The Amateur

Computerist

Fall 2015

Netizens Belong in Internet Governance

Volume 26 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Internet of Netizens, Not of Things.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6

Netizen Participation in IG. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 10

Citizens and Netizens in Decision-Making.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

Developing-Country Perspective.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

Democracy OR Multi-stakeholderism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 35

What Future Governance? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 40

Letter to Congress: NTIA and ICANN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 45

UNESCO Obscures ICANN Controversy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 51

UN to Consider IGF Future (2010).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 55

WSIS+10: Problems Revealed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 60

Observations on 2

WSIS+10 Prep Mtg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 64

Internationalized Oversight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 71

Introduction

Three Models for Internet Governance

Multi-Lateral, Multi-Stakeholder, or Netizen Model?

The question taken up in this issue of the Amateur Computerist is:

What is the nature of the governance needed for the Internet to develop,

to thrive and to spread to more and more people around the world?

From October 19 to 22, 2015, the UN headquarters in New York

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

held the 2

Preparatory Session for the WSIS+10 Review. WSIS stands

for the Summit sponsored by the United Nations that took place in two

phases, in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005. This Summit was called

the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The objective of

these phases of the Summit was two-fold. One was to give an impetus

and direction to spread the Internet around the world, particularly to

those developing countries and peoples who did not yet have access to

the Internet. The second objective was to resolve a struggle that was

ongoing at the time over what would be the form of governance for the

global Internet.

The Tunis Summit mandated that in ten years, the UN General

Assembly do a ten year review of the progress of the objectives set out

at the Geneva and Tunis WSIS meetings. The preparatory meetings

toward that review were ongoing in Fall 2015 in order to create an

agreement for a High Level Meeting which was to be held by the UN

General Assembly on December 15 and 16, 2015.

Rather than review the achievements and shortcomings of the

previous 10 years so as to evaluate the progress toward implementing

the vision and goals set by the WSIS Summit, however, the WSIS+10

Review has become embroiled in the continuing controversy over what

will be the form of governance of the global Internet. On one side of the

controversy is the desire to have a shared form of governance in which

all states are able to participate on an equal footing On the other side of

the controversy are those states that are willing to accept the U.S.

government’s unilateral control over the essential functions of the

Internet infrastructure.

This controversy should be fought out in public in a way that

clarifies the underlying disagreements so a common agreement can be

negotiated. Those favoring continued U.S. control over the Internet’s

infrastructure present their model for Internet governance as the “multi-

stakeholder” model. Those on the other side of the controversy advocate

the importance of governments maintaining control over Internet related

decisions that will affect their citizens. A third view differing in part

with those who argue for governments to maintain control over

decisions affecting their citizens, is that citizens and netizens be

empowered to participate in helping to determine what the decisions by

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their governments will be. The three models for Internet governance

discussed in this issue of the Amateur Computerist therefore are the

multi-stakeholder model, the multilateral model (governments control-

ling the decisions) and the netizen model (citizens and netizens

participating to help to determine the decisions of their governments.)

The netizen model of Internet governance emerged earlier than the

multi-stakeholder model. The netizen model grew out of the research of

Michael Hauben who recognized that there was a new form of citizen-

ship, a global form of empowerment made possible by the development

of the Internet. He recognized also that there were a number of online

users who cherished the Internet and tried to utilize the empowerment

it made possible for the public interest of spreading the Net and making

this new social institution, this electronic commons into something that

would benefit society and the people who populate it.

The outcome document of the WSIS Summit of 2003 and 2005

recognized this model for Internet governance and put forward the

vision of a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented

information society.

An early draft, known as the Non-Paper, toward a 10-year Review

document had as the first statement in its Preamble:

We affirm the vision of a people-centered, inclusive and

development-oriented information society defined by the

World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) as well as the

objectives and norms established in the Geneva Declaration of

Principles, the Geneva Plan of Action, the Tunis Commitment

and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.

In their comments submitted on the Non-Paper, several UN member

nations commented on this statement finding it an important statement

of principle for the continuing vision for the development of the

Information Society.

A proposed form of governance presented in the Non-Paper in

contrast to the people centered form of governance, is what is called the

“multi-stakeholder” form of governance. This “multi-stakeholder”

model, its advocates say, is one which rejects the UN multilateral

system. In its place is put a system where a few governments claim they

rely only on “stakeholders” to make the decisions about the Internet.

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Who these are is most often not known, but most likely to be powerful

corporations

There are many problems with such a model. In general it excludes

most governments and it excludes the obligation of governments to

fulfill their responsibility to their citizens, i.e. to provide for the safety

and well-being of their citizens

Moreover, these few powerful nations embracing the so called

multi-stakeholder model choose which “stakeholders” to include in their

discussion, and exclude most others.

One criticism of this “multi-stakeholder” model is that it is but a

new way to undermine the sovereignty of nations, substituting some few

“stakeholders” so as to justify excluding the majority of governments,

their citizens and netizens from playing any role in the decision making

process regarding the global Internet.

The articles in this issue provide a critique of the “multi-stake-

holder” model and explain the “multilateral” and the “netizen” models.

The latter two have gotten comparatively little coverage elsewhere.

For example, the articles by Parminder Jeet Singh, “Global Internet

Governance: A Developing Country Perspective” and Michael

Gurstein’s “Democracy OR Multi–Stakeholderism: Competing Models

of Governance” provide critiques of the multi-stakeholder model and

document the democratic deficit with that model. Louis Pouzin’s article,

“What Future Governance Now that We Know?” proposes needed

action to counter the structural conflict of interest built into the ICANN

institutional organizational form. Qihen Hu’s article “Institutionalized

Oversight of Internet Resource Management” argues for a shared multi-

lateral decision-making process for policy issues related to the Internet’s

infrastructure. And Karl Auerbach’s “Open Letter to Congress Regard-

ing NTIA and ICANN” documents the inherent hostility to oversight and

accountability exhibited by ICANN.

“Netizen Participation in Internet Governance,” by Izumi Aizu

explains why netizens must be part of Internet governance. The two

articles, “We Need an Internet of Citizens, of Netizens not an Internet

of Things,” and “On Citizen and Netizen Role in Decision-Making

Process to Build the Information Society” are submissions by Ronda

Hauben to the WSIS+10 Review Process.

Page 4

The article “UNESCO Program at UN Obscures Controversy Over

ICANN” describes a program held at UN Headquarters in 2014 to

present a UNESCO report on freedom of expression. The UNESCO

sponsored program however was turned into an advocacy event to

promote ICANN with no critical perspective. No effort was made to

provide an understanding of the public controversy over ICANN.

Another article titled “UN to Consider Future of Internet Gover-

nance Forum,” describes a meeting at UN Headquarters in 2010

exploring the UN General Assembly’s need to understand the issues

related to Internet governance so as to be able to make necessary

decisions at the 5 year anniversary of the Tunis phase of the WSIS

Summit. The two articles, “First Preparatory Meeting of United Nations

WSIS 10 Year Review Reveals Problems,” and “Observations on the 2

Preparatory Meeting of the UN WSIS 10 Year Review” describe serious

problems demonstrated by the two preparatory sessions held at UN

Headquarters in the run up to the High Level meeting planned for

December. These six articles are reprinted from Ronda Hauben’s

netizenblog (

http://blogs.taz.de/ netizenblog) which covers the UN and

netizen related issues.

There is a critical need for broad public discussion and understand-

ing of the controversies underlying the choices that need to be made

about the mandated ten year review of the WSIS targets and vision. The

success of the process will have a bearing on how the Internet and

netizens will develop and spread over the next 10 years. Public and

citizen and netizen participation in these issues, will add vitality and

support for the continuation and implementation of the WSIS vision of

a people-centered, inclusive, and development oriented Information

Society.

Page 5

[Editor’s Note: The following is a submission for the UN General

Assembly WSIS+10 Review.]

“We Need an Internet of Citizens,

of Netizens, not an Internet of Things”

Submission for WSIS+10 Review*

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

The vision of the people-centered, inclusive and development-

oriented Information Society presented at the World Society on the

Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 and 2005 is a good vision and a

vision that needs to help to encourage implementation actions.

Critical for the fulfillment of this vision is the need to understand

the important role that netizens must play in carrying out the goals.

I participated in the WSIS Tunis Summit (November 16-18, 2005).

Also I chaired a panel and made a presentation about Netizens at the side

event for the WSIS meeting “Past, Present and Future of Research in the

Information Society” (PPF) held in Tunis on November 13-15, 2005.

The side event was sponsored in part by the 4S (Society for Social

Studies of Science).

My presentation at the forum described how the Internet was

developed and spread and how the discovery of the emergence of the

netizen happened. It documented how the role of the netizen in the

continued development and spread of the Internet was identified and

embraced by many online users around the world. The vision for the

development of the Internet was created by JCR Licklider based on his

research in computers and human brain science. Licklider adopted a

notion of cooperative modeling as a conceptual framework.

Similarly my talk presented the discovery in 1993 of the Netizen by

Michael Hauben in his research about the social impact of the Net.

Netizens, Hauben observed, “were active participants in helping to

spread the Internet and to foster its continued development as an

advance in communications that would be available to all.” He clarified

that Netizens were those people online who actively contribute to the

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development of the Net. He wrote, “These are the people who as citizens

of the Net I realized were Netizens.” (Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet, p. ixx) He differentiates, however,

between those whom he identifies as netizens and others online.

“Netizens are not just anyone who comes online. Rather they are people

who understand that it takes effort and action on each and everyone’s

part to make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and re-

source.” (Netizens, p. x)

In a presentation made to an ITU Workshop Izumi Aizu explained

the importance of Hauben’s concept of netizens toward “the global

governing framework of the Internet [for which] we are tasked by the

WSIS process.” Aizu explained why it was necessary to “listen to those

who are affected by the decisions it makes,” and how “Netizens act as

watchdogs, or function to provide appropriate Checks and Balances, to

counter interests of others such as a provider of services, business, and

government.”(See next article in this issue.)

I am proposing that there is a need for the UN General Assembly

(UNGA) to include in its WSIS+10 Review statement a recognition of

the importance of input from and discussion by netizens as an essential

characteristic of the people-centered, inclusive, and development-

oriented Information Society.

The challenge is to recognize the need for a bottom up process to

implement the WSIS vision. Also there is a need to accurately identify

problems impeding the development and spread of the Net and to find

a means to resolve the problems.

At the airport on my way home from WSIS in Tunis I met a

colleague from an African country. He described the difficulties that

government was having in his country in its efforts to spread the

Internet. He described how there was a plan to wire the government

offices in his region and to then use the government Internet connection

to connect the local schools. What he found, however, was that when the

job was given to private contractors to connect the government offices,

they would not spread the connection elsewhere. The government plans

to own and administer the connection had envisioned how this would

make possible an inexpensive means of connection for the region’s

schools. This did not happen.

Page 7

This is an example of how there may be different views of how

Internet connectivity can be provided and the private sector and public

sector can have different interests that can either impede or facilitate the

spread of the Net to the public.

Providing a means for the citizen and netizens to learn of these

different models for development and having the Net help to make

public discussion and input possible can provide a means to identify the

challenges and determine how to resolve them.

In her presentation on July 2, 2015 to the Informal Interactive

Consultations, Divina Frau-Meigs proposed that what is needed is an

“Internet of Citizens, of Netizens, not an Internet of Things.”

I want to support Divina Frau-Meigs’ statement that what is needed

is an “Internet of Citizens, of Netizens, not an Internet of Things.” I

want to offer some clarification. The concept of Netizen in its origins is

not a description of all users, but of those users who have taken on to

contribute to the development and the spread of the Internet and to

making possible the better world that more communication among

people can create.

The concept of Netizen comes from the research and writing of

Michael Hauben while he was a college student in the early 1990s.

Michael was interested not only in how the Internet would develop and

spread, but also in the impact it would have on society. In 1993 he sent

out a set of questions across the computer networks asking users about

their experiences online. He was surprised to find that not only were

many of those who responded to his questions interested in what the Net

made possible for their own needs, but also they were interested in

spreading the Net and in exploring how it would make a better world

possible. A network user with this social perspective, or this public

interest focus Michael called a Netizen. Thus the Netizen was not all

users, but users with a public purpose.

Another aspect is that the Net is international and has been from its

very beginnings. Netizenship is not a geographically limited concept. To

be a netizen is to be not only a citizen of one country, but also a citizen

of the Net. Based on his research, Michael wrote the article “The Net

and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives.” The article

and the concept of the Netizen spread around the world via the Internet

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and the Netizens.

Michael and I included his influential article as part of a Netizens

Netbook which was first put online in 1994. It was published in a print

edition in 1997 in English and in Japanese, titled Netizens: On the

History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

The concept of Netizen was part of WSIS in Tunis in 2005, yet it

was sidelined or ignored at the UNGA WSIS+10 Review Consultation

until Divina Frau-Meigs’ talk. In its place we are told there are “stake-

holders” – but “stakeholders” is a term used to identify those seeking to

benefit corporate or institutional interests. Governments are charged

with a public purpose and hence are only mistakenly called “stake-

holders.” Similarly, Netizens are not “stakeholders,” but instead those

who contribute for a public purpose, for the public interest.

One UN member nation delegate asked how to deal with problems

online. Traditionally Netizens would take up to deal with problems that

developed online. It is important not to seek to disenfranchise Netizens

but to welcome Netizens and the concept of Netizenship into the heart

of the WSIS+10 Review by the UNGA. For any future development of

the vision of a “people-centered, inclusive, and development-oriented

Information Society,” the Netizens must be recognized and integrated

into the WSIS process.

I propose that a web site be set up for the WSIS+10 Review that

makes possible online discussion by Netizens of the issues related to the

Review. There was such a web site for the 2003 WSIS and some

interesting issues were raised by Netizens. Also it is important that the

outcome document not try to block views. If there are disagreements, the

disagreements should be reflected as part of the outcome document.

*This submission is my own view as a netizen and not the views of any organization.

The original version is available at the UN WSIS+10 Review website:

http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/ Internet/Documents/UNPAN94996.pdf.

It also appears on the netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/08/03/an-internet-of-citizens-of-netizens-not-an

-internet-of-things/

Page 9

[Editor’s Note: The following Working Paper is based on a presentation

made in February 2004.*]

Netizen Participation in

Internet Governance

by Izumi Aizu

Deputy Director,

Institute for HyperNetwork Society

izumi@hyper.or.jp

I have been involved with “Internet Governance,” or areas of global

Domain Name System management since around 1996. I was the

Secretary General of the Asia and Pacific Internet Association (APIA),

which was a formal member of the Steering Committee of International

Forum on the White Paper (IFWP), a global coordination effort to forge

a consensus for the setup of a new body to manage the DNS in 1998.

IFWP was a global response from the Internet stakeholders to the call by

the United States Government to “privatize” and “internationalize” the

DNS management in an open and inclusive approach. We advocated the

equal participation in the process and the body, eventually known as

ICANN, from an Asia and Pacific regional standpoint.

Here, I like to provide my proposal of putting the “Netizens” into

the global governing framework of the Internet [with which] we are

tasked by the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society)

process.

We are facing a new kind of challenge for the governance of the

Internet. The Internet made it possible to send and receive information

from anyone’s desktop, laptop, or even from mobile phones on the go,

with minimal cost, very easily and instantly, to anywhere in the world,

ignoring the geographic and institutional borders including that of the

nation states. This fact poses transnational challenges that are difficult

to solve by applying the traditional “nation” based approaches. Frankly,

most of the current International or intergovernmental organizations

were designed in the industrial age. Thus, they are not ready to deal with

these national or global issues efficiently and effectively. They are slow

Page 10

to identify the issues, slow to come-up with solutions, slow to agree with

each other, often constrained by national and bureaucratic borders, and

too rigid to respond to the rapid, ever-changing technologies and their

applications. For example, when they come up with legal frameworks

against certain types of spam, the spammers would be already well

ahead of the game creating new methods which are hard to trace and

enforce. This is just a small example of the broader challenges we all

face.

There is a clear need to establish a new governance model in which

the Netizens from the Civil Society should play a vital role in coopera-

tion with the government, international organizations, business sector

and technical community.

The diagram below shows the framework I propose in which “self-

governance” will take place. It is mostly carried out by the coordination

and collaboration of all stakeholders: business entities who are mostly

providers of services in the marketplace, along with technologists who

develop the technical standards and manage administrative and

operational functions of the network. Government can give a legal and

policy framework but it is better to keep interventions minimal.

Intergovernmental bodies and international organizations have their

roles, as well.

What is necessary here is the participation of the Netizens.

First and foremost, the Internet is becoming an everyday tool, or

commodity, for most of U.S. in the world. In Japan [in 2004], more than

Page 11

60% of population or 70 million people are now using the Internet one

way or another, and 70% of subscribers are now enjoying the high-speed

broadband connection, which gives you “always-on” feature. Korea has

the highest penetration of broadband, with more than 80% penetration

to the household and their actual usage is very very high. China, now

reached the number two place in terms of number of Internet users, 80

million people, after the United States. [By 2015, China had more then

650 million users.] The development of I-mode in Japan gave rise to

mobile phones for using services over the Internet, opening up the age

of ubiquitous or pervasive networking. The Internet empowers an

ordinary citizen with tremendous power – sending thousands of e-mails

to millions of people at a cost of a few dollars, sending both positive

messages as well as destructive viruses.

With this potential, millions of users are facing or creating societal

challenges: in Japan, victims of online dating services with mobile or

ordinary Internet are on the rise, targeting young women in schools with

more than 100 serious criminal cases a year. P2P file exchange is posing

a threat to commercial copyright holders, but it is also opening up new

and creative ways of sharing works among citizens. Compared with

these challenges, Domain Name and IP address management have far

fewer serious problems now, but we may face more challenges.

For any Internet governance model to work, it should fit with the

reality of local and a regional situation. As I have been working for the

Internet community in the Asia Pacific region, I like to bring your

attention to the very diverse situation of Internet development in our

region, from highly-developed places such as Japan or Korea too just in

their infancy in Afghanistan, East Timor and Iraq suffering from the

wars and conflicts, or tiny economy of Bhutan or many other LDCs.

Though Internet has been mostly developed by the Internet community

in many Asian countries, similar to that of developed countries, I could

say that governments play a greater role in supporting the Internet in

infrastructure and capacity building activities in this region.

In the case of the Asia Pacific, there has been a very strong tradition

of voluntary coordination and cooperation among the Internet communi-

ties. [You can see] all the “AP” organizations working on different areas

of Internet management, from address and Domain Name management

Page 12

to infrastructure development or spam or security matters at:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan0

16886.pdf page 4.

We have an annual summit called APRICOT which was first hosted

in 1996 and acted as the coordination catalyst until now for many

Internet activities in the region. This voluntary coordination is appreci-

ated by governments but receiving no control nor much financial support

at all. It is working just fine.

We should try to follow the governance model after the working

architecture of the Internet which is based on the layered structure.

Functions of each layer are different, so the governance models should

also be different, suited to the distinct characteristics of the layer it

belongs to. It is also necessary, however, to bring coordination among

different actors at different layers together.

Emergence of the Netizen

The word “Netizen” was first coined by a 23-year-old student, the

late Michael Hauben of Colombia University in New York in 1993. He

was trying to identify the new residents of the network community and

invented the term “Netizen,” short for “Net Citizen.” These active users

of the computer networks were originally found in the technical

community, but they now have spread into the civil society at large.

Netizens are the main actors of the Information Society, as Prof.

Shumpei Kumon of GLOCOM offered the theoretical analysis that in

the Information Society, the social games are played around the

intellectual values, not physical or property values like the industrial

society. We see very active groups of Netizens affecting the society like

the “slashdot” in U.S. or “2-channel,” its counterpart, in Japan. We

know many political activities are generated from online forums in

Korea, where Netizen already became a common Korean term, affecting

the outcome of a presidential campaign. In China, people are now

starting to use online forums to criticize the government (sometimes).

The rise of Netizens using mobile phones is articulated by Howard

Rheingold in his book Smart Mobs, which showed the potentially large

positive and negative impacts of using these cheap, open, mobile

technologies.

Page 13

Why should we let Netizens participate in this global governance of

the Internet? First, for any democratic governance it is necessary to

establish the Consent of the Governed, a basic principle of governance.

But we should go further. The Netizens are the main actors of the

Internet development, as they are the great inventor and innovator of

such tools as World-Wide Web (WWW) invented by the physics

researcher Tim Berners-Lee, Mosaic and Netscape browsers developed

by undergraduate students of University of Illinois led by Marc

Andreesen, Yahoo was started as their hobby and later created as a real

business by David Filo and Jerry Yang, students at Stanford University.

ICQ, Amazon and e-Bay are all developed mainly by users of the

Internet, not technology-driven engineers. Missing them from the

governance structure is like playing the football game without any

topnotch players. Third, decisions around Internet governance will affect

so many end-users directly. One needs to listen to those who are affected

by the decisions it makes.

Netizens act as watchdogs, or function to provide appropriate

Checks and Balances, to counter interests of others such as providers of

services, business and government. By involving them, they will also

have more sense of responsibilities.

Let U.S. also examine positive merits of having Netizens participate

in the governance.

First, Netizens have direct knowledge and rich experience of most

issues caused by the use of the Internet. If you are parents, quite often

your children know much better about using the Net than you do.

Likewise these active users are well aware of the challenges they are

facing since most often they are part of actors who create these

challenges themselves.

Second, Netizens are flexible, work more efficiently than many

incumbent institutions where protocols and procedures take up too much

time and process hence acting as barriers against timely decisions.

Third, Netizens are global citizens, not constrained by national

boundaries. There are many communities of interest, spread globally,

irrespective of geographic or other existing social boundaries. They will

function complementally to the existing border-based management

framework of international inter-governmental regime, not as opposition

Page 14

to them or undermining them.

Netizen participation will increase diversity. By making regional

balance as compulsory, Netizens from all the regions of the globe will

participate in the governance activities. Netizens will counter economic

imbalance, not dominated by large corporate interest, but adding

nonprofit, non governmental forces. They will also provide cultural

diversity with their multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment.

Netizen participation will reduce the marginalization of the minority,

too. By encouraging the Netizens to participate in governance, affirma-

tive efforts to listen to the minority groups, persons with disabilities,

women in vulnerable situations, linguistic minorities, all will have more

opportunities for their voices to be heard.

Netizens share the view with the technical community that freedom

at the edge of the network should be the core value of the Internet.

Traditional telecom operators and mobile phone operators on the other

hand may not necessarily share this vision. They tend to keep the central

control and close the network which is convenient for the operators as

well as many “passive” consumers. We are concerned that it may stifle

the innovation and development of the Internet we have enjoyed so

much so far.

There are risks of excluding Netizens from the global governance

mechanism. We should consider these potential risks, too. If we only

rely on technologists, they may lack the human viewpoints and tend to

think things mechanically. If we rely too much on corporations, aspects

of human rights might be compromised in the name of profit-making.

Privacy protection and respecting freedom of speech may be less

protected. And if we rely too much on a government or bureaucratic

mechanism, then we may face narrow “top-down” approach or closed

decisions.

In conclusion, we need to put Netizens into the self-governance

mechanisms. This will help solve the dichotomy of private-sector only

approach vs. strong government involvement. It will create an appropri-

ate, more balanced structure. There are active Netizens in the developing

parts of the world who will also enhance balanced participation.

In order to make effective participation of the Netizens, their

autonomous, distributed and collaborative network of networks is

Page 15

necessary to exist. Efforts at ICANN AtLarge is one such example,

trying to be bottom-up, coordinated globally, based on the subsidiarity

principle, that addresses that local issues be solved locally first, seek for

global solutions for only globally challenging issues. We also need to

establish self-certification mechanism in place that works to provide

legitimacy to the Netizens themselves.

Notes:

1. This paper is based on a speech presented at the ITU Workshop on Internet

Governance, Geneva, February 27, 2004. This paper is still a work in progress and

welcomes your comments, criticisms and suggestions.

2. There is a WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus which has more than 60

individuals from most of the regions of the world and worked very hard to contribute

to the Civil Society WSIS Declaration in its Internet Governance section. I suggest you

to take the principles proposed there into serious consideration for the coming debate.

* This Working Paper is online dated May 2004 at:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan016886.pdf

On Citizens and Netizens Role in

Decision-Making Process to Build

Information Society

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

[Note: The following comment was submitted as a comment to the

UNGA WSIS+10 Review Process. A Non-Paper has been posted for

Comment at the UN website. The URL for the Non-Paper is:

http://unpan3.un.org/wsis10/Events/1st-Preparatory-Meeting/Comme

nts-for-non-paper]

The first item in the Preamble for the Non-Paper states:

Page 16

We affirm the vision of a people-centered, inclusive and

development-oriented information society defined by the

World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) as well as the

objectives and norms established in the Geneva Declaration of

Principles. The Geneva Plan of Action, the Tunis Commitment

and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.

This is an important statement of the vision for the information

society. The statement of how to implement this vision as presented in

the non-paper draft, however, is missing a critical element. This element

was contained only in a partial manner in the Tunis Agenda for the

Information Society, but at least it was included in this partial form. The

statement that presented this partial means of implementing the vision

was contained in item 90(d).

This item stated:

d) implementing effective training and education, particularly

in ICT science and technology, that motivates and promotes

participation and active involvement of girls and women in the

decision-making process of building the Information Society.

The importance of this item is that it states that the goal of ICT

is to motivate and promote participation and active involve-

ment in the decision making process of building the Informa-

tion Society.

The item, however, limits this objective to “girls and women.”

While this is a critical objective for women and girls, it is also important

that it be an objective applied to boys and men of all ages, i.e., to all

people.

The Non-Paper has an obligation to improve on the conceptual

framework that the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society set, rather

than to delete this objective all together. It is important to include a

statement early on in the Non-Paper that states that the goal of ICT is to

motivate and promote participation, especially of users and netizens, and

active involvement in the decision making process of building the

Information Society.

In my submission for the WSIS+10 Review I wrote that “Critical to

the fulfillment of this vision is the need to understand the role that

Page 17

netizens must play in carrying out the goals.”

I referred to the side event “Past Present and Future of Research in

the Information Society” (PPF) to the Tunis Summit. In a panel at the

PPF on the “Origin and the Early Development of the Internet and of the

Netizens: their Impact on Science and Society,” I presented a talk

explaining why the participatory nature of the Internet is a critical aspect

for its continuing development. I pointed to the work of JCR Licklider

whose vision for the creation of the Internet as well as whose early work

setting the technical foundation for it was a significant factor. Licklider

not only recognized the need for a vision which would guide the

continuing development of the Net but he also recognized the need for

participatory action on the part of those online who would act as citizens

of the developing net.

Licklider proposed the need for people who cared about the Net to

be involved in its continuing development. He suggested that this

involvement could include those who would: study, model, analyze,

argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each problem until

they reach consensus or determine that none can be reached.

In the early 1990’s a college student found that there were a set of

people online who were concerned about the development of the Internet

and who were contributing to working out the problems of its continuing

development. He proposed the term “netizen” building on the concept

net.citizen which was being referred to at the time.

Netizens, as the student wrote, are those who embodied the social

conscious and public purpose similar to that which Licklider had

considered important for the continued development of computer

technology and for the public policy to support that development

The concept of netizen has spread around the world to include two

uses, one refers to everyone on the net, and the second, as the college

student intended, reserves the use of the word to refer to those who

contribute to the development of the net. He wrote:

“Netizens...are people who understand it takes effort and action on

each and everyone’s part to make the Net a regenerative and vibrant

community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to devote time

and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a better

place.”

Page 18

In her presentation to the WSIS+10 Review on July 2, Divina Frau-

Meigs noted that what is needed is an “Internet of Citizens, of Netizens

not an Internet of Things.”

The concept of netizens, like that of citizens, embodies the notion

of a participatory process that welcomes the active participation of those

who take a social focus, a public interest focus in the further develop-

ment of the Internet.

While there is among many a tendency to see Internet development

as mainly a technical development, this misses the significant role that

the people who are online play in the continuing development of the Net.

The Net and Netizens are actually a symbiotic development and it is

such a perspective that helps to carry on the continuing spread and

evolution of the Information Society goals.

Notes

http://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html item 90(d).

http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/UNPAN 94996.pdf

3. http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/tunis-wsis-2005/RHauben-Tunis-talk.pdf

Global Internet Governance:

a Developing-Country Perspective*

by Parminder Jeet Singh**

parminder@itforchange.net

[TWR Note: In this review of global Internet governance from a

developing-country viewpoint, Parminder Jeet Singh contends that the

U.S. and its corporate allies are wary of any challenge to the default

Internet governance regime they are shaping and establishing. However,

unlike with global trade and intellectual property frameworks which

were developed largely unilaterally and foisted by the North upon the

developing world, there is still time for the South to develop a proactive

strategy to shape the emerging global regime on Internet governance.

Page 19

Such an alternative should, in his view, be broadly based on a new

paradigm of the Internet as a global commons and a public utility.]

The subject of Internet governance (IG) first got imported into the

consciousness of most developing countries during the negotiations for

the outcome texts of the World Summit on the Information Society

(WSIS).

The main issue at that time was the unilateral U.S. oversight

over the root of the Internet, which contains the names and numbers

directory for the global Internet addressing system. This was considered

unacceptable by almost all other countries. Expectedly, the interest in

this subject was mostly of the foreign affairs ministries of developing

countries, and came from a traditional geo-political standpoint.

On a different track, for some time since even before WSIS, the

information technology (IT) ministries of developing countries had been

engaging with the regional Internet registries and with ICANN

as the

Internet was being set up in these countries. The Internet Society, or

ISOC, also helped many countries with its expertise in setting up

networks. This work was of a brass-tacks nature. This was also the time

when the telecom sector was being opened up the world over for private

companies, which triggered the mobile telephony revolution. The

Internet service providers sought even greater independence from

regulation than what telephony was subject to. Most developing

countries saw in IT, including the Internet, a new growth opportunity

and went all out to support their IT and Internet companies, viewing

them fully as a part of global value chains. In the circumstances, the IT

ministries or their equivalents largely took an apolitical view of global

IG.

It was rather common, until quite recently, to find somewhat

discordant views coming from foreign ministries and IT ministries at

global IG forums. Only very few countries, like Brazil and China, had

begun early to shape a coherent foreign policy stance on global IG. A

turf war was witnessed in many developing countries between IT and

foreign ministries. This problem has only now started to be addressed,

with more and more countries beginning to understand the nature of

power and controls over the global Internet.

The U.S. and other developed countries had initially envisioned

Page 20

WSIS as an instrument to take forward their global ‘digital opportuni-

ties’ vision which had been articulated at the turn of the century in G8

meetings.

These countries had resisted the claims of the UN Educa-

tional, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be the main

entity for hosting WSIS, still mindful of the political tendencies of

UNESCO in the informational arena, which had earlier precipitated the

crisis around the New World Information and Communication Order.

They preferred the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s

technocratic approach. All the current distancing from ITU’s role in

information society governance notwithstanding (see below), they were

the ones who had pushed for ITU to take the lead in holding WSIS.

Midway through WSIS, when the U.S. and its allies found that

information society was becoming a highly geo-politicized issue, their

enthusiasm for WSIS-type global forums subsided drastically. At the

end of WSIS, developed countries did not agree to set up a new UN

functional commission to look into the WSIS follow-up, as had been

done previously for many similar global summits. And the rebound

continues, as these countries have recently been blocking even a 10-

yearly WSIS review summit which is very much the practice in most

areas and is also mandated in WSIS outcome documents.

An increasing understanding in developing countries of Internet

governance as a highly political subject was matched by a growing

keenness among the developed countries to withdraw this issue from the

UN’s scope and mandate. However, such understanding among

developing countries is still very incipient, and there exists no coherent

developing-world vision of global IG. As mentioned, the line depart-

ments, IT and telecom ministries are yet to frame the global political

implications of their domains in an appropriately holistic manner.

Apart from the U.S.’ unilateral oversight of the Internet’s root, the

main issue from developing countries’ side at WSIS concerned the

market-based inter-connectivity regime, where naked market power

determined pricing. Since Internet content and services mostly resided

in developed countries, chiefly the U.S., the Internet service providers

in developing countries were forced to pay for both up- and down-

connectivity to the backbone networks based in developed countries.

Whereas developed countries subsidized developing countries’

Page 21

connectivity infrastructure in the ITU-run global telephony system,

global Internet connectivity followed the exact opposite model:

developing countries subsidize the networks in developed countries.

This paradigmatic shift from the erstwhile regulated global

communication system to a completely unregulated communications and

informational global market, which best serves the interests of the U.S.-

based information and communications companies, underlies much of

global IG contestations today. Outwardly, however, these contestations

are framed as a struggle for an unfragmented global Internet and the

need to protect freedom of expression everywhere, whereby govern-

ments and regulations should be kept away from the Internet.

Post WSIS

The final days of negotiations for outcome documents of the second

phase of WSIS were rather tense. Regarding the unilateral oversight of

the U.S. over the Internet’s root, almost all countries stood as one

against the U.S. As for general information society governance, the

divisions were more along the traditional North-South lines. The

compromise outcome assured national sovereignty over country top-

level domains like .cn and .br.

Discussions for establishing mechanisms

for global Internet policies were to remain ongoing over what was

identified as the ‘enhanced cooperation’ process. Meanwhile, it was

agreed to set up a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue forum for Internet

policy issues, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The IGF was, inter

alia, mandated to give recommendations where needed. The U.S. and its

allies strongly resisted even the setting up of an IGF, and it is the

developing countries that pushed for such a forum and got it.

As happens with many global policy events, the political tempera-

tures came down quickly as soon as WSIS came to an end. Even in the

European Union, there was very little appreciation of the deep social and

economic implications of global IG. Directions from the highest political

quarters focused on staying closely on the U.S. side of global geo-

economic divisions meant that, occasional weak protests apart, the EU

has been unwilling to upset the apple cart.

Brazil and China were the two developing countries most active in

the immediate post-WSIS period. China brought a proposal for an

Page 22

international code of conduct in cyberspace to the early IGFs, and

sought wider engagement. Brazil even informally broached the

possibility of a ‘framework convention on the Internet.’ It also offered

concrete alternatives for a truly global management of the Internet’s

root.

Meanwhile, as the very significant geo-political dimensions of the

issue became apparent, a so-called ‘global Internet governance commu-

nity’ began to take shape. It was very aggressively dominated by non-

state actors, backed strongly by the U.S. and some of its closest allies.

ICANN, with its huge collection of monopoly fees – that can be called

taxes – from global Internet users through domain name fees, was an

important funder and provider of other resources for this group.

This group was soon able to largely capture the IGF. This ‘commu-

nity’ showed no interest in moving forward on addressing rapidly

accumulating serious public policy issues regarding the Internet at a

global level. It mostly played an obstructionist role, propping up the

status quo of continued U.S./ICANN management of the technological

infrastructure and an unregulated market-based evolution of global

Internet services. The promise of the IGF as a genuinely participatory

institution for global governance of the Internet, the reason that

developing countries had supported it at WSIS, was stemmed early by

powerful status quo-ist forces.

With little possibility of any positive progress, China seems to have

reduced its involvement on the global stage since around 2008, focusing

on domestic policies to manage its Internet. At the international level, its

interest shifted to developing regional alliances, chiefly the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization. These countries later came up with an

‘international code of conduct for information security’ and presented

it to the UN for voluntary adoption by other countries. Around this time,

Brazil too began to tone down its aggressive posture where it had been

putting forward specific alternatives to the status quo global IG regime.

It however kept up a high degree of engagement with post-WSIS forums

of the IGF and the UN Commission on Science and Technology for

Development (CSTD),

and for quite some time was the lone developing

country with a coherent strategy of engagement on global IG.

After a lull of about 3-4 years, the threads from WSIS began to be

Page 23

picked up by some floor-level coordination among developing countries

at the CSTD’s annual consideration of progress on WSIS outcomes.

Developing countries got together to assert that the WSIS mandate of

enhanced cooperation, which was to have been operationalized in 2006,

had shown no progress. They managed to get the UN Secretary-General

to hold open consultations on ‘enhanced cooperation.’

It was at these consultations, in December 2010, that the IBSA

countries (India, Brazil and South Africa) got together for the first time

to issue a joint statement.

This statement sought a formal intergovern-

mental platform under the UN that would take up Internet-related public

policy issues. The statement said that this platform should complement

‘the Internet Governance Forum, a multi-stakeholder forum for

discussing, sharing experiences and networking on Internet governance.’

Importantly, this statement also raised some key social and economic

issues like net neutrality and access to knowledge, in addition to the

traditional ones like freedom of expression, privacy and security.

From this point onwards, IBSA cooperation on the subject picked

up steam. On the initiative of the Brazilian government and some civil

society actors from Brazil and India, a meeting was held among IBSA

governments and IBSA civil society representatives on ‘Global Internet

Governance’ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2011. At the end of this

meeting, the government representatives from the three IBSA countries

drafted a set of ‘Rio Recommendations.’ These recommendations

specifically sought a new UN body for global Internet governance. The

2011 IBSA summit later took note of the Rio Recommendations and

exhorted the three countries to keep working closely together on this key

issue.

It had long been felt that although the developing countries had

been asking for a new UN forum to take up Internet policy issues, there

was no concrete proposal on the table. Building on the momentum from

the Rio meeting and positive exhortations from the IBSA summit, India

took the initiative to plug this gap. In late 2011, India made a proposal

to the UN General Assembly to set up a Committee for Internet-Related

Policies (CIRP) attached to the General Assembly.

The proposal

presented a detailed plan on the mandate and membership of the

proposed Committee. It was also to have stakeholder advisory commit-

Page 24

tees, patterned on similar committees for the OECD’s Internet policy

body.

WCIT and Snowden

Within six months of each other, two global events made a most

decisive impact on the perception in developing countries about global

Internet governance.

First was ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommuni-

cations (WCIT) in Dubai in December 2012, which was to develop a

new set of International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) to

replace the existing set negotiated 25 years earlier. ITU has been the key

target of liberal and neoliberal groups, supported by the U.S. and its

allies, for being the organization that ‘plans to take over the Internet.’

The U.S. played on this sentiment, quite prominent in the global North

but also among developing-country middle classes, and promoted WCIT

as a battle for or against ‘controlling the Internet.’

The core contention at WCIT was whether or not the Internet should

be recognized as a part of telecommunications and thus come under the

ITRs and ITU’s realm to regulate. Any such recognition, and its

consequences, would clearly have come in the way of the fully unregu-

lated market approach to the global Internet, of which we spoke earlier.

(It must be noted that in almost all countries, including the U.S., telecom

regulators do already regulate the Internet as well.) In the end, the ITR

draft on the table had no mention of the Internet. The Internet was taken

to an attached resolution which (1) clearly did not have the authority of

the ITRs, and (2) just followed a well-established tradition at ITU in

relation to its earlier resolutions dealing with Internet-related issues.

There was very little excuse for the U.S. not to sign the ITRs. In

fact, its European allies were mostly ready to sign on. It appears that the

U.S., along with its multi-national corporations, led by Google, and its

civil society, became a victim of their own excessive propaganda. On the

very flimsy ground that the ITRs gave member countries a right not to

be thrown off the global Internet, they walked out of WCIT. The

Europeans reluctantly followed, more to keep to the traditional geo-

political alignments than anything else. The chimera of some kind of

global consensus on the Internet was exposed.

Page 25

Most developing countries saw it as a betrayal by the U.S. and its

allies with regard to their long-professed rhetoric of a global Internet for

development and a better world. Their self-interest was laid bare. It

became evident that the U.S. did not want democratic global governance

of the Internet, not because it could thwart the innovative potential of the

Internet but because the U.S. and its companies wanted a free run on and

control over the Internet as a means for global economic, social, political

and cultural control and exploitation. Such control would be threatened

if any global governance body like ITU included Internet-related issues

in its mandate.

As the world was still coming to terms with the WCIT shock,

Edward Snowden thoroughly exposed the manner in which the U.S.

employed the Internet for gaining intrusive social and personal access

and controls across the world. In the global public’s mind, the Internet

had lost its innocence forever. The Internet is such a potent social force,

largely seen as having a very positive potential, that winning the hearts

and minds of the public is of key importance in framing effective

political positions in this area. Understanding this fact, strategies of

U.S.-based actors for resisting any move toward democratic global IG

have most effectively been targeted at the ‘global public sphere.’ And

they were winning this game, till Snowden came along and changed the

situation so dramatically.

How the Internet is Governed Today

After intellectual property rights, and linked to it, control over the

Internet is the biggest factor in establishing and sustaining global

economic hegemony in the emerging world order.

The Internet also

enables a considerable level of political, social and cultural domination,

and therefore its control and exploitation is seen as key by the U.S. and

its corporate allies. At this stage, their strategy is to fully keep at bay any

possible global governance system that can interfere with the default

global IG regime that they are shaping and establishing. It consists of the

following four interrelated elements:

(1) Pursuing an unregulated market approach at the global level so that

U.S. corporations can shape and control the global digital architecture,

Page 26

establish huge monopolies and extract rents globally.

(2) In cases where the U.S. finds it absolutely necessary to do so, getting

U.S. law to apply to the global Internet through the simple expedient that

almost all the major Internet corporations are U.S.-based and subject to

U.S. jurisdiction. Consequently, the main techno-legal paradigms of the

emerging digital age are today set by ‘negotiations’ between the

Internet’s monopoly companies and U.S. regulators like the Federal

Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, and often

directly with the executive or with the courts.

(3) Creating pro-developed-country global IG frameworks at plurilateral

forums like the OECD and G8 and pushing them globally on the basis

of sheer economic muscle.

Further, using plurilateral forums like the

Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment

Partnership to establish the U.S.’ own vision as the default global

regime.

(4) Relying on corporate-dominated/driven multi-stakeholder forums to

shore up the rest, especially in the area of technical and logical infra-

structure and standards, and of keeping a favorable global IG discourse

going. The fact that even after the WCIT fiasco and Snowden revela-

tions such a discourse continues to have a considerable number of

followers can be considered a stupendous achievement.

The Games Status Quo-ists Play

As the U.S. shapes the default regime for the global Internet, it may

soon be too late to make any substantial changes to it, so deeply

intertwined our economic and social structures will be with the Internet.

The U.S.-based actors understand this well, and have put in place very

well-planned and well-resourced strategies to buy time. Apart from

supporting its companies, working in selected plurilateral forums and

propping up U.S. corporates dominating multi-stakeholder governance

structures, a good part of this strategy is focused directly on global

public opinion.

Nice-sounding terms like ‘Internet freedom’ and ‘multi-stakeholde-

Page 27

rism’ have, more or less successfully till now, been backgrounded with

the fear of ‘a UN takeover of the Internet’ and splintering of the globally

seamless Internet into national Internets. Huge amounts of funds have

been ploughed into this space, in the name of building capacities in the

South. Seldom before has such a sudden influx of huge funds by donors

been witnessed in any field. And this is being done not only by the

developed countries and their donor agencies but also by corporations

like Google. Their combined impact is indeed daunting.

The strategy is extremely sophisticated, which points to the

dominant actors’ keen understanding of the importance of this issue (and

the corresponding non-understanding among most developing countries,

both governments and civil society). Country-level strategies have been

employed to push back even the slightest movement toward seeking

democratization of global IG. The best examples of this are with regard

to the two countries – India and Brazil – which have been recognized as

most ‘dangerous’ in being possibly able to take a legitimate leadership

role globally toward shaping alternative visions for the global Internet.

When India, which had been rather subdued after WSIS, suddenly

put forward the CIRP proposal in the UN in 2011, alarm bells rang for

the status quo-ists. Almost immediately afterward, a strong IG initiative

was launched in India by the representative of a U.S. telecom company,

employing the cover of an Indian industry association. This initiative

gathered a ragtag coalition of corporate and civil society actors (also co-

opting a few unsuspecting academics) to inter alia propose holding an

India IGF under the management of the concerned industry association.

Such an assemblage was to develop ‘community views’ to challenge

what were seen as undemocratic global stances of the Indian government

(read: the CIRP proposal).

For quite some time, this strategy was extraordinarily successful and

was able to make huge inroads into India’s Internet policy establishment.

It managed to make it appear that India was getting doubtful about its

own CIRP proposal. It also had a strong role to play in India not signing

the WCIT ITRs in Dubai and reserving its opinion on the matter, which

came as a big surprise to many. However, the Snowden revelations –

which showed that the particular U.S. company whose Indian represen-

tative led the Indian IG initiative had been helping the U.S. government

Page 28

in foreign espionage

– dealt a considerable setback to the initiative,

which since then has seemed to be losing steam.

Even more successful was the strategy of the status quo-ists with

regard to containing Brazil’s outrage over the Snowden revelations on

the bugging of the Brazilian President’s telephone and snooping on

commercially valuable information belonging to the state oil company,

among many other things. Brazilians were so livid that President Dilma

Rousseff cancelled a state visit to the U.S. and went to the UN to seek

a new initiative for democratizing global Internet governance. Panic

struck the relevant quarters in the U.S. It is to their credit, however, that

they came up with an outstanding counter-strategy.

ICANN’s CEO went to meet Rousseff and made all the right noises

about how she had given voice to the whole world’s concerns and about

how things must now move on. He exhorted the President to hold a

global meeting on Internet governance to chart the roadmap ahead. As

could be expected, the President agreed and such a meeting was

announced. But from that announcement onwards, it was one sordid tale

of a creeping capture of the meeting – now called NETmundial – by the

U.S. status quo-ists, taking advantage of the diplomatic grace and

politeness of the Brazilian hosts.

In the end, instead of addressing any of the concerns arising from

the Snowden revelations, the NETmundial meeting actually came up

with a set of principles and roadmap which provided new legitimacy to

the corporate-dominated multi-stakeholder form of global governance.

At the meeting, for instance, representatives of top multi-national

corporations (MNCs) like Cisco and Disney could be seen literally

reading out texts to the drafting groups.

In order to sweeten his initial invitation, ICANN’s CEO seems to

have hinted to President Rousseff that the U.S./ICANN was ready to

make some bold changes. It was then learnt that these changes involved

the readiness of the U.S. to give up its oversight over ICANN. However,

once the NETmundial meeting got underway, any substantive discus-

sion/consultation on this issue was withdrawn from the NETmundial

process, or any such relatively representative global meeting. It has been

taken to the narrow technical community around ICANN, whose views

on this issue are rather well known. It is now evident that the U.S. will

Page 29

not transfer its oversight role to a globally representative body but will

simply abolish it. This will leave a very important global governance

agency, ICANN, fully unsupervised, which is not at all what the non-

U.S. countries have been asking for. The U.S. meanwhile knows that it

still has enough legal, legislative and even executive levers of control

over ICANN, since the latter is incorporated in its jurisdiction.

Even after Snowden had so thoroughly rattled public perceptions

about the Internet, and there has been an intense desire to ‘do something’

about it, which is why the world initially rallied behind Brazil in its

initiative, the status quo-ists were able to completely hijack the

NETmundial event. It should prima facie be considered strange that a

meeting called to address a global horror unveiled by Snowden

regarding the practices of the U.S. government and its corporations

ended such that the meeting and its outcomes were most celebrated by

these very actors. Through the practices at NETmundial and its outcome

document, they were able to lay out a roadmap which points in exactly

the opposite direction to where the developing countries need to go. It

is little surprise then that the next stop is the World Economic Forum,

where a new ‘NETmundial Initiative’ is now being cooked up (see

appendix). Such processes and meetings are sought to supplant

traditional, UN-based global governance fora.

Similar containment strategies are being employed in many other

countries, including in Africa, often leveraging the presence of

U.S.-based MNCs or donor aid. The problem here is rather straightfor-

ward. The U.S.-based status quo-ists understand how outstandingly

important IG is to global economic, social, political and cultural

domination. Developing countries mostly do not. They do keep getting

a whiff or two of the enormity of the matter, mostly from the daily flow

of news on Internet issues. However, they do not have a clear substan-

tive understanding of the issues, much less an agenda that they could

pursue in this important area of global governance.

A Roadmap For Developing Countries

The default global trade and intellectual property frameworks were

developed unilaterally by the North and then got inscribed into the

respective global governance institutions, the World Trade Organization

Page 30

(WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Develop-

ing countries have always had to play catch-up. The paradigm for global

governance of the Internet, however, is only now being formed. There

is still time for the developing countries to work on a proactive strategy

to shape it, rather than just accept what is dished out by developed

countries. Below is a very brief layout of the areas in which developing

countries should begin working together.

The first requirement is to develop deep substantive and strategic

competence with regard to the subject of the global Internet and IG. The

larger and more active developing countries must take the lead in this

respect. The IBSA summit in 2011 had called for establishing an ‘IG and

development’ observatory. The BRICS grouping (which comprises

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has think-tank initiatives

in many areas and should also take up similar work in the IG space. The

South Centre in Geneva has already begun some work in this area, and

its capacities should be strengthened.

One significant complication is that IG encompasses too large a

swathe of issues. Many of them do not admit of similar treatment. Some

of them, for instance, can attract much more commonality of perspec-

tives and interests than others. It is important therefore to distinguish at

least two streams of issues and take them up separately, although they

often do intersect. These are the fields of (1) freedom of expression,

privacy and security, on one side, and (2) various economic, social and

cultural issues, on the other. Developed countries have managed to keep

the global IG ball firmly in the first court. In contrast, economic, social

and cultural issues have not even been identified clearly enough till now.

This is a job for developing countries to do. BRICS could take the lead

and set up a think-tank initiative on ‘economic, social and cultural issues

related to the Internet.’

Developing countries should have a well-developed collective

strategy for global fora, soundly supported by such knowledge resources

as discussed above. After months of stalemate, the UN General

Assembly has recently announced that a high-level meeting to review

the implementation of the WSIS outcomes will be held in December

2015, with a preparatory process commencing from June 2015. This will

be the single most crucial stage on which the developing countries must

Page 31

come together and present clear and strong proposals. Internal prepara-

tions for it must start now. The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in

October-November 2014 will be a good place to begin strategizing

together, although ITU looks at a relatively narrow segment of global IG

issues.

It is however extremely unlikely that the U.S. and its allies will

yield any ground at global governance fora. Developing countries should

simultaneously focus on South-South cooperation. The single most

practical and effective approach today could be to announce some kind

of an Internet Cooperation Platform or Forum at the BRICS, IBSA or

G77 level, possibly all of them. It is only when such a forum is

launched, and practical work on cooperation on Internet policy issues

begins, that the U.S. and its allies could be moved to offer global re-

sponses and solutions. The latter know that a global free trade regime for

their Internet MNCs is of basic importance to their global ambitions. If

developing countries, especially the larger ones, begin working together

on Internet issues, it could curtail the unrestricted global reach and

playing field available today to these companies. Such a move by larger

developing countries will be the single most important game-changer in

the area of global Internet governance today. Just setting up a BRICS

and/or IBSA Internet Cooperation Platform will, at a single stroke,

transform the global IG landscape and what follows thereafter.

It is worth noting that the tide is turning against an unregulated

Internet even outside the developing countries. A recent French Senate

report recognizes an urgent need to take far-reaching steps to stem the

U.S. domination on the Internet.

Even within the U.S., civil society

advocates have begun to realize that an unregulated Internet does not

serve the public interest and that appropriate regulation of the Internet

is needed.

The stage is therefore set for developing a new paradigm for the

governance of the Internet, based on (1) its commons nature, and (2) the

need for at least some of its core functionalities to be made available as

public utilities, even if supplied by regulated private entities. Appropri-

ate models of policies and regulation are required that can ensure people

civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights vis-a-vis the Internet.

It is for developing countries to present such a new paradigm. They

Page 32

should stop playing catch-up and aim high this time around. There may

still be time, although perhaps not too much, to reclaim the Internet for

its egalitarian values.

Notes

1. WSIS was held in two phases, with two summits, one in Geneva in 2003 and the

other in Tunis in 2005.

2. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible

for the addressing system of the Internet.

3. See the Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society (2000) at:

http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/summit/2000/ documents/charter.html.

4. This assertion is largely symbolic and normative, as shown, for instance, by a recent

U.S. court case where some groups have sought seizure of country top-level domain

names of Iran and Syria, and the court seems to be responding favorably.

5. The CSTD, a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),

was mandated to conduct the WSIS follow-up.

6 . http ://www.itfor chang e . net/site s / d e fa u l t / fil e s / I T fC / IBSA- state

ment_Enhanced_Cooperation_Consultation.pdf

7. http://itforchange.net/Techgovernance/IndiaCIRP

8. http://webnet.oecd.org/OECDGROUPS/Bodies/ShowBody

View.aspx?BodyID=1837&BodyPID=7425&Lang=en&Book=False

9 . http ://www.thehindu.com/ o p i n ion/l e a d/a-fa l s e - c o nsensus- is - b r o

ken/article4222688.ece

10. Control over capital and finance no doubt remains key, but these are the most

significant new elements of the hegemonic global order that is being sought.

11. See, for instance,

http://usoecd.usmission.gov/june2011_internet2.html

12. The Indian government however refused to allow the industry association to use the

India IGF brand, and they held their meetings under different names.

13. A former Permanent Representative of India to the UN in New York, Hardeep Puri,

has written about the extent of penetration by the representative of this company into

India’s Internet policy establishment.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140803/edit.htm#1

14. http://www.domainmondo.com/2014/07/icann-and-internet-governance-french.html

15. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/deep-dive-defense-neutral-net

Appendix

From NETmundial to the World Economic Forum

Walking the tightrope of seeking as wide a global legitimacy as possible while

Page 33

still keeping things under full control, the protectors of the status quo Internet

governance order now seem to be seeking the cover of the World Economic Forum

(WEF). A NETmundial Initiative

has been announced to be launched at WEF

headquarters in Geneva on 28 August 2014, ‘to carry forward the cooperative spirit of

Sao Paulo [where the NETmundial meeting was held] and work together to apply the

NETmundial Principles...’. As can be expected, the list of invited participants is heavily

dominated by Northern corporations. A select group of government leaders and a few

civil society organizations are also invited.

In this context, it will be useful to look at the kind of views on global Internet

governance that have been expressed in WEF reports over the last few years. This is

what an analysis

of the WEF’s Global Redesign Initiative (GRI) has to say about the

initiative:

‘One of GRI’s major recommendations is that experiences with “multi-

stakeholder consultations” on global matters should evolve into “multi-stakeholder

governance” arrangements. This transformation means that non-state actors would no

longer just provide input to decision-makers (e.g. governments or multi-national

corporations) but would actually be responsible for making global policy decisions...

‘Their recommendations for multi-stakeholder governance include the introduc-

tion of parallel meetings with the governing bodies of the WHO, UNESCO, and FAO

where non-state actors will hold independent sessions as a complement to the official

government meetings. GRI also recommends a second new form of multi-stakeholder

governance for conflict zones in developing countries. They propose that the non-state

actors, particularly the business community, join with the UN system to jointly

administer these conflict zones.

‘There are some sharp differences between “multi-stakeholder consultations” and

“multi-stakeholder governance”, some of which are often blurred by the loose use of

the term “multi-stakeholder”’ (emphases added).

Multi-stakeholderism apparently is a new, post-democratic form of governance

which gives big business a major, institutionalized, political role and authority. Multi-

stakeholderism in this form is the preferred neoliberal model of governance, whose

application begins at the global level and with Internet governance but is certainly

meant to be taken to national levels as well as to all sectors of governance. The plan is

dead serious, with clear calls for setting up multi-stakeholder organizations that will do

policy-making and governance. To quote the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the

Future of the Internet from GRI’s final report:

‘This means designing multi-stakeholder structures for the institutions that deal

with global problems with an online dimension. Thus the establishment of a multi-

stakeholder institution to address such issues as Internet privacy, copyright, crime and

dispute resolution is necessary. The government voice would be one among many,

without always being the final arbiter. And as ever more problems come to acquire an

online dimension, the multi-stakeholder institution would become the default in inter-

national cooperation’ (emphases added).

The continuing and inevitable digitalization of our social systems appears to be

Page 34

the chosen path for their de-democratization through multi-stakeholderisation (read: the

rule of big business, with some crumbs thrown to other parties). – Parminder Jeet Singh

Appendix Notes

1. See Internet Governance Transparency Initiative website;

https://k52lcjc5fws3jbqf.onion.cab/

2 . h t t p s : / / w w w . u mb . e d u / g r i / a p p r a i s a l _ o f_ we f s _ p e r s p e c t i v e / s _

first_objective_enhanced_legitimacy/multistakeholderism

3. ‘Everybody’s Business: Strengthening International Cooperation in a More

Interdependent World,’ pp. 317-21.

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GRI_EverybodysBusiness_Report_2010.pdf

* Reprinted from Third World Resurgence (a publication of Third World Network), No.

287/288, July/August 2014, pp. 15-21 with the permission of the publisher. This can

be seen online at:

http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2014/287-288/cover02.htm

** Parminder Jeet Singh is Executive Director of IT for Change

(

www.ITforChange.net), which works in the area of intersection of digital technologies

and social change. In relation to global Internet governance, IT for Change has been

most prominent in framing and advocating positions that favor developing countries

and marginalized sections.

Democracy OR Multi-stakeholderism:

Competing Models of Governance*

by Michael Gurstein

gurstein@gmail.com

Democracy at its simplest and most basic is governance by and for

the people. Of course, there are a variety of conventions and values that

are often invoked in the context of “democratic governance” and

particularly for “democratic governments,” but democracy as gover-

nance by and for the governed would seem to be sufficient as a

definition and particularly in the absence of formal structures, rules,

behaviors or governmental structures.

Page 35

I’ve elsewhere

discussed how various instances of Multi-

stakeholderism (MSism) have operated in the absence of or even in

opposition to conventional understandings of democracy. However,

continuing discussion and evolution in the way in which governance

concerning the global Internet is being conceptualized is suggesting an

approach to this governance which involves “democratic multi-stake-

holderism” (DMsism). This, it is being suggested, may be one method

of squaring the circle where the historical circumstances of Internet

development – largely but not exclusively through multi-stakeholder

processes primarily driven and controlled by those with a technical

interest and responsibility for Internet development are perceived as

being necessary for the continued well-being of the Internet as it enters

into an increasingly complex and politicized environment. This, it is

argued is particularly the case as matters of “Internet Governance” shift

focus from largely technical issues to issues involving broad areas of

public policy as impacted by actions by and on the Internet.

The difficulty with creating or even conceptualizing a “democratic

multi-stakeholderism” is that at its core MSism is not “democratic.”

Thus the governance notion implicit in MSism is one where governance

is by and for those with a “stake” in the governance decision thus

shifting the basis of governance from one based on people and (at least

indirectly) citizenship or participation in the broad community of the

governed to one based on “stakes,” i.e., an “interest” in the domain to

which the governance apparatus is being applied. The historical notion

of “stake” in a context such as this one generally refers to a financial or

ownership interest in the area under discussion but in the evolving

Internet Governance sphere (and others) this has been extended to

include a “technical stake” (as in a professional interest) or even a

“normative stake” as in ensuring an outcome which is consistent with

one’s values or norms.

What is not included in any of the conventional approaches to

MSism however, is broad notions of democratic participation (or

accountability), i.e., where the governance is structured so as to include

for example, those without a “direct” stake in the outcomes but who

nevertheless might as a consequence of their simple humanity are

understood to be impacted by the decisions being taken. Discussions

Page 36

around these matters are often dealt with within the MS (multi-stake-

holder) community by talking about the need (or not) to include

(technology/Internet) “users” as “stakeholders.” I’ve looked at that

discussion elsewhere

and argued that when it comes to the current

status of the Internet we are all, i.e., all of humanity, now in one way or

another being impacted either directly or indirectly by the Internet and

in that sense we are all “stakeholders” in how the Internet is framed and

enabled in its future evolution (i.e., “governed”).

By extending “stakeholder” status to “users” and then recognizing

that we are all in some way “Internet users” the problem of DMSism,

some argue maybe solved. The problem however, remains in that a MS

approach as currently being proposed involves a degree of equality of

participation/influence by each of the stakeholder groups (in the Internet

Governance jargon – “equal footing“) which would in this instance

mean that for example, decisions made where the private sector or

government or the technical community etc. was highly influential

would not by definition be governance decisions made by the governed

except in the trivial sense that since those stakeholder groups also

consist of people then all decisions would, of course, all be made by

“people” whatever their (temporary) stakeholder status.

To me it is quite clear that “democratic governance” and “multi-

stakeholder governance” are internally in contradiction with each other.

At their core, democracy as in the “rule of the people” is one form of

government and multi-stakeholderism as in “the rule of ‘stakeholders’”

is another and competing form. I don’t think that they can be reconciled.

Some are arguing that elements of Participatory Democracy (PD)

may provide the appropriate direction and this certainly may be the case.

However, current experience with PD suggests that there is considerable

need for maturation in these processes and particularly in developing

means for effective and efficient decision making and for scaling from

localized small scale to larger processes.

What I do see as being possible and which is where I think our

collective thinking should go is toward redefining how democratic

governance can/ should operate in the Internet era and particularly (or

at least initially) in the “governance” of the global Internet. The Internet

“has changed everything” including how we can and should govern

Page 37

ourselves and the various aspects of our daily and collective lives. This

has been done both by changing how we live those lives and by

changing how we are able to act and project ourselves in our lived and

collective worlds both physically and virtually. But to effectively

respond we need to evolve our institutions and mechanisms of gover-

nance. We do this not by discarding our current norms and practices

such as democracy which has done so much to enable, empower, and

enrich the lives of all who have access to this. Rather we do this by

allowing and facilitating an evolution in those institutions and mecha-

nisms to take advantage of the new opportunities that technology

provides and to respond to the new risks and challenges which technol-

ogy has equally presented to U.S.

The list of those opportunities and challenges is a long and growing

one and our first task is to develop the means for assimilating and

responding to these. A first step in this long road is to begin the process

of identification of the issues which need to be addressed in these

revised mechanisms for democratic governance in the Internet era:

1. The need for a means to incorporate technical expertise and those who

consider themselves neutral technical stewards of various aspects of the

Internet into mechanisms for Internet governance and to broaden the

base of this stewardship to include those from a wide diversity of

backgrounds and interests

2. Finding ways of responding in our strategies and mechanisms of

governance to the speed of technology change and the unpredictability

of the impacts of these changes including through economic and social

redistribution, disruption of production systems and employment, huge

transfers and accumulations of wealth (and power), among others

3. Recognizing the apparent disengagement of large numbers of the

population from current conventional governance and representative

processes

4. Reacting to and finding ways of incorporating the apparent desire for

direct (disintermediated) engagement of large numbers of the population

in current informal technology mediated processes associated with the

management of various activities associated with daily living particu-

larly in developed societies

Page 38

5. Taking as a necessary challenge finding ways of resolving the

escalating divides in the technology sphere including between those who

have and are able to use online systems for purposes of engagement and

those who are not or less able because of issues of location, income,

gender, technical and other forms of literacy among others

6. Finding mechanisms to respond to the globalization of the nature of

the decision making/consultation which needs to be undertaken given

the globalized nature of the issues/technology

7. Developing the fortitude to not be intimidated by the extreme

significance of the matters under discussion given the vast economic,

political, strategic and security interests among others now impacted by

the Internet and digital platforms overall, thus increasing the likelihood

even inevitability of attempts at undemocratic subversion of democratic

processes in support of one or another corporate or national interest

8. Recognizing and celebrating the opportunity for using digital means

to extend opportunities for effective participation, for enhancing the

quality of decision making through information provision and support

for dialogue

We need to develop appropriate responses and mechanisms as a

matter of considerable urgency but persisting in attempts to substitute

MSism for democratic practice is a diversion from what needs to be

accomplished and a potentially dangerous substitution of values of

privatization and interest-based decision making for governance that is

founded in a concern for the public good.

Notes

https://gurstein.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/multistakeholderism-vs-democracy-

my-adventures-in-stakeholderland/

2. https://gurstein.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/q-who-are-internet-users-a-everyone/

*This article appeared on the Gurstein’s Community Informatics blog on October 19,

2014 at:

https://gurstein.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/democracy-or-multi-

stakeholderism-competing-models-of-governance/

Page 39

[Editor’s Note: The following article was posted on the Just Net

Coalition website in February 2014.This article urges resistance to hyper

power dominance of internet governance.]

What Future Governance

Now That We Know?*

by Louis Pouzin**

pouzin@eurolinc.eu

Internet Governance (IG) has been the topic of endless discussions

since WSIS onset in 2001. A majority of States insist in having equal

weight in decisions bearing not just on technical matters, but on public

policies, economic and societal impacts as well, at national and inter-

national level. However, the U.S. government has not in any way

lowered its determination to pursue its spying and mass surveillance

operations, and keep unilateral control over the internet through a private

Californian company (ICANN) created in 1998 for this specific purpose.

Rhetoric and wishful scenarios may go on for any number of years,

without a predictable outcome. While ideas and viewpoints may

gradually become more flexible and negotiable, over time the dominant

party keeps expanding its power to the point of being so entrenched as

to make negotiation irrelevant. Discussion without capacity for

counteractions is a losing game. Are citizens of all countries to remain

sitting ducks waiting to be digitized and monetized? An ultimate goal of

the cyber-colonization.

What actions are possible?

Unless it works for U.S. government’s interest, any action requiring

U.S. government’s agreement will be blocked. This is routine realpolitik.

Hence, possible actions are those which can be implemented without

U.S. government’s agreement, e.g.:

• apply national/regional laws on personal data privacy,

• apply national/regional fiscal laws to tax evaders,

• impose penalties on abusive market dominance,

• exclude illegitimate monopolies from major contracts,

Page 40

• balance investment/revenues between operators, content providers,

ISPs and media,

• protect natural plants from illegitimate patents,

• create national/regional domain registries independent from ICANN,

• open competition between multiple DNS roots,

• use open source software,

• promote user friendly end-to-end e-mail encryption,

• keep object identifiers registries and standards under trade control

(ISO),

• boost research/development on future internet (RINA).

• . . more?

Some readers may think of a laundry list. In the context of standing

up to a hyper power a first level of defense is to make spying and

predatory operations more costly. A second level is to chip away enough

parcels of independence to acquire some bargaining potential. On a

longer term the objective is to make countries more resistant and better

prepared to aggressive intrusions.

A good number of suggested actions need no more detail, as they

are self-explanatory. Let’s develop those which may not be.

• protect natural plants from illegitimate patents.

Example: an insect resistant indigenous pepper variety grows in

some less-developed country (LDC). A multinational chemical group

adds some useless ingredient to the seeds, and takes a patent. Thereafter

it sues local farmers for growing alleged patented pepper without a

license.

• create national/regional domain registries independent from

ICANN.

Top Level Domains (TLD) like .com, .net, .org, are familiar even

to non internet users. Country code TLD (ccTLD) like .cn, .de, .fr, .it, .us

are also well known, others like .bz, .gl, .tp, .vi are much less known.

New TLDs being presently introduced like .bike, .construction,

.guru, .photography, .singles, are largely unknown.

Page 41

The U.S. government imposed ICANN (created in 1998) as a

monopoly in charge of all (cc)TLD registrations. This unilateral decision

has no legitimate international basis. A good reason for such an anti-

competitive status was to endow ICANN with a permanent cash cow fed

with domain rental fees paid by internet users.

As usual with monopolies, and in this case backed by the U.S.

government, ICANN’s top priority is making more money for its lavish

life style and for buying friends. Being in the position of TLD regulator

and financial beneficiary is a blatant case of conflictual interests.

There is a dire need for cleaning up the ICANN house and placing

it in competition with other actors taking care of users interests.

Actually since 1996, before ICANN was created, independent

registries have sprung up, and operated during a number of years, or still

exist, e.g., Name-Space, CesidianRoot-Europe, OpenNic, Slashdot,

Name.coin, etc. An undetermined population of private registries operate

out of conventional institutions and remain mostly invisible. Whether

due to ignorance, misinformation, or ICANN monopoly, independent

registries are presently limited to niche markets. As no international

legal instrument protects the ICANN monopoly the market could swing

to other directions should states or large institutions change policy, or

lack thereof.

• open competition between multiple DNS roots,

In the domain name field the term “root” designates a file contain-

ing a collection of TLD parameters. This file is duplicated within “name

servers” queried by browsers or other applications for getting an IP

address associated with a TLD. In a nutshell this is the replica of looking

up a subscriber’s number in a phone directory.

Root is a technical concept, a container of TLD parameters.

Registry is an organization managing domain users and their identifiers.

A registry may use its own root (OpenNic), or the root of another

organization (PIR, Public Internet Registry for .org uses the ICANN’s

root).

An ICANN dogma is the need for a unique global (i.e., U.S.

government controlled) root. As mentioned earlier independent registries

Page 42

and multiple roots have been in operation for longer than ICANN’s life,

but they don’t fit well in a monopolist empire. Curiously Google and

OpenDNS, which are not registries, use their own roots, which are

ICANN’s copies.

A further analysis of a multiple roots environment is worth a longer

development in another article.

• promote user friendly end-to-end e-mail encryption.

After Edward Snowden’s publications it is no longer possible to

handle security with benign neglect. Many, but not all, organizations

will try harder to integrate security in their procedures. This will be

reinforced by the commercial pressure of the security industry. Encryp-

tion is the basic ingredient of secure communications; it is used

routinely in closed environments, but practically nowhere in open

environments. E-mail is by and large the dominant service for private

and professional exchanges. As long as encryption is clumsy or takes

more time it will not catch up in public use. In addition there should be

a limited set of standardized protocols implemented in all mailers. At

this point campaigns inciting users to adopt security could have a chance

to succeed.

• keep object identifiers registries and standards under trade control

(ISO).

It is already projected that the order of magnitude of objects in the

internet will be three to five times larger than the number of humans.

Tools will be necessary for registration, retrieval, and exchange of

identifiers. Applying DNS tools for handling this type of data seems

inadequate and unrealistic. An example of such a practical system is

GS1 for bar codes and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). It is

successful because it is carefully tailored to the needs of a specific trade:

worldwide distribution of mass produced consumer goods typically

available in supermarkets. Automobile, chemicals, hospitals, wine,

would have different needs. If the identifier management market falls in

the hands of a world monopoly, it will impose its own proprietary

Page 43

standards irrespective of specific trade needs, and distort manufacturing

or distribution processes for its own profit.

Care should be taken to foster consensus within trades for identifier

management standards anchored in a reputable international organiza-

tion such as ISO.

• boost research/development on future internet (RINA).

As it stands today internet is an over patched experimental system

based on 40-year old concepts. The writing on the wall is “obsoles-

cence.” Research on future internet has been reintroduced in the past ten

years, mainly as separate projects without focusing on a specific

operational target. Somehow a team at Boston University came up with

a breakthrough in network design: “Patterns in Network Architecture”

by John Day. The system name is RINA, recursive internetwork

architecture. European teams got contracts from the EU Commission

research program to expand the initial platform in developing applica-

tions. This is an opportunity for a new generation of designers to close

the security gaps of the legacy internet.

• trust is gone.

This is a matter of fact, even though trust is subjective. “If you want

peace, prepare for war” is an old mantra. We don’t really know how the

U.S. people will adjust to mass surveillance, which for decades was

supposed to exist only in countries like China, Russia, East Germany,

and many others. The logistics has reached a point from which there

may be no return. A totalitarian regime more Orwellian than ever might

take over. We have to convince our governments and fellow citizens to

steer away from that model, and technology. We don’t want to live in

this kind of society, do we?

February 2014

* This article can be accessed online at:

http://www.justnetcoalition.org/sites/default/files/Louis%20Pouzin%20article%20%20-

Page 44

%20next_governance_v1.0.pdf

** Louis Pouzin is one of the original and most important internet pioneers. He

invented the datagram packet switching technology, from which the TCP/IP internet

protocol was derived. He continues to spend his life championing the open, public

internet.

[Editor’s Note: In April 2014, the following open letter by Karl

Auerbach was written to the U.S. Congress to explain ICANN’s role and

to argue that what is needed is proper oversight over ICANN, not

releasing it from oversight.]

Letter to Congress Regarding

NTIA and ICANN*

Representative April 21, 2014

Washington, DC 20515

I am writing you with regard to NTIA – The National Telecommu-

nications and Information Administration – and ICANN – The Internet

Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

I am the only person who has ever been – and probably ever will be

– elected by the public of North America to a seat on ICANN’s Board

of Directors.

I am also an internet technologist – I’ve written internet standards

that have been adopted by the IETF. I’ve been a principle in several

internet start-ups. I’ve received the Norbert Wiener Award for Social

and Professional Responsibility and I have been named a Fellow of Law

and Technology at California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and

Loyola Marymount University. I am also a member of the California Bar

and its Intellectual Property section. You can learn more about me on

my website:

http://cavebear.com/

There has been much press about NTIA’s 2014 announcement that

it will relinquish its oversight role over ICANN.

That announcement

Page 45

has engendered considerable discussion, including a hearing earlier this

month by the House Judiciary Committee.

Unfortunately much of the testimony is inapt, serving largely as a

distraction to avert our eyes from the real issues. Beneath the layers of

distraction one finds that the issues are the same things that Machiavelli

wrote about so many centuries ago: power, money, and authority.

In nearly every submission one will read words about “assuring the

technical stability of the internet.”

“Technical stability” seems like a subject unlikely to engender

much conflict. Yet ICANN is a cauldron boiling with heated debate.

ICANN received roughly $400,000,000 in revenue in the year 2013.

That is a surprisingly large amount of money for “technical stability.”

Is there something else that might induce people to pay large amounts

of money to ICANN?

The answer is that ICANN does vanishingly little with regard to the

technical stability of the internet and, instead, uses its de-facto monopoly

position to do a land office business selling rights to internet territory.

ICANN does not “assure the technical stability of the internet.”

Rather, ICANN dispenses commercial rights and privileges.

In exchange for its largess ICANN obtains monopoly rents,

significantly restricts legitimate and innovative business practices, and

imposes expansive trademark protection well beyond what is required

by any law of any nation.

ICANN is a private regulatory body that promotes its particular

view of social engineering, internet business practices, trademark

protection, and preservation of incumbent interests.

The issue currently coming before Congress is whether to allow

NTIA to step away from its oversight role over ICANN.

Most of the pages written on this subject have cast the issue as a

choice between a “free” internet and an internet controlled by interna-

tional organizations or foreign countries.

That is a mis-characterization.

Rather this is a fight for control, for authority, for money.

One should not underestimate that last point – money. ICANN has

ensconced incumbent providers – such as Verisign – and endowed them

with almost guaranteed perpetual revenue streams that amount to the

Page 46

better part of a billion dollars each year, year-in and year-out, (from

which ICANN extracts a tithe.) And as the TV commercials say, the

value of ICANN to those who seek to expand the protection of trade-

marks, is priceless.

And the fight is really not just over ICANN. It is a fight over the

model to be used for other, future ventures into internet governance.

Over the years NTIA has exerted precious little oversight over

ICANN. NTIA has not required ICANN to deeply engage with the

issues for which ICANN was created, protection of the technical

stability of the internet’s domain name system. Nor has NTIA exerted

much pressure to nudge ICANN toward becoming what ICANN

professes to be – a body that exists for the benefit of the community of

internet users, a body that is accountable to the community of internet

users, and a body in which decisions are made with transparency.

NTIA’s role in ICANN has largely been to shield ICANN from

questions, most particularly questions that would normally arise about

a private body that restrains trade and innovation.

One must ask whether that behavior constitutes oversight at all. Or

has an absence of oversight by NTIA allowed ICANN to become a

permissive playground for financially interested entities to promote

private agendas?

If so, is that the kind of “oversight” that is worth retaining? I think

you would agree with me that the answer is a definite “no.”

Yet there is no doubt that ICANN needs oversight – real oversight.

ICANN is a body that is in great need of supervision.

Rather than framing the question coming before Congress as one of

releasing ICANN from NTIA oversight it would be more appropriate to

frame the question thus:

To whom will ICANN be accountable, and how?

In theory ICANN, because it is a corporation, would be accountable

to its Board of Directors. Unfortunately, in ICANN practice that is a

fantasy. For example, when I was on ICANN’s Board of Directors I

attempted to exercise a power that California law clearly gives to

corporate directors. As a sitting director I asked to inspect ICANN’s

financial ledgers. ICANN fought me tooth and nail. I eventually

obtained a court order that forced ICANN to open its books. Subse-

Page 47

quently ICANN erased the system through which the public could

nominate and elect a small minority of directors. In the place of

elections ICANN substituted a captive, dependent, “company union”

that places multiple layers of insulation between ICANN and the public.

In the years since that event ICANN has restructured itself to even

further emasculate its Board of Directors and insulate itself from

accountability to anyone.

The broader issue behind NTIA-ICANN is that of governance of the

internet. Good governance is accountable governance. But it may well

be that we are moving toward internet governance in which accountabil-

ity is rare and weak.

Much of the current “debate” about ICANN is couched in terms of

relaxing the oversight of the U.S. over ICANN (and a thing called IANA

– more about IANA later in this letter.) There is a fear – a fear that to my

mind is overextended and hyperbolic – about takeover of the internet by

other nations or an international body (such as the UN or the ITU).

ICANN is indeed bent on becoming an international body, free from

responsibility to any nation or treaty organization.

ICANN is not looking for a change in putative masters; ICANN

is looking for independence.

For several years ICANN has been exploring strategies to remove

itself from oversight from the U.S. – and from everyone else. Among the

things ICANN has examined is how ICANN might obtain a special

statute from a protective country (typically Switzerland) and leap away

from ICANN’s status as a California public benefit/non-profit corpora-

tion and U.S. 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization.

ICANN represents a new kind of thing under the sun. The internet

is eroding the authority from traditional nation-states. The granules of

that authority are not disappearing; rather they are aggregating into the

new kind of sovereignty that ICANN represents. Unfortunately, that

aggregation of authority is not accompanied by any system of account-

ability except that which ICANN (or rather those who wag ICANN)

chooses, voluntarily, to impose upon itself.

The real question before U.S. is not a choice about NTIA and

ICANN. Nor is it a choice about foreign control of the internet. Rather

it is a choice about how to do two things:

Page 48

• Diminish the perception by those outside the U.S. that ICANN is

a tool of U.S. hegemony over the internet.

• Coerce ICANN so that it becomes, in fact rather than in word,

accountable to the community of internet users. Or, to put it another

way: Coerce ICANN so that it manages the technical stability of the

internet for the benefit of the community of internet users rather

than for a few insider commercial interests.

Releasing ICANN from NTIA oversight would have an effect on

the first of these goals. But freedom from NTIA would have no positive

effect on the second and, in fact, may cause ICANN to go even further

retrograde.

I said that I would come back to a thing called IANA – the Internet

Assigned Numbers Authority.

Magic tricks often involve a distraction so that the audience locks

elsewhere while the magician does his work. IANA is one of ICANN’s

favorite means to distract attention.

The internet is composed many technical agreements – typically

called “protocols.” In these agreements are various numbers and names

– similar in concept to the ISBN numbers assigned to books or license

plate numbers attached to cars. For the most part the assignment of these

numbers is done the same way that “take a number” machines work in

bakeries – each number is a simple increment of the previously

dispensed number.

IANA is the body that assigns, records, and publishes these “pro-

tocol parameters.” It is an important job. And it is a job that needs to be

done accurately and efficiently.

But IANA is essentially a clerical job that usually involves no

significant amount of discretion. (And in those rare cases where

technical discretion is needed the various technical standards organiza-

tions, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force – the IETF – provide

specific guidance and designate experts to be consulted.)

There is no particular reason why ICANN and IANA are bundled

into the same organization. IANA could be handled by any competent

clerical provider – such as an established accounting firm. Rather than

being a parent organization to IANA, ICANN could just as well be a

client for IANA services.

Page 49

Because ICANN is essentially a body that regulates economic and

business matters – and is thus subject to storms of debate from finan-

cially interested groups – it would be better for IANA to be held separate

from ICANN and allowed to do its clerical job in peace and avoid being

dragged into matters in which it has no interest and no role.

These are complex matters. There is a tendency for many people to

accept claims that these are arcane technical disputes that should be left

to “the techies.” That tendency should be strongly resisted. These are

matters that can be, and need to be, faced by those outside of the

technical community.

Members of Congress can understand these issues and are capable

of making good choices.

I suspect that ICANN is not on your list of hot issues. It is probably

not on the hot list of many members of Congress. And that is why

ICANN and NTIA have been able to glide under the radar for nearly

fifteen years.

My request to you is this:

• In the long term please take some time to become more engaged

with the issues of governance of the internet in general and ICANN

in particular.

• In the short term recognize that the immediate question of NTIA

and ICANN is not about U.S. versus foreign influence but rather

about whether ICANN will be subject to effective oversight or be

accountable to anyone. ICANN has not demonstrated that it is

willing to make itself accountable. One way or the other ICANN

ought to be subject to oversight – and that oversight ought to be

more real and substantive than it has been.

If you would like to ask questions or have a follow-up discussion I

am easily reached by e-mail or telephone.

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Karl Auerbach

Santa Cruz, CA

karl@cavebear.com

Page 50

Note

1. In August 2015, the NTIA postponed the release of ICANN until at least Septem-

ber 2016.

http://cavebear.com/docs/ntia-icann-2014-others.pdf

UNESCO Program at UN

Obscures Controversy Over ICANN*

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

UNESCO held a program at UN Headquarters in New York on July

9, 2014 which it said was to introduce its new publication “UNESCO

Report on World Trends on Freedom of Expression and Media Develop-

ment.” This program was to take “a new look at recent evolutions in

media freedom, independence, pluralism, and journalist safety.”

While the first part of the program explored this objective, the

second part introduced a very different element into the program agenda.

To open the program, Irina Bukova, Director General of UNESCO

presented a summary of some of the recent trends in the struggle for

freedom of expression and against censorship and for freedom of the

press. For example, she noted that a journalist is killed every seven days

and 90 per cent of those responsible for the murders are never punished.

In his brief remarks, Mårten Grunditz, the Ambassador to the UN from

Sweden, praised the creation of the report and encouraged its circulation.

The keynote was presented by Lee Bollinger, the President of

Columbia University. His talk focused on the struggle for freedom of

expression. He criticized a 1919 U.S. Supreme Court case about freedom

of expression. The Court issued a decision penalizing speech that

advocated opposition to the draft. Bollinger explained that at its core,

freedom of expression is important for being part of a global world.

Advances in technology have resulted in the desire of people to

Page 51

participate. He argued that there are global questions that cannot be

solved by any one country. So it is important that people now have the

ability to talk collectively and globally.

The second part of the program was a panel which was moderated

by Joel Simon, the Executive Director of the Committee to Protect

Journalists. The three panel members included Karin Karlekar of

Freedom House, Raza Rumi, a Pakistani journalist who has fought

against media censorship in Pakistan, and Veni Markovski who

explained that he was assigned by the Internet Corporation for Assigned

Names and Numbers (ICANN) to represent the ICANN organization at

the UN.

Notable by its absence in both the opening presentations and in the

panel was any discussion about the revelations Edward Snowden had

made public about the U.S. Government surveillance of the internet

communication of U.S. citizens, foreign leaders and citizens around the

world. Irina Bokova said that UNESCO’s mandate is “to promote the

flow of ideas by word and image” between all peoples, across the world.

But how can that happen when there is U.S. government surveillance of

all internet communication in the U.S. and much elsewhere. Such

surveillance acts as an impediment to the flow of ideas and as a

limitation on freedom of expression. The monitoring of speech or

internet communication can only serve to encourage self censorship, or

other forms of restrictions on one’s communication.

As part of the panel, Raza Rumi spoke about his experience fighting

censorship in Pakistan. Karin Karlekar spoke of her efforts at Freedom

House to monitor censorship.

In his presentation, Veni Markovski, served as an advocate for

ICANN. In 1998 a bitter controversy was set off by the secret process of

the creation of ICANN by the U.S. government, and a continuing

controversy marks ICANN’s activities and the U.S. government’s

dominating role in these activities. The UN sponsored World Summit on

Information Society (WSIS) held in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in

2005, was one battleground where many nations attempted to find a way

to transform ICANN into a more broadly representative organization,

but the U.S. would not relinquish its monopoly control via ICANN of

some of the essential parameters of the Internet.

Page 52

In his presentation at the UNESCO panel, the ICANN representa-

tive claimed that ICANN represents multi-stakeholderism where all are

equal to participate in its decisions about governing the Internet. There

are many who disagree with such claims about ICANN. Instead there is

a widespread view that ICANN represents only a very narrow strata of

those who use the Internet, while it leaves out of the decision making

process the great majority of users and netizens. The “one percent” are

part of its governance processes, the “ninety nine percent” are left out.

One such view is that of Louis Pouzin, an Internet pioneer who is

recognized for his contributions to the design and conception for the

Internet. Pouzin continues to be active in grassroots efforts to protect

and develop Internet technology. Describing the creation and problem

represented by ICANN, Pouzin writes:

The U.S. Government imposed ICANN (created in 1998) as a

monopoly in charge of all (cc)TLD registrations (i.e. Domain

Name registrations).

This created a situation where ICANN had control over the price

charged for domain names and for the registration process, essentially

endowing ICANN with, as Pouzin explains, “a permanent cash cow fed

with domain rental fees paid by internet users.” To then put ICANN in

the position of the regulator of the process of domain name registration

and the financial beneficiary of the process is, according to Pouzin, “a

blatant case of conflictual interests.”

As Pouzin points out, there are conflicts of interest inherent in the

creation and functioning of ICANN. The U.S. government acknowl-

edged that with the creation of ICANN it failed to solve the problems

including “accountability (financial and representational), conflicts of

interest, transparent decision making country (ccTLDs).”

While the UNESCO program at the UN on July 9 served to obscure

this important controversy, it demonstrated that there is a need for the

exposure of conflicts of interest on important issues such as who will

control the governance of the Internet and its critical functions. One of

the questions to the panel was how important issues related to freedom

of expression and protection of journalists could be included in the

millennium development goal discussion. A response from another

member of the audience was that the 10 year review of the goals set out

Page 53

during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) would be held

at the UNGA in December of 2015 and the process leading up to this

review would be a time to support such a discussion. The problem that

was not mentioned, however, was that the review process had already

been subjected to political pressure.

Clearly there are big stakes in the controversy going on behind the

scenes over ICANN and over who will control the future of the Internet.

The program held by UNESCO on July 9 at the UN demonstrates how

these stakes can obscure the actual nature of the controversy instead of

providing the clarity that only can come from open public discussion and

debate.

Notes

1. Louis Pouzin, “What Future Governance Now that We Know?,” February 2014;

h t t p : / / j u s t n e t c o a l i t i o n . o r g / s i t e s / d e f a u l t / f i l e s / L o u i s

%20Pouzin%20article%20%20-%20next_governance_v1.0.pdf

See also this issue page 25.

2. See for example, the letter from J. Beckwith Burr, of the NTIA, 20 Oct. 1998. This

letter is part of the collected articles published as “Privatizing the Internet? A Call to

Arms,” which appeared in Counterpoise Vol 2 No 4 Oct. 1998 published by the

American Library Association, p. 25. The articles are online at:

http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/dns-icann-controversy.txt

3. The WSIS outcome document in 2005 mandated that a Ten Year Review by the UN

General Assembly of progress made meeting the goals set in 2005 take place, that is

in 2015. The obligation that the GA set for itself was that by the end of March 2014,

a public intergovernmental process would be implemented to determine how this

Review would be carried out. Yet the March 2014 deadline to determine the modalities

for the 2015 WSIS Ten Year Review by the GA passed with no result. Instead, a secret,

pressure-laden process delayed an agreement on the plans for the mandated GA review

until the end of July 2014. The process for the Review is to take place from June 2015,

with the GA meeting mandated by the WSIS outcome document postponed until

December 2015.

* A version of this article appears on the netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2014/07/31/unesco-obscures-icann-controversy/. It is

dated July 31, 2014.

Page 54

[Editor’s Note: The 2005 WSIS in Tunis mandated two UN General

Assembly reviews of progress of implementation of its outcome goals.

The Five Year Review in 2010 was to be of the Internet Governance

Forum (IGF) and the Ten Year Review in 2015 of WSIS outcomes. The

following article reports on the 2010 IGF Review, asking should the IGF

be continued.]

UN to Consider Future of

Internet Governance Forum*

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

“If any subject is dull and uninteresting, it is IG or Internet Gover-

nance.” But actually, it is an issue, “gaining in importance. It is an issue

that from the beginning has been very controversial,” explained Sha

Zukang, the United Nations Under-Secretary General in charge of the

Department of Economic and Social Affairs, as he opened a briefing on

March 30, 2010 for UN member nations and others who were interested

in the issue of whether or not the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

should be continued.

In order to understand the issue of Internet Governance, and the

context in which the IGF was created, it is important to know some of

the history of the Internet. The development of the Internet was

international from its very beginning, but much of the funding and

leadership for that development came from the U.S. government.

U.S.

computer scientists, engineers and graduate students had substantial

roles in that development, and the U.S. government maintained overall

management of it.

For the first two decades of the development of the Internet, from

1973 to 1995, the U.S. government maintained this development as a

public and academic development. By 1995, however, the U.S.

government privatized its portion of the Internet’s infrastructure. It never

gave up, however, its overall management and control, of the critical

functions of the Internet.

At the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) meeting

Page 55

held by the UN in November 2005 in Tunis, an important issue raised

was the desire of nations for a more international form of control or

governance over these the critical resources – the domain name system,

the IP addressing system, and the port numbers of the Internet.

The

U.S., however, was not willing to give up its control. The briefing on

March 30, 2010 at UN headquarters in New York, was held in the

context of this background.

The issue underlying the question of Internet governance, Mr. Sha

explained, is the issue of who will control the critical resources of the

Internet. “Those who use it should have a say,” he maintained.

In one of his prior positions as the Ambassador for China at the UN,

Mr. Sha said he had been someone with very strong views on the issue,

and one of the earliest to raise the issue at the UN.

In his capacity, as part of the UN Secretariat, he explained, he had

the obligation to raise issues for the UN member nations so they can

decide for themselves.

Some of the context provided later in the meeting by the delegate

from Norway described what led to the decision to create the IGF. Many

member nations of the UN had gone to the 2005 Tunis WSIS meeting

determined to have a more broadly based means of control over the

critical resources of the Internet, but they had to concede at this meeting

in Tunis that they could not overcome the opposition by the U.S. Their

goal of changing the unilateral and exclusive control over the domain

name system to a more international form of control was not achievable

at that time. Instead of having any actual control over these resources,

the outcome of the Tunis WSIS meeting was to create the IGF as a

“platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue.” The IGF was to meet once

each year for five years to facilitate this dialogue. The IGF is an annual

forum held for discussion purposes only

In 2010, Mr. Sha listed the four previous and one upcoming IGF

annual meetings since the 2005 WSIS meeting. Though the forum was

only a place for talking, with no power to make or implement decisions,

it functioned, he said, to support discussion among those who could

afford to attend the meetings.

Among the problems though, was the serious absence of partici-

pants from developing countries, who were not able to afford the travel

Page 56

costs to attend. The result was that most of the participants, Mr. Sha

noted, were from the developed world.

Another problem was that the real issue of Internet Governance,

who would manage the critical resources of the Internet, was not within

the scope of what the IGF was allowed to consider.

After five years of experience with the IGF, Mr. Sha explained, the

UN was to do a review. As part of this review, the Secretary General

was to present his recommendations about whether the IGF should be

continued and on what basis.

When the floor was opened for discussion, the delegate from

Yemen, Abdullah Alsaidi, representing the “Group of 77 and China,”

was the first to speak. He offered five recommendations.

These

included:

1. That the decision about the continuation of the IGF should be made

by the General Assembly in its next session (the 65

Session).

2. That the IGF review should take place every two or three years after

that, instead of waiting for another five or more years.

3. That in the future the IGF should focus on how to deal with signifi-

cant policy issues, such as helping to change the “unilateral control of

critical Internet resources.”

4. That the IGF should focus on measures “enhancing access to the

Internet.”

5. That there be an implementation of the WSIS Tunis Outcome

Agreement “to maximize the participation of developing countries in

decisions regarding Internet Governance” so that these reflect the

interests of these countries, especially with regard to development and

capacity building.

The Yemen Ambassador proposed that the IGF continue to operate

under the auspices of the United Nations, but in a reformed form.

The issue raised by a few of the other nations that spoke, including

the U.S., France and the United Kingdom, was whether the decision to

be made on the continuation of the IGF should be delegated to a smaller

forum, the Commission on Science and Technology for Development

(CSTD).

This UN Committee meets twice a year in Geneva and is

composed of 43 member nations.

Mr. Sha said he had checked with the legal department at the UN.

Page 57

The issue could be discussed in the CSTD, but the decision had to be

made by the whole of the General Assembly, which includes all the 192

member nations of the United Nations.

Another question raised was whether a draft version of the

Recommendations of the Secretary General about the continuation of the

IGF could be provided to the CSTD for their May meeting. Mr. Sha said

it could be, but that it could only be available in English by that time, not

in the other five official languages of the UN. If there was no objection

from other nations, he would be willing to make the English language

draft available for the CSTD meeting. The nations that spoke encour-

aged him to make a draft copy available for the CSTD meeting.

The briefing ended with the understanding that the decision on the

continuation of the IGF would be made by the 192 member states of the

UN during the 65

session of the UN General Assembly which was to

begin in mid September 2010.

The briefing reflected the concern that had also been raised at the

UN during a General Assembly Second Committee meeting a few

months earlier. The summary record of the 23

meeting of the GA

Second Committee at the end of October 2010, reports that Brazil

described how it participated in and welcomed the IGF. “It was time to

reflect on its future…. The building of a multi-lateral, transparent, and

democratic regime for Internet governance with the participation of all,

should be given a priority on the United Nations Agenda.” Though the

progress made by the IGF was remarkable, the Brazilian delegate said,

the current arrangement of how the domain name system and other

critical resources of the Internet were managed “did not change the

unilateral and exclusive nature of controls over the root directory of the

domain name system…. Broadly speaking,” Brazil concluded that,

“issues of voice and participation of Governments and multi-lateral

organizations in matters relating to the Internet governance regime

remain unresolved.”

Notes

1. Briefing by the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Society Affairs on

“Matters related to the continuation of the Internet Governance Forum” (organized by

Page 58

the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)), from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. in

Conference Room 2 (NLB), Journal of the United Nations, Tuesday, March 30, 2010,

No. 2010/60, p. 6.

2. Ronda Hauben, “Returning Internet Governance to the People,” Ohmynews

International, November 24, 2004.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=198177&rel_no=1

3. Ronda Hauben, “WSIS Proves a Summit of Unsolved Solutions,” OhmyNews

International, November 28, 2005.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=260786&rel_no=1

See also Ronda Hauben, “Who Will Control the Internet Infrastructure?” OhmyNews

International, October 3, 2005.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=251118&rel_no=1

4. “We ask the UN Secretary-General to examine the desirability of the continuation

of the Forum, in formal consultation with Forum participants, within five years of its

creation, and to make recommendations to the UN Membership in this regard.” (ITU,

“WSIS Outcome Documents,” December 2005, p. 84)

5. Formed in June 1964, there are currently 133 states that are part of the G77. The G77

is described at the G77 web site (

http://www.g77.org/doc/) as “the largest intergovern-

mental organization of developing states in the United Nations, which provides the

means for the countries of the South to articulate and promote their collective economic

interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity on all major international

economic issues within the United Nations system, and promote South-South

cooperation for development.”

6. The Commission on Science and Technology for Development has been functioning

as a focal point for follow up activities from the WSIS Summits:

http://unctad.org/SearchCenter/Pages/Results.aspx?k=wsis

7. Summary Record of the 23

Meeting held at the New York Headquarters of the

Second Committee on Wednesday, 28 October, 2009, at 10 a.m. Agenda Item 50

“Information and Communication Technologies for Development,” General Assembly,

Sixty-fourth session, A/C.2/64/SR/23, p. 8.

*A version of this article appeared on the netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/04/09/un_to_consider_future_of_internet_gover

nance_forum/

Page 59

First Preparatory Meeting of

United Nations WSIS 10 Year Review

Reveals Problems*

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

Ten years ago, in November 2005, I attended a significant event

sponsored by the United Nations in Tunis, Tunisia. This was a follow-up

to an earlier event held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2003. Both these

events were called the World Summit on the Information Society

(WSIS). A main catalysis for the Summit was the desire of people

around the world, and especially in the developing countries, to have

access to the Internet and to the promise of a better future that the

Internet symbolized in the 1990s.

It is ten years after the Tunis 2005 WSIS event. One of the

obligations agreed to at the Tunis Summit was to have the United

Nations General Assembly (UNGA) do a ten year review to evaluate the

progress made in carrying out the vision and in meeting the goals set

forth by the Tunis Agenda, and also to identify the challenges remaining.

What is the UNGA doing to meet the obligation bestowed on it by

the Tunis Agenda?

On July 1 the UNGA held the first preparatory meeting to begin the

review process which is to culminate in a high level meeting of the

UNGA on December 15 and 16, 2015.

The July 1 meeting was to be a meeting of UN member nations

toward making input for a statement to be agreed to for the December

event. The July 1 preparatory meeting was to take place in Conference

Room 2 of the UN Headquarters in New York City and was to be a

meeting where all nations who are members of the UN could present

their views.

July 1, 2015 arrived and the meeting opened at 10 a.m. as planned.

What was striking, however, was that there were many empty seats in

the conference room. While some few nations had sent representatives,

the sparse attendance of UN member nations raised the question as to

Page 60

why this was the response of so many member nations at the UN.

As announced, the July 1 preparatory meeting was to have a

morning session and an afternoon session. The morning session

appeared to proceed as planned, but at the end of the morning session,

the co-facilitator announced that the afternoon session was cancelled.

Among the statements made by the nations that sent representatives

to the July 1 meeting, there were some few that pointed to serious

problems making it difficult or even impossible to fulfill on the goals of

the Tunis Agenda. These statements provide clues as to why the

participation in this meeting by member states was so sparse.

One such clue was contained in the statement by the South African

Ambassador to the UN. His statement was presented on behalf of the

G77 + China group which includes as members 133 developing

countries. The South African Representative described how developing

countries are marginalized when they try to carry out their roles and

responsibilities on international public policy issues pertaining to the

Internet. Such a situation, he explained, is contrary to the specific

mandate of the Tunis Agenda which provides for the cooperation for all

governments to function on an equal footing in public policy matters

related to the Internet. The South African Ambassador, however,

reported that “tangible progress on this specific mandate…has been

blocked.”

Furthermore, he noted, “It is unfortunate” that this mandate

for what has been called Enhanced Cooperation, “has been implemented

selectively to suit the narrow interests of a few influential players in the

multi-stakeholder community.”

This would seem to be a strongly worded complaint that one would

expect would deserve attention especially from the co-facilitators

chairing the session, but also from other member states who were part

of the July 1 preparatory meeting.

Since the South African Ambassador was offering this critique on

behalf of the G77 + China group which is composed of 133 member

states of the UN, such a critique would appear to merit serious attention.

But that was not the case at this July 1 meeting. Instead the co-

facilitators just passed over this critique with no questions to the South

African Ambassador neither during the meeting, nor in the summary

statement at the end.

Page 61

Similarly, a serious criticism by the representative of the Brazilian

Mission was ignored by the co-facilitators.

The Brazilian Representative explained that the Commission on

Science, and Technology for Development (CSTD) had been requested

to undertake the review and provide a resulting document that UN

members could build on.

The CSTD did produce a ten-year report but this report was the

product of the Secretariat’s views, instead of being based on the views

of the member states that had tried to take part in the process.

There was no further explanation or inquiry into the basis of these

serious complaints about the WSIS 10 Year Review process. The

statements of other member nations were presented.

In all nineteen UN member nations or regional representatives

presented statements at the July 1 preparatory meeting. They were South

Africa on behalf of the G77 and China, the EU on behalf of the EU

related countries, Australia, China, the United States, India, Sri Lanka,

Indonesia, Japan, Israel, the Russian Federation, the United Arab

Emirates, Switzerland, Sweden, Latvia, Mexico, Egypt, Canada, and

Brazil.

Given the low turnout from among the 193 UN member nations,

Mr. Mažeiks, the Latvian co-facilitator announced that he had no further

member nations requesting to speak, so he was cancelling the planned

afternoon session. Why the low turnout, however, was a problem that

failed to be raised.

In her summary statement at the end of the July 1 meeting,

Ambassador Nusseibeh, the co-facilitator from the United Arab

Emirates, omitted any reference to the critical comments presented and

only focused on the more general statements. She said that since there

was so little time to prepare for the statement that will be agreed to for

the December meeting, the statement will have to be short because there

will not be the time to iron out differences.

And the Summary of the July 1 meeting contributed by the UN

Secretariat similarly omitted any consideration of the serious criticisms

presented at the July 1 preparatory meeting.

Page 62

Notes

1. See “Intervention on Behalf of the Group of 77 and China by the Representative of

South Africa at the First Preparatory Meeting for the General Assembly Overall

Review of the Implementation of the Outcomes of the World Summit on the

Information Society (WSIS)”

http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/

UNPAN94904.pdf

2. The webcast for the First Preparatory Meeting for the WSIS+10 Review held on July

1, 2015 can be seen at:

http://webtv.un.org/search/informal-meetings-of-the-plenary-aspart-of-the-intergove

rnmental-preparatory-process-for-the-overallreview-of-the-implementation-of-the-o

utcomes-of-the-worldsummit-on-the-information-society-general-assembly/4333148

552001?term=2015-07-02

Following is a transcript of the part of the video of the July 1 meeting where the

Brazilian Representative explained the problem with the CSTD Report. This excerpt

is from 2:21:51 – 2:23:26 of the video.

The Brazilian Representative explained: “I would like to refer to the recent 18

session of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development ( CSTD) held

in Geneva from the 4

to the 8

of May 2015. And essentially we were expecting that

from it would ensue a very substantive significant input into the WSIS+10 Review

exercise, a Report that CSTD was meant to prepare and to submit as this central input.

But on the other hand, we were a bit frustrated with the outcome because we

understand the Report does not match the ambition for the review.

It is a Report basically elaborated by the Secretariat. Inputs from member states

themselves, members of the Commission actually will be very much abridged and

become summarized individually by members themselves and available on the Internet.

So that’s not the ideal we were expecting for the exercise.

We will have to redouble our efforts to have new and additional opportunities for

more substantive and significant inputs into this preparation. So it was a frustrating

outcome from the perspective of Brazil, and I think we will have to redouble our

efforts.”

* A version of this article appeared on the netizenblog on Aug. 1, 2015 at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/08/01/un-wsis-10-year-review-reveals-problems/

Page 63

Observations on the 2

Preparatory Meeting of the UN WSIS 10

Year Review*

by Ronda Hauben

ronda.netizen@gmail.com

I -Two Opposing Positions Dominate Discussion

The Second Preparatory meeting of the WSIS Ten Year Review

process was held on October 20-22, 2015 at the UN headquarters in New

York.

The co-facilitators, Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, UAE Ambassador to

the UN, and Janis Mažeiks, Ambassador to the UN from Latvia, told

those attending the meetings that the statements submitted over the

course of the preparation will be the basis for the outcome document to

be agreed to at the High Level meeting scheduled for December 15 and

16 at the New York UN headquarters. But a controversy over the model

for Internet governance continued to dominate the WSIS Ten Year

Review meetings.

The controversy appears in various forms and under various guises.

Essentially it can be summarized as the contention between a number of

developing nations and other nations with a group of developed nations

who hold a different position over how decisions about Internet related

public policy should be made.

II – Developing Nations want Participation on Equal

Footing

The developing nations and others who support their viewpoint

agree that there is a problem with the decision making process for the

global Internet. They explain that they want to be able to participate on

an equal footing with all other states in decisions about global Internet

development. This is sometimes referred to as “enhanced cooperation,”

though the term has been a confusing one to apply in practice.

The G77 + China statement to the WSIS Review meeting on

July 1, 2015 outlines this problem.

The statement explains:

Page 64

It is unfortunate that the mandate of the Tunis Agenda has been

implemented selectively to suit the narrow interests of a few

influential players in the multi stakeholder community.

It is critical that this review process commit steps to fulfill the

yet unfulfilled mandate of Para 69 of the Tunis Agenda on

Enhanced Cooperation.

The Tunis Agenda called for governments to, on an equal

footing with each other, carry out their roles and responsibili-

ties on international public policy issues pertaining to the

Internet.

However, ten years later, tangible progress on this specific

mandate of Enhanced Cooperation which would allow develop-

ing nations with important ideas to contribute to Internet

policy, has been blocked. It is imperative that this important

issue be resolved, so that all nations have an equal say in the

public policy affecting the Internet.

III – Some Developed Nations want Multi-Stakeholder

Model for Decision-Making

On the other side of the controversy are certain Western govern-

ments and their supporters who are advocating what they call a multi-

stakeholder form as the governance model for decisions made about the

Internet. Who are stakeholders is subject to varying interpretations. But

essentially it means the nations advocating this form do not want any

multilateral decision making over Internet issues or policy.

IV – Pattern During Meetings

As the meeting got underway on October 20, the pattern that would

prevail through the final meeting in the Second Preparatory Phase

became clear. The developing nations are represented by the South

African Ambassador as spokesperson for the G77 + China. He would

make a statement relevant to the topic raised by the co-facilitators for

that session. A small set of Western nations would respond with their

critique of what was presented and their opposing perspective. Though

the focus of the Second Preparatory Phase was allegedly how to spread

Page 65

the Internet to the developing nations, there was little concern expressed

by the bloc of nations promoting the multi-stakeholder form as a

governing principle to hear what the developing nations saw as needed

for their further development or what problems they hoped to solve. Nor

was there concern by the co-facilitators or the bloc of Western nations

that as in the First Preparatory Phase of meetings, participation by

developing nations in the ongoing preparations was low, considering

that there are 193 member nations who are members of the UNGA and

133 of them are part of the G77 + China group.

Among the nations representing the Western bloc and their

supporters were the U.S., the EU, the U.K., and supporters of their

position including Australia, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Switzer-

land, Latvia, Poland and others.

Among the nations presenting and supporting the G77 + China

presentation of “participation on an equal footing” were South Africa,

who presented the position of the G77 + China on the issues under

discussion, Liberia, Ecuador, Cuba, Mexico, Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia,

Russia, China and others.

Some nations, notably Brazil, and India were present through much

of the Second Preparatory Process, but their views appeared to support

one side in some issues and another side in other issues. A few others

came at least to some of the discussions but only participated in a

limited way.

A difficulty for those watching the discussion on the webtv

transmission was that there was no English translation of the Spanish,

Arabic, or French statements so it was not possible for English speaking

remote listeners to follow the discussion when speakers were not

English speaking. It’s not clear how widespread this problem was with

the WebTV version of the broadcast into other languages, as there

appeared to be translation into Russian functioning for the transmissions.

The two co-facilitators welcomed the different speakers. But they

did little to identify points that needed clarification or to recognize

differences in a way that could help clarify the issues or explore the

underlying confusions and controversies.

For example, terms like “stakeholder” were used with diverse

interpretations by those promoting it as the ideal form of Internet

Page 66

governance, yet these diverse interpretations were not acknowledged so

there could be a common agreement about what was being discussed.

For some the term “stakeholder” referred to governments, civil society

activists, and corporations. Others included members of academic

institutions or technical organizations in the stakeholder category. Some

included government, others saw governments as a separate category.

V – Who is Excluded by the Multi-Stakeholder Model?

That citizens, netizens, and the public in general are excluded from

any right to participate under the multi-stakeholder model was never

considered in the discussions. The issue briefly raised by some develop-

ing nations noted that many governments have constitutional obligations

to provide for the well being and the security of their nation’s citizens,

but this issue was dismissed by others.

Those promoting the multi-stakeholder governance model pointed

to the yearly meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which

rotates its meetings to different locations around the world, as an

example of multi-stakeholderism. The G77 + China and others pointed

out that there is too little representation of developing nations or

participation by those from developing nations at the forum for it to be

a demonstration of their ability to participate in decision making via that

venue. Moreover, the IGF is a place for presentations and discussions,

not a decision making body, so using it as a functioning example of a

participatory decision making institution is not appropriate or accurate.

Similarly, the IGF is not open to all to participate but only to those

fitting certain narrow categories. Also, it is actually only available to

those who can afford the cost of travel to often distant locations. If the

IGF met in New York or Geneva, then at least those nations with

delegations at the UN would have more of an ability to send someone to

participate.

VI – The Role of the Co-Facilitators in the Controversy?

Despite the controversy over the nature of the IGF and its relevance

to the obligation of the UN General Assembly to do a ten year review of

the WSIS+10 achievements and shortcomings, the co-facilitators

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announced that they will travel to attend the next IGF Meeting to take

place in Joao Pessoa, Brazil from November 10 to November 13, 2015.

The co-facilitators intend to hold consultations with IGF “stakeholders”

in Brazil.

Instead of the co-facilitators taking an impartial position in the

controversy over whether there is a need for more participation for

developing nations in decisions regarding the public policy over the

global Internet versus the Western bloc position that the stakeholders of

the IGF should be a major part of the decision making process of the

global Internet, the co-facilitators have given the appearance of favoring

the Western bloc position by the plan to go to the IGF for “consulta-

tions.” The co-facilitators have judged such a trip and plan worth the

time it will take despite the fact that they frequently remind the UNGA

member nations that there is a very limited time frame for the GA

member nations to participate in the Review. Meanwhile there have been

some reports on twitter that the co-facilitators have been carrying on a

limited number of information sessions among other UNGA member

nations that have not yet been part of the WSIS+10 Review process at

the UN. This demonstrates there is a need felt among member nations

at the UN to understand better the issues involved in the WSIS Ten Year

Review.

The resolution regarding the meetings that were to take place at the

UN as part of the WSIS Ten Year Review set out that “relevant

stakeholders” would be included in the discussions at the UN. Who may

qualify as a “stakeholder” is a severely limited category restricted to

NGO, the private sector, and certain technical or academic participants

who are already or were registered with certain UN conferences or

related organizations.

From these limited categories somehow a handful

of people are chosen to speak or to be part of a panel and the participa-

tion is token at best. Those nations advocating the multi-stakeholder

model have made no effort to discuss the issues with the general body

of stakeholders registered for the meetings held at UN Headquarters to

solicit their views. Multi-stakeholderism, instead appears to function as

a means for those advocating it to have an excuse to exclude the

majority of member nations of the UN, the citizens and netizens of those

nations, and even the vast majority of those who are considered as

Page 68

stakeholders from the discussions and decision making processes.

VII – Is there an Inclusive Model for Internet Governance

and Decision Making?

The enhanced cooperation model referred to by the G77 + China is

one which calls for all nations to be included in the decisions that relate

to Internet development and its future. There are models for how that

was carried out by processes developed by the research and technical

community which included members from an ever evolving number of

participants from around the world. Building a model for Internet

governance based on the lessons learned from how the Internet was

developed and lessons learned since would be a means to determine how

to meet the demand for broad based participation in the decisions that

will affect many nations and people. But such lessons will not be learned

by focusing on a flawed model which excludes most of the nations and

peoples of the world from the ability to participate in the decisions that

will make possible the realization of the WSIS vision of a people-

centered, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society.

Notes

1. Ronda Hauben, “First Preparatory Meeting of United Nations WSIS 10 Year Review

Reveals Problems,” August 1, 2015, netizenblog

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/08/01/un-wsis-10-year-review-reveals-problems/

2. G77 Statement July 1 2015 “INTERVENTION ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF

77 AND CHINA BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF SOUTH AFRICA AT THE FIRST

PREPARATORY MEETING FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OVERALL

REVIEW OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OUTCOMES OF THE WORLD

SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY (WSIS) (New York, 1 July 2015)”

http://www.g77.org/statement/getstatement.php?id=150701

3. There were only a small number of developing nations participating for substantial

parts of the meetings of the Preparatory Phase for the WSIS+10 Review, though other

nations came for a short while to join the discussion at varying times.

4. Some tweets of Co-facilitator presentations to UN members:

LatviaUN_NY ?@LatviaUN_NY 14h14 hours ago #WSIS10 Co-

facilitators@LatviaUN_NY and @UAEMissionToUN brief CELAC members on the

review process and the road ahead

Singapore Mission UN ?@SingaporeUN Co-facilitators of #WSIS10 Perm Reps of

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@UAEMissionToUN and @LatviaUN_NY brief the Forum of #smallstates #FOSS

5. Following is the list of who can be accredited to the High Level UN WSIS Ten Year

Review December Meetings as relevant stakeholders.

“Relevant stakeholders, include civil society, private sector and academia, from the

following categories:

* Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social

Council

* Organizations accredited to the World Summit on the Information Society held in

Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005)

* Organizations accredited to the WSIS Forum held from 2011 to 2015

* Organizations with observer status with the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development

* Attendees of the UNESCO WSIS+10 – ICT4D Conference or the UNESCO WSIS

– Connecting the Dots Conference

* Organizations accredited to the Financing for Development (FFD) process

* Organizations accredited to the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit

2015

* Organizations already accredited to the WSIS+10 process (July and October

meetings)

Government bodies and intergovernmental organizations register through standard UN

protocol arrangements.”

See:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hQDiPJsfpr0e0CvLzXJvzWNBftrTN2T-_-

SViMU50LQ/viewform

6. See for example: Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet, posted online in 1994 and published in print edition

1996.

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

Ronda Hauben, “International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the

Emergence of the Netizens,” Talk presented at PPF in Tunis, November 2005

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/2005/tunis-ppf/RHauben-talk.txt

* A version of this article appeared on the netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/11/01/2nd-prep-mtg-wsis-10-year-review/

Page 70

[Editor’s Note: The following article argues that “No single Government

should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international Internet

governance” It was published in the book, Reforming Internet Gover-

nance: Perspectives from the Working Group on Internet Governance

(WGIG)* by the United Nations ICT Task Force, 2005, pages 185-192.]

Internationalized Oversight of Internet

Resource Management

by Qiheng Hu

13020075697@163.com

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Geneva

Phase meetings in 2003 focused world attention on the global Internet

governance issue, and especially related public policy issues. With the

broad participation of governments, United Nations bodies, international

organizations, the private sector and civil society, all stakeholders

reached an initial consensus on the principles, objectives of Internet

governance. In addition, they deepened their understanding of the roles

played by all actors in the Internet governance process. Based on the

strong recommendation of the United Nations Member States, Secretary-

General Kofi Anan established the Working Group on Internet Gover-

nance (WGIG) to undertake further studies on Internet governance

issues. The contribution of WSIS with regard to Internet governance is

extensive and historic, for at least two reasons.

First, it appears that through the WSIS process and WGIG study, the

technological, structural and cultural features of Internet governance

have been widely recognized and accepted among the major stake-

holders in the Internet society. Second, considerable consensus has been

achieved on a series of specific major issues. These include the

indispensable role of the current “bottom-up” public-private partnership;

the importance of respecting the architectural principles of the Internet,

the quality and value goodness of the existing governance structures and

related institutions, and the need to improve Internet governance on the

basis of the existing governance structure and mechanisms rather than

to build some mechanism to replace the existing one. At the same time,

Page 71

there is now recognition of the existing weak points and problems

hidden in current global Internet governance mechanisms, and of the

need for improvements on a comparatively compact set of issues.

Furthermore, differences in view points on these issues and the ways to

improve them seem to be clearer than ever.

The common understanding of these matters that is reflected in the

WGIG Report provides a basis for further discussion and consensus on

many complex issues of Internet governance. Looking back to the

debates during Geneva WSIS, one could think that the progress made to

date is quite encouraging for the long-term, from the Tunisia Summit in

November 2005 and beyond.

Internet governance is a complex, widespread, distributed and

ongoing process. The existing structure is the product of thirty years of

evolution that has accompanied the great practice of the Internet with the

participation of multiple stakeholders worldwide. It has facilitated the

growth of the global Internet. Improvements are not simple and must be

taken with care so as not to disturb all that is good. It is not a simple task

to improve it. As if we are facing a complex puzzle game, to improve

the mosaic one has to find out first what is really missing.

The Internet has become a pivotal global public infrastructure,

penetrating into all aspects of human life, with intricate links to public

policies and public interests in each country. Accordingly, Internet

resources have become global strategic resources that are tightly knit

with state sovereignty and public security. Efforts to provide possible

solutions to public policy issues in relation to the Internet applications

also need to be built on effective Internet resource management.

Therefore, the management of Internet resources is not simply a matter

of technological coordination, but also carries with it important public

policy issues. For this reason the basic structure should be authoritative,

effective and clearly mandated. The management of Internet resources

and related mechanisms, practices and procedures should be clearly set

up with a view to addressing issues that are either in existence at present

or likely to occur in the future. That is why the issue of Internet resource

management has been a high priority and a major focus for the WGIG

to study.

Page 72

Requirements for Further Evolution

The Internet in its evolution has undergone “bottom-up” technologi-

cal innovations, business innovations and standards definitions involving

broad participation, with the U.S. Government playing a profound and

promoting role in the whole process especially in the initial stage,

creating an open and transparent participatory system designed to take

into account the needs and interests of both the private sector and civil

society. Most of the prevailing Internet-related standards and rules are

derivatives of such a “bottom-up” “consensus-building” mechanism.

Behind the explosive growth of the Internet, such a mechanism has

served as an instrumental driving force as it stresses the roles of civil

societies and the private sector. It also emphasizes the effectiveness of

rules and an equal sharing of cyber information by all. This is the most

valuable “Internet Culture” that provides an encouraging and stimulating

environment for the fostering of innovation in technology and business

and further serves as the essential source of the dramatic development

of the worldwide Internet.

Nevertheless, with the growth of the Internet and its transition into

a key element of the global information infrastructure, certain shortcom-

ings lurking in its operational and management mechanisms are

gradually appearing:

Different countries/regions and different groups have varying rates

of economic development, language backgrounds and cultures, resulting

in de facto inequalities in terms of timely understanding of policies and

regulations related to the Internet. They also have varying capacities to

participate in and oversee the rule-making and related processes in the

existing model of Internet mechanism. Therefore, the involvement of

developing countries in making international public policies related to

the Internet falls short of the scale at which these societies use and rely

on the Internet. Over the years this situation resulted in some prevalent

Internet rules and regulations which do not and cannot fully reflect

broader public interests of the worldwide community and especially the

interests of groups that have limited or no Internet access, or groups that

lag far behind developed countries in their Internet construction

capabilities.

Internet resources have become global public resources critical to

Page 73

the safety and interests of all countries. Therefore, given the global

nature of Internet resources and for the sake of reflecting the principle

of equal participation, it is no longer appropriate for the Internet

Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to follow an

approach in which it is empowered by a single government for specific

operations and decision-making, especially for certain critical resource

management issues.

Due to the lack of empowerment from governments other than the

U.S., weaknesses like low efficiencies and poor decision-making

capabilities are apparent in the handling of many public policy issues

that require strengthened cross-border coordination. One case in point

is Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), which is still a pending issue

after several years of discussion and is without any effective decision in

sight in spite of years of efforts and attempts to have international policy

coordination on this front. Meanwhile, because other countries are

unable to partake in decision-making for the formidable Internet this

naturally gives rise to misgivings in some of those countries, which in

turn, to some extent, restrict the applications of the Internet (e.g.,

applications of high security requirements) in those countries. All this

has, to a certain extent, constrained the development of the Internet.

In the ICANN decision-making process there is extremely low

government participation. This feature has its advantages and disadvan-

tages. On the negative side, for some issues concerning public interests,

ICANN cannot help being biased to unduly favor the private sectors. For

example, the process of adding new Generic Top Level Domains

(gTLDs) was not transparent enough, and the decision-making for it was

not scientifically justified. This meant that, although it benefitted the

private sector it was not possible for the general public to express its

needs through the voice of their governments and, therefore, not possible

for the general public to benefit from it in a real sense.

According to the ICANN mandate, ICANN is neither a pol-

icy-maker nor an international coordinator. It is restricted to remaining

a small private corporate body with responsibility for technical

coordination functions to keep the Internet operating steadily. However,

since there is no international mechanism or body accredited by all

countries designed to take charge of authorizations and global public

Page 74

policymaking in this field, ICANN by default has had to step beyond its

mandate to be saddled with such responsibilities. These responsibilities

include providing international coordination, management and a

decision-making mechanism for important Internet matters which affect

public policies. Such a contradiction between ICANN’s positioning and

its mandates does not foster the expansion of Internet across the globe.

The wide application of the Internet has caused or exacerbated new

cross-border tensions. Some of these include individual privacy rights

versus social openness; information security versus information

freedom; information sharing versus Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

protection; as well as the head-on collision between cultures; cross-bord-

er hacker attacks, computer viruses, harmful web information, cyber

crimes etc. These tensions impact peace and social security, and increase

the global digital divide and intensify conflicts and contradictions

brought about by the unbalanced world development. All these indicate

that the Internet at present is more acutely in need of strengthened

international coordination and cooperation than ever, which is the one

and only way which can lead toward practical and effective solutions to

these complex public policy issues.

A private body like ICANN that is only empowered by a single

government cannot possess the breadth or sense of legitimacy necessary

to carry out all of the functions listed above. Therefore, the continued

absence of a legitimately empowered internationalized mechanism

capable of effective decision-making is likely to severely impede the

sense of safety, and stability associated with the Internet and impact

further development of the Internet.

WSIS: An Opportunity for a Timely Improvement

WSIS has provided an important opportunity for rectifying the

weaknesses hidden in the current Global Internet governance mecha-

nism. The 2003 Geneva Summit’s Declaration of Principles and Plan of

Action demonstrate a shared belief by the international community that

the Internet has become a mighty tool for safeguarding world peace,

reducing poverty and relieving backwardness as well as promoting

common prosperity and progress in the world.

The United Nations and all governments are required, obligated and

Page 75

entitled to be involved in the management of the Internet at the decision-

making level in such fields as the making of international public

policies, resource management and international coordination and

collaboration, and they should join hands with all stakeholders to

guarantee a further prosperous and securely sustainable, universal

Internet. WGIG was responsible for taking hold of the opportunities

offered by WSIS, recognizing existing problems hidden in the Internet

governance mechanisms, and presenting effective recommendations for

their reasonable improvement.

The development of the Internet should incorporate the routine

participation of multiple stakeholders. Currently, all stakeholders

including governments, intergovernmental organizations, international

organizations, the private sectors and civil societies are broadly

represented in the public policy field. This participation by all actors

should be guaranteed in the future through any improved global Internet

governance mechanism.

Considering the breadth and depth of the Internet’s reach as well as

its pivotal role in the information society, public policies for global

Internet governance should not only take account of the interests of the

Internet community, but also the needs of communities that are still

outside the Internet or have only limited access. Naturally, the most

legitimate representatives of the public interests at present are each

government and by the United Nations, acting as the most authoritative

and widely-representative intergovernmental organization recognized by

all nations. It can provide a proper platform to settle issues of public

policies concerning global Internet governance.

Multi-lateralism is the Key

As to the management of Internet resources in particular, this is an

issue of great significance to the development and security of the

Internet. Due to historical reasons, there has been no globally authorita-

tive body in charge of decision-making related to Internet resource

management where the globally authoritative body had broad participa-

tion by all countries. Instead, the U.S. Department of Commerce just

approves changes to the root zone file. Over many years it has never

proposed changes on its own, and so far it has never refused a recom-

Page 76

mendation from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for

a change. In this case, why is this issue considered so important? Why

not just leave it to the U.S. Government for the future, period?

The core issue concerning Internet resource management that really

needs oversight from outside the whole system of management – namely

the centralized review and final approval of requests for additions,

deletions or modifications to the root zone file record by an authoritative

body – is a “thousands tons hanging on a thread” kind of issue.

Approved changes are first applied to the “Distribution Master Server,”

and then automatically propagated throughout the root server system and

mirror servers distributed worldwide. According to U.S. law, the single

government that is holding this function is empowered to change the

root zone file record. That is why many governments, as the most

responsible body vis-à-vis their citizens, are worried and focused on this

tiny piece in the complicated system of Internet governance. While there

are many governments having substantial concern about the safety and

security for their citizens, the potential threat to the universality of the

Internet speaks for itself.

For a universally accessible, stable and robust Internet, we cannot

avoid focusing on this small piece of centralized empowerment. If the

government of the very country that originally created, nurtured and

shared the Internet with its neighbors in the global village, with an

excellent historical record for management of the Internet during the

past 30 years, still cannot make all countries feel comfortable about the

unilateral management of the root zone file changes, it is obvious that

this issue cannot be passed over without extensive thought. To deal with

the core function in global Internet governance by relying solely on

“trust” or a “guess” that “the single Government would not do any harm

to the universal Internet” seems far from satisfactory. All sovereign

states in the world would believe that their citizens’ interests are

appropriately protected only when there is basis in international law. It

thus is quite clear that “multi-lateralism” is very missing piece in the

puzzle.

The Need for an Intergovernmental Oversight Institution

In its Report, “The WGIG recognized that any organizational form

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for the governance function/oversight function should adhere to the

following principles:

No single Government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to

international Internet governance.

The organizational form for the governance function will be multi-lateral,

transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the

private sector, civil society and international organizations.

The organizational form for the governance function will involve all

stakeholders and relevant intergovernmental and international organizations

within their respective roles.”

These principles are in line with the spirit of WSIS and provide a

basis for achieving worldwide consensus on this issue. One of the four

models suggested in the Report calls for the establishment of a Global

Internet Council (GIC). In this approach, the role and position of the

U.S. Department of Commerce would be replaced by an intergovern-

mental mechanism under the framework of the United Nations. That is

to say, the governments of all sovereign states together with the U.S.

Government would bear the responsibility of the management of Internet

resources and public policy setting, with extensive involvement of the

private sector and civil society. Thus, it is suggested to expand the body

that empowers ICANN, from the U.S. Department of Commerce only,

to an integrated body including all governments. This reform would not

do any harm to the normal operation and functioning of the Internet. For

example, the specific task of allocating and managing Internet resources,

such as IP address allocation and domain name assignment, would still

be executed by the institutional system with ICANN as the umbrella, but

it does not mean that ICANN would not “root-and branch” reforms

gradually. The above-mentioned intergovernmental mechanism under

the framework of the United Nations should clearly define the responsi-

bilities and obligations with ICANN through a Memorandum of

Understanding or a contract.

Transparency is the Key

This is reasonable solution. Only under such a framework could all

sovereign states feel that they are not being treated unevenly in

comparison with the single country that holds the oversight function.

Page 78

Under such a scheme, all governments hold the function of authorization

to ICANN, which would be always accountable to the international

society. Nevertheless, there is some concern that this new institution

would gradually grow into a new bureaucracy and would interfere in

many issues that do not need political interference at all. For example,

how would one suggest that there is assurance that a multi-governmental

oversight activity does not turn into a top-down policy making appara-

tus? If a group of government representatives takes up the function

carried out today by the U.S. Department of Commerce, would they

continue to treat the Internet and root zone policy as a “bottom-up”

process? How would it be possible to avoid the politicization of the

decisions of the new multi-governmental institution? When governments

get involved, external factors often enter into positions and decisions

taken, and, government control of the process may slow the innovation

and evolution that has characterized the Internet to date, etc.

A number of tools could be employed to ensure that an international

oversight institute does not “over perform” its duty. First, there should

be international regulation defining what is in and what is beyond the

scope of this GIC. In this regulation, all characteristic features that have

guided the successful practice of global Internet growth should be stated

and agreed upon by the international society, e.g. the Internet and root

zone policy can only be a bottom-up process, the oversight institute has

no right to make decision on issues which have not been discussed in the

bottom-up process and have no consensus, etc. The globally agreed

regulation would make the process adequately transparent and open,

putting it under the supervision of the international society.

Second, the existing institutions would resist any excessive political

interference, if any should arise, from the GIC. Third, in case of

anything really serious happening, it is always possible to put the matter

on the table of United Nations to be discussed openly in the international

society forum. As for the technical innovation and evolution processes

that have characterized the Internet to date, it seems beyond the scope

of this oversight function. Furthermore, such a framework would

encourage all root server operators of ccTLDs to establish formal

obligatory relations with ICANN, thus to make the root server system

more robust and reliable, which would be greatly beneficial to the global

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security of the Internet.

Conclusion

In my personal view, this would be the workable solution that does

not require big changes in current Internet governance mechanisms. The

model proposed here would protect and improve the continuing

existence of the universally accessible, robust and reliable Internet in our

life time.

* Online at:

http://www.wgig.org/docs/book/WGIG_book.pdf

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necessarily the opinions of the Amateur Computerist newsletter. We

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EDITORIAL STAFF

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