Want to save the Internet? Read this.

The US [tag]Congress[/tag]’ Committee on Small Business has a 2pm meeting today over the controversial [tag]dotcom[/tag] contract that will see [tag]VeriSign[/tag] handed the famous [tag]registry[/tag] forever. The contract was approved by [tag]ICANN[/tag] at the end of February, but the US Department of Commerce has the right to turn over any ICANN Board decision.

The [tag]DoC[/tag] isn’t going to do that though. Why? Because of the very complex dynamic that operates between ICANN and the DoC, ICANN and VeriSign, the DoC and VeriSign. All three of these were involved in the contract negotiations and it is in all their interests for it to go through.

I was going to write about this small case in detail, but instead I think it might be time to write a brief history of the power struggle at the head of the Net, and put some of the recent events into context, plus point out what’s going to happen the rest of the year that will soon become a fundamental part of the history of the Internet.

If you want to know more about the Congress meeting, read Kevin Murphy’s piece here. And visit CFIT’s website.

History of the Internet big three and their power struggle

VeriSign (in its former guise of Network Solutions) had a difficult relationship with the DoC under the Clinton Administration. [tag]Network Solutions[/tag] parent company used to be SAIC – which is effectively the private arm of the US security services – and it applied its heavyweight political power to protect Network Solutions’ monopoly and allow it to start charging for domains back in 1995.

The Clinton Administration didn’t like the Internet being controlled by spooks in the private sector, and so tried to find a way to pull its power away. It created ICANN and planned to slot that in above VeriSign and then use ICANN to force changes on VeriSign. But during that process, VeriSign used its political powers to keep control of the dotcom registry, and in return allow competition underneath it – companies called registrars that are entitled to sell domain names to the wider public.

The result was that ICANN was born into an uncomfortable position where it had control over the Internet – but only those bits that VeriSign didn’t own. And so a constant power struggle developed between the two, that VeriSign consistently won because it had more political power, more cunning and more money than ICANN.

The change

And then two things happened that saw power swing even more VeriSign’s way: the Bush administration and the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The Clinton Administration disliked VeriSign, to the extent that the [tag]Bush[/tag] administration was favourably disposed to it. VeriSign saw it chance and embarked on a huge lobbying spree – and it worked. When 9/11 struck and the Bush administration went into war mode, VeriSign cleverly responded by pressing at every opportunity the importance of the Internet, how the Internet was at risk from terrorist attack, and how it – as a strong American company – was the company best placed to protect this vital resource.

The result can be summed up in a mantra endlessly repeated over and over again at every opportunity by both VeriSign and the Bush administration when it comes to the Internet : Security and Stability. Virtually every decision that has attracted widespread criticism from the Internet community from that point has been justified through “security and stability”.

No one has ever bothered to request what these words means in reality or to try to quantify them in any way and the reason is because what they actually stand for is: “Keep it American.” The blinkered patriotism that has infected US politics for the past four years has enabled this conceit to continue, to the enormous financial advantage of VeriSign.

Screwdriver

So what of ICANN? Surely ICANN existed to slowly screwdriver VeriSign off its profitable contracts? Yes, it was, but it could only do so with the support of the DoC. While the DoC’s culture for many years remained anti-VeriSign, it has gradually been turned toward the administration perspective (as all government departments do over time). While this transistion occurred, VeriSign kept ICANN in its box by occasionally over-stepping its authority, and when ICANN reacted, firing off a series of ruinous lawsuits that they could afford and ICANN couldn’t.

It got to the point where ICANN publicly confessed that the lawsuits were making it impossible to do its job. So many resources were directed at supporting itself that other things were falling by the wayside and its entire ability to do its job was called into question. The impact was that ICANN became fearful of VeriSign. Every time they went to make a decision, ICANN staff asked themselves: “How will VeriSign react to this?”

But at the same time, VeriSign wanted ICANN to continue to exist because it presented a public face of accountability to the world that VeriSign could work behind unmolested.

Corruption

But this was the point at which the whole system began to sink into corruption. ICANN’s pragmatic new head Paul [tag]Twomey[/tag] realised the bind ICANN was in and so decided to steer a course out of it. Originally a reformer, Twomey cleaned out many of the cobwebs and turned the organisation into a far more professional outfit.

He also decided on a long-term goal: to make ICANN the de facto head of the Internet which him at the top – and then embarked on an ends-justify-the-means crusade.

The situation with VeriSign and ICANN’s lack of funds was cleverly used to justify a huge budget increase for the organisation. In Twomey’s first budget it almost doubled from $8 million to $15 million. The year after, $22 million. And the most recent proposed budget jumps another $7 million to $30 million.

This money enabled ICANN to step up its legal fight against VeriSign, plus make much needed changes to keep the wider Internet community happy. However, it’s most important purpose was to enable ICANN to embark on an enormous and as-yet undocumented political intelligence campaign. Politicians, negotiators, diplomats and businessmen acted as the eyes and ears of ICANN, ICANN staffers were inserted at all possible levels in the political chain and the information was used to balance up meetings with the DoC and VeriSign.

The three became embroiled in their own world at the top of the Internet to the detriment of absolutely everyone else. VeriSign used its legal leverage against ICANN; ICANN used Internet community anger against VeriSign; the DoC used its overall control of ICANN, ICANN used growing international calls for control of the Net to be pulled away from the US government.

Deals

Anger against all three grew from the world outside with the ironic result that despite their struggles with one another, they grew dependent on each other. And this weird dynamic has ultimately resulted in a series of backroom deals of which the dotcom contract was just one:

• The contract for the dotnet registry was intentionally and knowingly distorted by ICANN in order to hand it back to VeriSign.

• With that achieved, the contract for dotcom was also handed to VeriSign on VeriSign’s conditions. In return for these two contracts, VeriSign agreed to drop its lawsuits and finally accept ICANN as having authority over it – ending the 10-year battle.

• In between, ICANN has allowed the DoC to directly intervene with the Internet in several country-code redelegations (Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq) and with the .xxx proposed domain, without exposing its involvement – something that would cause the existing control mechanisms to implode.

• ICANN provided its public support to the US government and the US government its public support for ICANN at the series of international meetings over Internet governance that ended at the World Summit in Tunis in November 2005.

• It is perhaps odd then that the DoC has put ICANN’s entire powerbase – namely, the contract to run IANA, which is basically top-level control of the whole Net – up for rebid. Or at least it would be if it had actually done that. All it has actually done is ask others to submit positions of interest in running IANA. The reality is that it the IANA contract likely to form one part of the final deal in the series when ICANN’s own contract with the DoC is due to expire in September this year.

Has Twomey cut a deal with the DoC where it will appear to offer IANA up for bid in order to demonstrate that there isn’t a dodgy deal going on, and then will hand it to ICANN anyway in order to strengthen its position? It is all too likely.

Will the DoC extend ICANN’s contract and in so doing retain its role at ultimate head of the Internet? While the Bush administration in still in charge, yes. So how will everyone deal with the international fury this will provoke? ICANN will announce a new co-operation model with foreign governments just prior to the DoC contract renewal.

If it all goes according to plan and no one screws over the others, Twomey will achieve his goal: head of the Internet with a large organisation and a political powerbase beneath him. That the Internet as a whole will have suffered hugely in the meantime is neither here or there to him: his justification will be that ICANN couldn’t have survived otherwise.

And the only way any of this is going to change – something that I would argue would be in everyone’s interests – is if enough people can get into the cracks and start prying the three away from one another. There are a number of people trying:

• [tag]ICM Registry[/tag] is furious at having been screwed by the DoC and ICANN over its .xxx registry and is suing the former and pushing the later to find out what happened.

• [tag]CFIT[/tag] is suing ICANN over the VeriSign contract, and lobbying politicians, asking them to use their power to pull apart the process and look at what happened.

• A loose congregation of Internet old hands are building a bid to take over the IANA contract and are organising to expose some of the goings-on.

• Foreign governments are using diplomatic channels and the United Nations to open up the existing system.

• ICANN Board members are themselves starting to ssert their rights and making it harder for ICANN staff to misled the Board into making pre-agreed decisions.

• And a number of journalists are trying to looking into the peculiar positions and decisions made by ICANN. Edward Hasbrouck is unrelentingly trying to take ICANN through its stated independent review process because of the deal it struck over the .aero registry. And myself and Kevin Murphy are continuing to probe the relationships between the big three and publicise what has happened and what people claim has happened in the hope that the people that know of the dodgy deals will have the strength to stand up and be counted.

At some point, the Internet has to pull itself away from being the plaything of a few individuals looking for money and power. If what many people – including Vint Cerf, ICANN chairman – have warned happens, and the Net fractures along traditional geographical borders, historians will record that the triumvirate of ICANN, VeriSign and the DoC, and the series of deals they struck between 2003 and 2006 will have been the end-point for the original Internet dream.