Introduction
 
Something important is happening. The cooperative and open processes
and culture that make the Internet a public treasure have their 
enemies. A contest is going on now where the stakes are high. 
Will the Internet be able to continue as an open, global, network 
of networks where diversity is encouraged and communication among 
people of all ages and from a multitude of backgrounds is made 
possible? Or will the Internet be transformed into the corporate 
vision of a large arena for buying and selling and other 
commercial transactions? The Internet vision allows all to 
coexist, but the commercial vision will exclude anything but the 
commercial aims and will require fundamental changes in the 
nature of the Internet itself.
 
The contest now being waged is over the issue of the privatizing
of the Domain Name System and other central and controlling 
functions of the Internet. Several documents follow. They 
document the recent struggle to maintain an Internet, and to 
resist the commercial pressure that certain corporate interests 
are exerting on the U.S. government to turn these essential 
functions over to the private sector for its benefit.
 
The Internet is a place where there is a diversity of networks, a 
diversity of computers and a diversity of users. It is a network 
of networks which fosters the communication among many and they 
benefit from this diversity. Also the Internet is based on open 
code and open and cooperative processes. 
 
The processes, however, that have been used by the U.S. 
government to create a new privatized corporation to own, control 
and administer Internet domain names, numbers, the root server 
and the protocols for the Internet have been conducted in secret 
and via exclusive and closed activities. There has been 
widespread criticism of the way that the bylaws and articles of 
incorporation have been created by a nonpublic, and secret 
process, for this new private corporation, and also there has 
been criticism about how the selection of those who were chosen 
for the Interim Board of Directors was carried out. In response 
to such complaints, the U.S. Department of Commerce required that 
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 
hold an open meeting in Boston, on November 14, 1998. About 200 
people from the international Internet community attended. 
 
At the meeting there was a wide ranging set of complaints about
how and why ICANN had been created and what they were doing.
Several people pointed out that what was needed was an 
international public utility, rather than a private sector 
corporation. 
 
The newspaper coverage of the meeting was more extensive than
had hitherto happened around this issue, and many of the press
accounts indicated the large amount of dissatisfaction with ICANN's 
secret origins and nondemocratic practices.
 
Headlines that appeared in the press following the meeting 
included the following. (I have indicated the URL where 
possible.)
 
"New Internet Board Hears Plenty of Skepticism", New York Times,
Nov. 14, 1998, http://www.nyt.com/
 
"Internet Governance Board Confronts a Hostile Public" in the New
York Times, on November 16, 1998. http://www.nyt.com/
 
"A Kind of Constitutional Convention for the Internet", Cyberlaw Journal
October 23, 1998, New York Times on the Web.
 
"Top Candidate for Internet Governance Entity Expects Federal Gov't
Approval Within Week," BNA, http://www.bna.com/e-law/
 
"Debate Flares Over Group That Hopes to Oversee the Internet", 
"The Chronicle of Higher Education" November 27, 1998, p. A21.
http://www.chronicle.com/weekly/v45/i14/14a02101.htm
 
Another interesting press account was that in Forbesdigital on 
November 30 "Who is Running this Joint?" 
http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/98/nov/1130/feat.htm
 
A transcript of the November 14, 1998 ICANN meeting in Boston
is online at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archive
Also comments presented before and after the meeting are online at
     http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/archive/#comments
 
On November 25, 1998, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed
between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN to design
and test mechanisms, methods, and procedures to carry out
the DNS functions. This MoU is online at
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/icann-memorandum.htm
 
There have been some interests pressuring the U.S. government to 
carry out a transition immediately to the private sector. Others 
have proposed reasoned consideration to determine a new 
management structure. Also there are voices urging the need for a 
continued U.S. government role in the ownership, management, and 
control of these important and controlling functions of the 
Internet. The NTIA-ICANN MoU presents a plan for designing a new 
structure, while maintaining government participation in the 
process. Thus the battle over what is happening continues, but 
those campaigning for a quick give-a-way have been thwarted for 
the time being.
 
For now the U.S. government is supposed to be maintaining a role 
in the design and test of a private sector corporate entity to 
take over these essential functions of the Internet. However, it 
is unclear what the current U.S. government role is or who to 
contact in the U.S. government to present complaints to.
 
The U.S. Congress has been holding hearings about the transfer of 
these essential Internet functions to the private sector. There 
is a set of testimony presented to the U.S. House of 
Representatives Committee on Science, Subcommittee on Technology
and Subcommittee on Basic Research which concerns these issues 
and this testimony is helpful in identifying some of the 
different positions and issues taken in considering what the U.S. 
government should do. The house testimony is online at 
 URL: http://www.house.gov/science/hearing.htm#Basic_Research
 
The hearings were September 25, 1997, March 31, 1998, and October 
7, 1998. The testimony of Robert E. Kahn on March 31, 1998, for 
example, contains important history about the role played by the 
U.S. government in the creation and development of the Internet. 
Kahn played a pioneering role in both the designing and building 
of the ARPANET, and then in the creation of tcp/ip and in 
designing and building the Internet.  The URL is
        http://www.house.gov/science/kahn_03-31.htm
 
The DNS battle has turned into a battle over the soul of the Internet.
The Internet makes it possible to have networks communicating and 
therefore people communicating. It provides for a diversity of 
computers, a diversity of users, and a diversity of networks.
And they are all able to cooperate and collaborate. The current
actions of the U.S. government to transfer controlling functions
of the Internet to the private sector has raised the issue of 
who should be making the decisions about what happens in the 
present and future of the Internet? The earliest networking
pioneers welcomed all views and all to participate and discuss
the issues. Decisions were made by relevant communities
at a grassroots level. It was understood that pro and con ideas
were needed to have broad ranging discussion to make
reasoned and well founded decisions. 
 
The current situation is that the Internet is made up of many 
different networks. There are, however, certain centralized 
functions. And there is a need to administer them. To do this, 
great responsibility and skill are needed. Since the Internet is 
not anarchic, and there are central points of control, great care 
and responsibility must be exerted or there is the great 
possibility of abuse of users. Therefore the question of how to 
make decisions about the Internet has become an urgent issue to 
be solved. It requires the consideration of all who value the 
Internet. 
 
There are various models one can use to figure out how to make 
decisions. However, as the Internet is a unique new medium of 
worldwide communication, it is important to consider what means 
have grown up with or as part of the Internet that can be helpful 
in solving this problem.(1) Commercial pressure to allow some 
small sector of the corporate world to take control of these 
essential Internet functions makes it difficult for those who 
care about the future of the Internet to take the needed care to 
solve the problem. 
 
Recognizing that this kind of problem would develop, farsighted
computer pioneers in the 1970's like J.C.R. Licklider and Harold 
Sackman proposed that the development of a network of 
networks would catch the public by surprise and that providing 
for the public interest would provide an important challenge. (2)
They proposed there would be the need for determining the 
kind of regulation needed so that the public interest would be 
protected. Just as they predicted, the social institutions have 
lagged behind the current developments. Therefore, it is of the 
utmost importance that those users who are interested in the 
Internet as a network of networks to be available to all, and to 
include all the possible diversity of people and computers and 
networks, take on to learn about this issue and to help spread an 
understanding of why it is so important. Also the greatest 
possible participation of the most diverse set of users is needed 
to determine how to solve the current problems.(3) There is a 
great need for a broad ranging public discussion on the issues 
involved in these changes. This is the challenge. The many 
wonderful experiences and uses of various users around the world 
who are able to participate online is the gift to be won or lost 
as a result of the success of this contest. The current battle has 
made some progress, but battalions of reinforcements are needed 
to win the war.
 
[Update: Despite the MoU, the NTIA through the NIST is transferring
the IANA contract to ICANN and setting it up as the private
sector authority to control the Internet. And despite the fact
that the MoU requires the U.S. government to stay involved in
what is happening with ICANN, no officials are found at ICANN
events and they are just proceding as if they can do whatever they
choose with no oversight over their activities. At the January
23, 1999 meeting held for ICANN by the Berkman Center at Harvard,
one speaker from the Kennedy School of government came and 
explained how the form of a voluntary organization is an inappropriate
form for an entity that is being created to have control over
people's economic lives. ICANN, however, continues in its activities
to form a private corporation that will have control over the 
Internet's essential functions. The U.S. government is encouraging 
this to happen rather than overseeing what is happening so that
some sort of appropriate entity is formed to protect these
essential functions and therefore the Internet.]
 
v
 
Notes:
(1) See for example the online means of decision making that
are describe in "Netizens: On the History and Impact of 
Usenet and the Internet" by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben,
IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997. A draft is online at
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/
 
(2) See "The Information Utility and Social Change," edited by H. 
Sackman and Norman Nie, AFIPS Press, Montvale, N.J., 1970, pg. 
71. See also "The Internet: A New Communications Paradigm", by 
Ronda Hauben, http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/internet.txt
 
(3) See http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/talk_governance.txt