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COMMUNICATIONS: Who Should Master the Domains?
By Miren Gutierrez
GENEVA, Dec 9, 2003 (IPS) - As the WSIS opens, the international community
finds itself drawn into the debate over whether the Internet's core
infrastructure, the domains, should remain managed by industry or be
taken over by governments, via the United Nations.
The public lines drawn in this dispute suggest it is a struggle between
free-market forces in California and multilateralist world leaders
chafing at U.S. control over the mushrooming Internet.
But the reality is more complex.
Domain names (such as "www.ips.org") are the unique identifiers needed to
route e-mail, find pages on the World Wide Web, and connect to other
Internet resources.
Soon after the "Net" was born, the need to enforce uniqueness, to prevent
two people from attempting to use the exact same domain, created the need
for a body to monitor and assign the names.
While the Internet was small, the DNS and the Internet Protocol (IP)
address space allocation was run by a combination of volunteers, the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. government civilian and
military contractors.
That quickly changed.
"The Internet's exponential growth placed strains on the somewhat ad hoc
system for managing the DNS, and what had been primarily technical issues
became political, legal and economic problems that attracted high-level
official attention," according to the website of ICANNwatch.org, a
watchdog group that publishes ICANN-related news.
Now ICANN, the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers, allocates IP address space and manages the domain name
system. It also helps set technical rules for how the Internet operates.
Whoever controls the DNS has significant power, including the ability to
decide what families of domain names can exist - new suffixes
like .union, for example - and how names and essential routing numbers
will be assigned.
As attractive domain names using .com became scarce, disputes over them
became increasingly common, and pressure mounted for the creation of new
suffixes like .shop or .web.
"Although technically trivial to implement, the proposals ran into
intense counter-pressure from intellectual property rights holders, who
already faced mounting problems with cyber squatters - speculators who
registered domain names corresponding to trademarks and held them for
profit," explains ICANNwatch.org.
Governments in the European Union (EU) began to express concern about the
United States' influence over such a crucial component of the mushrooming
technology.
Five years ago, in response to a U.S. Department of Commerce initiative,
the non-profit quasi-private organisation ICANN came into being.
One of its early moves was to push Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), the
dominant registrar of domain names, to allow more competition, including
America Online, CORE, France Telecom, Melbourne IT, and register.com.
ICANN also instituted mandatory arbitration of trademark claims, meaning
everyone who registered a .com, .org or .net domain had to agree to
arbitration if a trademark owner felt aggrieved by the registration of a
term similar to his or her trademark.
That move was very contentious, with trademark holders arguing that
arbitration did not go far enough to protect their assets, while civil
liberty groups countered that the system violated basic norms of due
process, and that the arbitrators were not acting fairly.
Others complained that ICANN's board of directors - although it includes
non-U.S. members - was not representative enough.
In 2001, the body identified seven new top-level domains (TLDs),
including .info and .biz, but declined to recommend 35 others. The
selection process was controversial, and the losing applicants protested.
According to ICANNwatch.org, the problem with the domains system is its
lack of accountability.
"In addition to avoiding governmental accountability mechanisms, ICANN
lacks much of the accountability normally found in corporations and in
nonprofits," such as competition and shareholder monitoring.
In an interview with CircleID.com, ICANNwatch.org editor Milton Mueller
argues that, "so much of what happened in the ICANN arena happened by
default, because no one had a better proposal that significant groups had
converged on and understood the implications of".
As the Internet grew, competitors and governments took a keener interest
in the work of ICANN, which faced increased pressure as the business of
selling domain names collapsed and ICANN proved inept at performing some
of its tasks.
The most visible quarrel broke out between ICANN and VeriSign, which
operates the .com and .net databases (and earns six dollars a year per
address registered). In September, VeriSign launched a service that
redirected users who mistyped a .com or .net address to its own search
engine, on which it sold advertising.
This caused problems, as it fooled certain filters designed to weed out
Internet junk, or "spam", into assuming that some junk e-mail was
genuine. ICANN threatened to sue, and VeriSign withdrew the service.
The initiative signalled how the market for Internet addresses had
changed. VeriSign, with a market share of 25 percent, needs new sources
of income, since selling names and operating the registrar is not as
profitable as it once was.
VeriSign's challenge also revealed the extent to which ICANN's authority
is in doubt.
During a September preparatory meeting for the WSIS, some countries -
including China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabia - backed a
proposal that the United Nations-affiliated International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) take charge of ICANN's responsibilities.
The ITU said it could not comment for this article, because as a U.N.
agency it cannot speak on behalf of member states.
A well-informed source, who did not want to be identified, argued that
the question is not whether ICANN can be replaced by the ITU, but whether
some portions of ICANN's responsibilities can be better managed.
If the ITU did take over some of ICANN's role, it would not deal with
disputes over domain names or the VeriSign case, for example. "They're
not part of ITU's mandate," the source said. The first issue is
a "national matter", the second a commercial affair.
But the ITU could get involved in issues that touch on international
policy and standards, added the source.
"I don't like governments - but why should I trust the ICANN? What's the
alternative? ICANN could've been the alternative, but they don't have a
representative board. They are a classic example of an oligarchy, an old-
boy network that is not accountable to anybody."
"ITU is more accountable in numerous ways," he added. "The member states
have to agree, there are regulations about who does what, the decision
process is transparent, there are strong formal procedures."
Last month, South African President Thabo Mbeki said the WSIS should
discuss ICANN's powers, "otherwise the world continues to be governed by
California law". The suggestion came soon after South Africa took legal
control of its country domain, .za, without seeking ICANN approval.
Supporters of such a plan include China or Saudi Arabia, hardly freedom
of expression champions. But "content control has nothing to do with
ITU", said the source. In any case "the countries won't ever agree on
such a thing unless by some miracle", he predicted.
Mueller sees the proposal differently. "In WSIS, they ask for making
ICANN into an inter-governmental organisation so that states can control
it, and presumably kick civil society out of all serious deliberations,
as they do in WSIS."
"It is also worth emphasising strongly that simple jealousy of U.S.
dominance is no substitute for a coherent policy regarding governance.
The issue is the distribution of power, not nationality," added Mueller.
"An Internet governance system dominated by the EU or China or Brazil
might make Europeans, Chinese or Brazilians happier (or would it?) but it
would hardly be more just."
Observers say three blocs have emerged in the dispute: the first group
sees ITU as ICANN's successor; the EU believes that ICANN is not ideal
but could be improved; while the United States is happy with the current
arrangement.
The source predicts that the divide over ICANN could degenerate into
bitter discussions that could leave the WSIS without an agreement, "like
Cancun".
The risks of such an outcome are unknown. In the past, the debate over
how to run the Internet has focussed on the risk that too much government
regulation might hinder innovation. But after the VeriSign case,
unrestrained commercialisation looks as big a danger.
(END)
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