Internet showdown

Internet’s existence as we know it is in jeopardy.
The struggle for the control over Icann was the trigger.

In the past couple of months the control over Icann. It partly belongs to the Dept. of Commerce of the US Government and has been the target for critics coming from the international community.

Icann is responsible for allocating space on the internet and deciding who gets to operate the most basic domains, the top-level domains and the world’s country codes.
It is a California based private organization which was selected in 1998 by the US Dept of Commerce. It has an international members’ board but the Dept of Commerce keeps the veto power.

The agreement made during Bill Clinton’s presidency stated that US Government would withdraw its presence in Icann. This would be done after the organization met a number of conditions.

This pledge was already reneged in June by the current American Government that showed intentions of retaining its role overseeing Icann.
Marcos Faria, Portuguese academic on International Relations says “The U.S. position is now very clear about retaining control over Icann, which means any form of multilateral governance of the internet is presumably still a very long way.”

Countries behind the origin of the issue criticise the hegemony of the US over the internet – or at least the partial control over Icann – and demand a reform of the management of the web.
The unfair distribution of digital space is one of the main issues for the developing countries.

The UN is trying to reach a consensus but hasn’t had an easy task.
According to Jonathan Zittrain, chair in Internet Governance and Regulation in Oxford University, “the apparent desire by the United Nations to "take control of the Internet" at the World Summit on the Information Society has been spurred by China, Cuba, and other informationally repressive regimes.”

Marcos Faria thinks ”what lies behind the U.S. government’s resistance to relinquish control over Icann can be explained by its strong mistrust vis-à-vis multilateral international institutions and its refusal to make matters of American national interest dependent on what it perceives as unreliable governments and rogue states”.

 

International Panorama

There has also been some tension between US and EU.
The US claim the EU has changed direction. The US rejected the participation at the Geneva meeting, the last one before the WSIS. Nonetheless the different parts made their stand on the subject postponing any decision to the WSIS.

In Geneva the EU spokesman Martin Selmayr argued: “We are looking for a new cooperation model, a model that allows Internet governance and the laying down of public policy principles in coordination by all countries which are interested in the governance of the Internet because the Internet is a global resource.”

Trying to come up with a viable solution, EU was the first to present a plan which apparently proposed to take the control of domain names from the US and placing it with an intergovernmental group, perhaps under the UN.

The crucial point that is making this issue life threat to the Net is a matter of finding or not finding a solution that pleases the right countries.
If a solution that satisfies countries like China can’t be found, the ubiquity of the Internet will no longer be real.

 

Digital Value

What makes Internet such a precious resource in the global economy, is its uniqueness and the ability of being everywhere, accessed from wherever, whenever. The possibility of watching developing countries starting to create their own internet and fragmenting the cyberspace would represent the end of the actual Internet. “With its plan, the EU is trying to find a middle way and a compromise among very disparate positions in order to avoid a worst-case scenario represented by cyberspace fragmentation”, Marcos Faria explains.

“Imagine the Brazilians or the Chinese doing their own internet. That would be the end of the story”, the European Commissioner responsible for the internet, Vivian Reding said at Geneva.

For Jonathan Zittrain “the spotlight on domain name management is largely a combination of historical accident and the unfortunate assignment of "country code" domains like .uk, .cn and .eu, geographically-grounded codes that give the illusion of government outposts and control in cyberspace.”

 

What is the struggle about, after all?

The Oxford professor considers the focus of this battle comparatively trivial, he considers the “domain name system” a basic part of the internet’s architecture that helps users finding their way around cyberspace. “Fighting over control of the domain name system is a meaningless charade”, he adds.

The professor also argues that “the most important parts of the domain name system are naturally resistant to unwanted control” and considers that governments, particularly repressive ones, running the internet represent an absolute threat.

On the other hand “the fact that there are political regimes and governments inherently at odds with the idea of free expression and information (and eager to grab every opportunity to thwart it, as China, for instance) cannot serve as an excuse to prevent the Internet regime form evolving into a more multilateral and equitable juncture”, Marcos Faria regards.
The Portuguese Academic also thinks that “Internet governance is not just a technical matter but first and foremost a political one impending on the very nature of the international/global sphere.”

 

WSIS – What is expected?

As an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society, Zittrain thinks that “other countries should care little that the Department of Commerce takes on the chore of overseeing domain names right now. The US position of leaving protocol decisions to the technogeeks who have run the Internet since its inception in the late 1960's is a wise one.”

According to Neil Cukier, in his recent Foreign Affairs article, “Washington will have to come up with some way of sharing control with other countries without jeopardizing the network’s stability or discouraging free speech and technical innovation.”

So, being the US, probably the country with more to lose from a breakdown of the internet, it is expected that the EU and US opinions will converge. In sum, either in agreement or not, the global economy needs an answer for this issue.
It is inevitable for preventing a huge drawback that world leaders find a consensus and bring the internet governance – political or technological - to the global sphere.

Learn more at:
Icann.org
IcannWatch.org
.EU Domain Name Registration