US Control of Internet Back on Int'l Agenda
Veículo: CNS News
Data: 12/11/2007
Assunto: IGF
Developing nations led by China, Brazil, India and others have been calling for years for the U.S. to relinquish its indirect supervision of the Internet's core systems. The campaign came to a head at a major U.N. conference in Tunisia two years ago, but the U.S. managed to fend it off.
The conference ended with a compromise decision to leave matters as they stand for the time being, while establishing an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) for governments, businesses and other "stakeholders" to discuss issues related to Internet governance. Unlike most U.N. meetings, the IGF does not negotiate or make decisions.
This week's four-day meeting in Brazil, bringing together some 1,700 participants from some 90 countries, is the second annual IGF. At the first, in Athens a year ago, the issue of U.S. supervision took a back seat -- but not this time. Pushed by the host nation, Brazil, and others, the U.S. supervision issue looks set to feature strongly.
"Without the participation and cooperation of all, the Internet cannot be sure nor stable," Brazil's Minister of Science and Technology, Sergio Rezende, told the gathering's opening session on Monday.
"That's why we defend Internet governance that is representative and balanced," he said. "We stand for a type of governance which is not the preserve of any particular country's government."
"The Internet is transnational," said Brazilian Culture Minister Gilberto Gil. "It cannot be under the control of a country ... to deal with these issues, we need perhaps to think about extending the mandate of the United Nations on the subject." A transcript of the remarks was made available by the Brazilian government.
At the heart of the dispute is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based, not-for-profit corporation contracted to the Department of Commerce. ICANN regulates and allocates web domains such as .com and .org and assigns Internet protocol addresses.
Critics characterize ICANN as a U.S. entity, although its staffers come from seven countries, its board members account for 12 nationalities, its chief executive is an Australian, and its board chairman and vice-chairman are a New Zealander and Italian respectively. A "governmental advisory committee" meets three times a year, and is open to representatives of all national governments.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Portuguese Technology Minister Jose Mariano Ago told the opening session that ICANN had been a flexible and dynamic body. Although it could be and had been improved, he said, it should continue.
During a subsequent IGF session on "critical Internet resources," former ICANN board chairman Vint Cerf defended the body as a "multi-stakeholder" structure.
Cerf -- who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet -- also said the U.S. government's oversight role has been a "benign" one.
He said he understood the desire to "de-politicize" ICANN by removing responsibilities to any one government, but said the government advisory committee exists "to absorb the public policy aspect of ICANN's operation."
Asked how he viewed a possible role for the U.N., Cerf said he valued the U.N. ability to convene meetings such as the one now underway
"I don't necessarily believe, however, that the governance mechanisms that have evolved around the Internet need necessarily to move into the U.N. orbit in a direct way," he added.
Prof. Milton Mueller of Syracuse University's School of Information Studies told the session he envisaged a possible future governance body that "involves sticking pretty much with the ICANN structure but getting the U.S. government out of it."
He said an issue that needed to be looked at was the relationships between ICANN and governments. He did not believe the government advisory committee model was the right one because, he argued, "what you're doing by bringing them into [the committee] is just reproducing all the geopolitical conflicts that already exist." During the 2005 Internet conference in Tunisia, press freedom watchdogs argued that some of the governments spearheading the drive to wrest control from the U.S. - China's in particular - were notorious for efforts to censor and restrict the Internet.
In 2005 the U.S. House and Senate passed "sense of Congress" resolutions saying that day-to-day operations of the Internet should continue to be located and maintained in the U.S.
