it has been running IDN workshops every meeting for the past four meetings. Plus in Vancouver, ICANN CEO Paul [tag]Twomey[/tag] announced a Presidential Committee for IDNs. I just hope to god that this time there is something real and tangible that can be shown. If it another three-hour discussion about how we can’t get it to work and it’s more complicated that you think, we might as well just split up the Internet right now.
  • Countries signing up to ICANN. This is a big deal for ICANN: [tag]ccTLD[/tag]s saying, okay then, we acknowledge that ICANN is in a position of authority. Following the German agreement – which has been very carefully worded not to have any legal tie-ins – there have been the expected run in other countries signing up: Latvia (or possibly Lithunania), Christmas Island, Norfolk Island and – amazingly – Namibia. Is Eberhard Lisse still in charge of .na? This gives ICANN a certain level of legitimacy that it has been sorely lacking in for years. The real turning point will be when/if the UK’s Nominet signs up. But it is good news that finally ICANN and ccTLDs have been able to find agreement after years of counterproductive aggression on ICANN’s part.
  • Enhanced co-operation. This is a big one and lots of time will be devoted to governments coming to agreement over how they are going to have a bigger say in how ICANN – and by extension the Net – functions. It is absolutely vital that ICANN is able to announce a plan before its [tag]MoU[/tag] with the US government is renewed in September – it will be its only real defence when the Bush administration insists on retaining control. What is very, very annoying is that all of this will, as ever, be done behind closed doors. It is a wasted opportunity and so I hope to be able to do what governments should be doing themselves and explain the nature of negotiations and different countries’ perspectives.
  • [tag]Whois[/tag]. ICANN doesn’t really want to get involved with this because it means trouble: how much information on domain name holders should be freely and publicly available? ICANN doesn’t really have any choice but to discuss it: the GNSO voted in a fundamental change after two years of work and that has to be acknowledged. The people to watch here will be the US government. If they are crazy enough to try to insist on keeping the status quo (where your home address and telephone number are available to anyone in the entire world), against the [tag]GNSO[/tag]’s own stated position, all hell will break loose. Of course, the US won’t actually do that, they will instead try to muddy the issue, point to all the differences and then say we need more discussion. But there is very little goodwill directed at the US government at the moment following the [tag].xxx[/tag] debacle so if it has any sense at all it will let it go. Here’s betting it won’t.
  • DNSSEC. Otherwise known as “are we still discussing this?” Another example of how ICANN’s processes clearly aren’t efficient enough. This more secure and stable method of underpinning the Internet should have been done and dusted two years ago.
  • [tag]Domain Names[/tag]. The one good example of ICANN thinking straight. There are a whole range of new issues over domain names and ICANN is precisely the place where they should be being discussed. There is a workshop, run by Jothan Frakes and everyone of importance is slated to talk. If only ICANN meetings had more of these events. Frakes has talked a little about it on ICANNWatch.

That’s what ICANN wants or is willing to discuss. Here is what people will actually want to discuss however:

  • .xxx. Stuart Lawley from ICM Registry will be attending and he is still annoyed at being screwed over. As are many governments who are angry at the US government’s direct interference in the process. As are ICANN constituencies, who see the whole issue as just another example of them being bypassed because of behind-the-scenes deals. Internet New Zealand, I see, has vowed to bring it up.
  • The [tag]VeriSign[/tag] dotcom contract. Again, the contract has not gone through. There are lots of rumours as to why, but the fact is that CFIT and ICM Registry and lots of American Net companies have used their democratic processes to get at the contract at the US government level. This is a double-edged sword. One, it is good that people with authority to stop it are looking at the contract and asking the questions that ICANN staff and Board have so carefully ignored from everyone else. However at the same time, it makes a mockery of ICANN running the Internet. Americans still haven’t quite woken up to the fact that they are now a minority – a small minority – of people on and using the Net. That such a bad contract is only properly discussed in the corridors of Washington DC is the clearest example you can get of what depths Internet governance has dropped to. There was an interesting article last week in Business Week by Congressman Rick Boucher in which he outlined why the VeriSign deal should be stopped. But the question is more fundamental that that. It is no coincidence that a 2001 paper by [tag]Michael Froomkin[/tag], A Wrong Turn in Cyberspace, has suddenly become required reading. In it, Froomkin, a legal expert in this area, outlines how US government oversight of ICANN violates the US Constitution.

That is what people will want to discuss. But here is what every single person in every single room should be discussing, in public and out loud:

  • The United States government’s expiring contracts with ICANN, both the Memorandum of Understanding and the [tag]IANA[/tag] contract. The MoU by which ICANN draws all of its authority, and by which the US government asserts ultimate control over the entire Internet will expire on 30 September. IANA is the contract to run the database that specifies where everything is on the Internet. It is the fundamental Internet directory. The contract that ICANN has to run IANA – granted again by the US government – was extended almost arbitrarily to coincide with the MoU’s 30 September expiration date.

What is absolutely incredible about these two fundamental contracts that define how the entire Internet currently works is that even though they will expire in three months, there has been absolutely no public discussion of them or of what will and should happen. I personally have asked on at least a dozen occasions over the past year top-ranking officials from the US government and from ICANN about what the plans are, what their intentions are, and have yet to receive a single piece of useful information.

This is the last meeting of ICANN before that expiration date. The contract is of such fundamental importance that if it were not renewed, ICANN would effectively cease to exist and all the planning that has gone into the December Brazil meeting would have all been for nought. The US government refuses to state what everyone knows its intention is: to renew the MoU with itself in overall charge, because that will infuriate everyone that isn’t the US government. The US government has also made vague noises about accepting a different company to run the IANA contract, but with that contract expiring in three months, it is more than likely just waving the IANA contract about as another way of fogging the issue so the hard questions aren’t asked and so it can award it back to ICANN.

This would not be so bad except for the fact that ICANN was always supposed to become an automonous body. When the US government created the organisation back in 1998, the stated intention was that when the contract expired in 2003 that the US government would cut itself out of the Internet. But the Bush administration then decided it didn’t like this arrangement and so reneged on the deal. It looks certain to do the same again. And if there was any doubt that this is not the right course for the entire Internet to follow, it is highlighted in the fact that not a soul will discuss it.

So that’s the question I will be asking everyone at ICANN next week. Let’s hope that the people entrusted to oversee this revolutionary medium don’t get distracted with the small battles and forget the bigger picture.

  1. Kieren,

    Thank you for the favorable mention of the Domain Marketplace workshop that I’ve been asked to moderate in Marrakech. I appreciate that you see what I saw in it, that there is interest on ICANN’s behalf to have some substantive dialog about the marketplace, and I have heard a sincere interest to listen.

    I fear that folks will arrive with their positions held closely to the vest like poker hands and express them in that session, and it is only 2.5 to 3 hours in length to cover what we are able to only touch upon with the Domain Roundtable Conference in a three day span.

    People are not commenting to the public list; this is where folks have a voice to talk about their positions. For the past three days there has only been one post. Ironically, it says that there should be more public voice, yet nobody is stepping up to the plate.

    I am hopeful, because of your large readership and following, that there might be some public comment about the areas being covered inspired by your article.

    For those interested in stating a postition, I will be reading the posts to this list in the session (abbreviated where necessary for time’s sake — again, time is short for this session unfortunately). The link to the comments is here, and the place to submit comments is dn-market-comments@icann.org.

    -Jothan

  2. Glad to be of whatever help I can, Jothan

    One of the strange things about the Net community when it comes to ICANN events is that no one ever bothers to make online comments. Admittedly, it doesn’t help that ICANN has historically ignored all such comments, but it’s become a chicken and egg thing.

    Anyway, I’ll see you in a few days, and I’m sure the meeting will go well.

    Kieren

  3. Thank you for being a person who can recognize that many people just want to use Domains in their own languages (IDNs). If you need anymore info on IDNs please feel free to ask me. Most people in Japan do not type in URLs because they are in English. IDNs are promoted in Japan blatantly as “Finally domains you can actually remember”.

    I’ll be loloking forward to your update on this.

  4. Hey Olney,

    It’s perfectly obvious to anyone that thinks about it for more than 10 seconds that we have to have the Internet in different people’s languages. I only wish I spoke Japanese, Chinese or Arabic so I could make the point more forcefully.

    If you want to make it clear to Western English-speakers how significant this is, just tell them they have to visit this great new site – and then read it out in Japanese. And then spell the address out letter by letter.

    It is also a conveniently ignored fact whenever there are references to “the biggest websites on the Net” and so on, that five of the top ten websites in the world are Chinese or Japanese.

    Kieren

  5. I just want to say I’m happy with the internet a it is. For me ICANN is certainly better than China or the EUssr messing with it. That .xxx issue is far less important than freedom.

  6. You are kainotophobic.

    And unfortunately you have believed the propaganda knocked out by the US government and repeated with vigour by most US news outlets during the WGIG process. Not that it wasn’t beautifully handled, just that it was completely untrue.

    Sadly, the .xxx issue was actually all about freedom.

    Kieren

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