Saturday, December 03, 2005
World Wants More Say in Control of World Wide Web
The Bush administration and the U.S. tech industry are teaming to take on the rest of the world in a fight about who controls the technical underpinnings of the Internet. Right now, a U.S.-based group does. But countries from Chile to China think they should have more say. The debate is pretty geeky. But if the issues are not resolved, the Net could stop working smoothly. And the fight -- which will come to a head at a United Nations conference this week -- could become a foreign policy problem far outside the virtual world. Already, "there is a lot of mistrust," says Robert Shaw, policy adviser for the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N.-affiliated group that advocates more international control of the Net. "There need to be government-to-government conversations," says Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy council for Google. "Let's not do anything crazy and radical." Google and other tech companies are worried because, in a worst-case scenario, the stalemate could cause the Net's unified address book to break apart. If that happened, someone who typed in www.usatoday.com in the USA might see a different site than someone in Canada, Iran or other countries. Even more moderate changes would likely make a mess, says Avi Silberschatz, a computer science professor at Yale. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," he says.
Like many things on the Net, it started with porn. A little known non-profit, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is in charge of the Net's technical nervous system. It runs a giant address book that allows computers on the Net to find each other. And it oversees Internet domains such as .com, .net and .org from a small office in Marina del Rey, Calif. ICANN didn't attract much attention until this summer, when it gave preliminary approval to a .xxx domain for adult content. It wasn't a moral judgment. ICANN's job is to decide whether a domain meets technical standards, not whether it's a good idea, CEO Paul Twomey says. Still, the move drew howls of protest from many conservative groups, including the powerful Family Research Council. They said .xxx would legitimize porn -- even though others argued it would make porn easier to filter out. The council asked conservatives to write letters to the Department of Commerce.
After receiving almost 6,000, Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher wrote his own letter, asking ICANN to delay approval of .xxx. ICANN did -- sparking a protest of a different type.
Many countries say the U.S. has too much control in running the Internet. ICANN has an international board but operates under a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Commerce Department. The U.S. has promised to make ICANN more independent, but hasn't yet, Shaw says.
ICANN's link to the U.S. government sounds strange, since the Web is worldwide. But its roots go back to the Internet's start as a research project largely funded by the Department of Defense.
One early researcher, Jon Postel, kept track of early Internet information in a notebook. That data were eventually handed over to a group, which evolved into ICANN in 1998 -- the year Postel died. The organization is still located in the same ocean-view building where Postel had his office.
Because ICANN is the offspring of federal research, it's not surprising that it still answers to U.S. officials. That's never thrilled the rest of the world, but the arrangement worked because Commerce largely stayed out of ICANN's affairs. Then Gallagher's .xxx letter gave the impression that "the U.S. Department of Commerce controls the Internet," says Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a tech trade group. Gallagher says his letter was appropriate and helped countries express similar concerns about .xxx. "We were being good stewards," he says. "It was not political. What was political was the response." Much of the world disagreed. "Whatever its origins, the Internet is a global phenomenon, and that must be reflected in its governance," British newspaper The Guardian said in an editorial.
Many countries want an international body under the jurisdiction of the United Nations to take over ICANN's role. "We need to build consensus for a new framework for Internet governance," Shaw says. Unfortunately, there's little consensus so far. Different countries disagree on what ICANN's proposed replacement should look like. And they face opposition from many technology companies. Evolving ICANN is fine, but "trying to create [change] or forcing it would be very destabilizing," says Chris Boam, Internet counsel for communications giant MCI. "Anything we would turn (ICANN's duties) over to would be untested and untried."
There's little other countries can do to directly challenge ICANN, as it does not report to them. But they could set up alternate networks that would compete with today's Internet. More likely, they will ratchet up the pressure through traditional channels, says Thomas Lenard, a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. But for that to work, most agree that the stalemate must end. "We could use some cooler heads and less extreme polarized position-taking," Shaw says. "It's hard to have the conversation if everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs," Miller says.
Brough to you by the Privacy Seal Program from Guardian eCommerce.
Like many things on the Net, it started with porn. A little known non-profit, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is in charge of the Net's technical nervous system. It runs a giant address book that allows computers on the Net to find each other. And it oversees Internet domains such as .com, .net and .org from a small office in Marina del Rey, Calif. ICANN didn't attract much attention until this summer, when it gave preliminary approval to a .xxx domain for adult content. It wasn't a moral judgment. ICANN's job is to decide whether a domain meets technical standards, not whether it's a good idea, CEO Paul Twomey says. Still, the move drew howls of protest from many conservative groups, including the powerful Family Research Council. They said .xxx would legitimize porn -- even though others argued it would make porn easier to filter out. The council asked conservatives to write letters to the Department of Commerce.
After receiving almost 6,000, Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher wrote his own letter, asking ICANN to delay approval of .xxx. ICANN did -- sparking a protest of a different type.
Many countries say the U.S. has too much control in running the Internet. ICANN has an international board but operates under a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Commerce Department. The U.S. has promised to make ICANN more independent, but hasn't yet, Shaw says.
ICANN's link to the U.S. government sounds strange, since the Web is worldwide. But its roots go back to the Internet's start as a research project largely funded by the Department of Defense.
One early researcher, Jon Postel, kept track of early Internet information in a notebook. That data were eventually handed over to a group, which evolved into ICANN in 1998 -- the year Postel died. The organization is still located in the same ocean-view building where Postel had his office.
Because ICANN is the offspring of federal research, it's not surprising that it still answers to U.S. officials. That's never thrilled the rest of the world, but the arrangement worked because Commerce largely stayed out of ICANN's affairs. Then Gallagher's .xxx letter gave the impression that "the U.S. Department of Commerce controls the Internet," says Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, a tech trade group. Gallagher says his letter was appropriate and helped countries express similar concerns about .xxx. "We were being good stewards," he says. "It was not political. What was political was the response." Much of the world disagreed. "Whatever its origins, the Internet is a global phenomenon, and that must be reflected in its governance," British newspaper The Guardian said in an editorial.
Many countries want an international body under the jurisdiction of the United Nations to take over ICANN's role. "We need to build consensus for a new framework for Internet governance," Shaw says. Unfortunately, there's little consensus so far. Different countries disagree on what ICANN's proposed replacement should look like. And they face opposition from many technology companies. Evolving ICANN is fine, but "trying to create [change] or forcing it would be very destabilizing," says Chris Boam, Internet counsel for communications giant MCI. "Anything we would turn (ICANN's duties) over to would be untested and untried."
There's little other countries can do to directly challenge ICANN, as it does not report to them. But they could set up alternate networks that would compete with today's Internet. More likely, they will ratchet up the pressure through traditional channels, says Thomas Lenard, a senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank. But for that to work, most agree that the stalemate must end. "We could use some cooler heads and less extreme polarized position-taking," Shaw says. "It's hard to have the conversation if everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs," Miller says.
Brough to you by the Privacy Seal Program from Guardian eCommerce.
