The Internet began as a U.S. military project. For two decades, the government restricted access to the network to government, academic, and other authorized non-commercial use. In 1989, the U.S. gave up control—it allowed private, commercial use of the Internet, a decision that allowed it to flourish and grow as few could imagine at the time.
Late Friday, the NTIA announced its intent to give up the last vestiges of its control over the Internet, the last real evidence that it began as a government experiment. Control of the Domain Name System’s (DNS’s) Root Zone File has remained with the agency despite the creation of ICANN in 1998 to perform the other high-level domain name functions, called the IANA functions.
The NTIA announcement is not a huge surprise. The U.S. government has always said it eventually planned to devolve IANA oversight, albeit with lapsed deadlines and changes of course along the way.
The U.S. giving up control over the Root Zone File is a step toward a world in which governments no longer assert oversight over the technology of communication. Just as freedom of the printing press was important to the founding generation in America, an unfettered Internet is essential to our right to unimpeded communication. I am heartened to see that the U.S. will not consider any proposal that involves IANA oversight by an intergovernmental body.
Relatedly, next month’s global multistakeholder meeting in Brazil will consider principles and roadmaps for the future of Internet governance. I have made two contributions to the meeting, a set of proposed high-level principles that would limit the involvement of governments in Internet governance to facilitating participation by their nationals, and a proposal to support experimentation in peer-to-peer domain name systems. I view these proposals as related: the first keeps governments away from Internet governance and the second provides a check against ICANN simply becoming another government in control of the Internet.
PFF Adjunct Fellow Mike Palage, who served on the ICANN board from 2003 to 2006, filed these comments (PDF) on the NTIA’s recent Notice of Inquiry regarding ICANN’s future. Mike’s four key points were as follows:
- ICANN’s Periodic Review of its internal operations and supporting organizations has failed, and has become nothing more than a “perpetual motion machine of public comments and documentation producing no meaningful results.” Only a second Evolution and Reform Process can solve ICANN’s current deficiencies;
- ICANN must hardcode into its policies and its contracts the principle that its policies cannot supersede national laws;
- ICANN must cease any operational role in technical infrastructure as required by its bylaws and focus instead on its mission as a technical coordinator; and
- Congress must avoid “kicking the JPA can down the road” and instead provide much-needed leadership by creating a solid foundation for ICANN 3.0 in legislation after proper consultation with the Government Accountability Office.
Continue reading →
I’ve been working closely with PFF’s new Adjunct Fellow Michael Palage on ICANN issues. Here is his latest
note
, from the PFF blog.
ICANN recently proclaimed that the “Joint Project Agreement” (one of two contractual arrangements that ICANN has with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) governing ICANN’s operations) will come to an end in September 2009. ICANN’s insistence on this point first became clear back in October 2008 at ICANN’s Washington, D.C. public forum on Improving Institutional Confidence when Peter Dengate Thrush, Chair of ICANN’s Board declared:
the Joint Project Agreement will conclude in September 2009. This is a legal fact, the date of expiry of the agreement. It’s not that anyone’s declared it or cancelled it; it was set up to expire in September 2009.
ICANN’s recently published 2008 Annual Report stuck to this theme:
“As we approach the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement between the United States Department of Commerce and ICANN in September 2009…” – His Excellency Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Arab Republic of Egypt
“Concluding the JPA in September 2009 is the next logical step in transition of the DNS to private sector management.” – ICANN Staff
“This consultation’s aim was for the community to discuss possible changes to ICANN in the lead-up to the completion of the JPA in September 2009.” – ICANN Staff
ICANN’s effort to make the termination of the JPA seem inevitable is concerning on two fronts. First, ICANN fails to mention that the current JPA appears to be merely an extension/revision of the original 1998 Memorandum of Understand (MoU) with DoC, which was set to expire in September 2000. Thus, because the JPA does not appear to be a free-standing agreement, but merely a continuation of MOU-as Bret Fausset argues in his excellent analysis of the relationship between the MoU and the JPA (also discussed by Milton Mueller). Therefore, it would be more correct to talk about whether the “MoU/JPA”-meaning the entire agreement as modified by the most current JPA-will expire or be extended. Continue reading →
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.