[AfrICANN-discuss] ITU to control Internet?

[Victor Ndonnang]

Dear Nacer,

Thank you for bringing this topic to the "AfrICANN" mailing list. Are you
part of any UN or ITU policies discussing mailing list? I guess no.
First of all I would like to answer your subject question: No, the ITU is
not welcome to control the Internet. Why?

Simply because the ITU's policies development process is not open, not
transparent and not inclusive. Did you ever asked yourself where the great
success of the Internet came from? Because of its open structure. You don't
need the mandate of your country to participate in the IETF or ICANN work
for example. The governance of the Internet is mainly technical and we don't
need a voting organization to take care of it; we need a consensus based
organization (like IETF hosted by ISOC,ICANN, W3C...) to do the work. Let me
come back to your remarks and questions:

- We all agree that the Internet was born 100% US but today, It is 100%
global. Naturally, Its Governance has to be 100% global and inclusive. The
ICANN which is an important part the Internet ecosystem today is in eyes of
many not 100% global but is working to become so. The WSIS calls for a
multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet and I can affirm that ICANN is
a model of a multi-stakeholder organization. I can agree that ICANN need
some ameliorations but I don't think the ITU can do better.

- Basically a ccTLD have to be run for the interest of the local Internet
Community and It is not always the case in many African Countries and that
is why many of our countries are facing the problem of redelegation.
Delegation and Redelegation policies are discussed within the ccNSO  and
implemented by ICANN as the contractor of the IANA function. From my
knowledge redelegation is not dictated by the US DoC.

- ICANN deal with domain names and not web content and I think any web site
is subject to the law of the country where it is hosted.

Personally I cannot support the proposal of putting the Internet under the
UN organization control. The Internet was built by engineers and not by
politicians, and Its governance is technical by nature. Today the Internet
Government is run with full participation of governments and I don't think
we need a member state organization to lead the Internet. We all know how
the UN works today and we can easily imagine how an UN's organization can
run the Internet...We all want the Internet critical resources and standards
to be managed with competence and excellence and not with bureaucracy and
political balance. 

Hope you will find my comments helpful.
Best regards,
Victor.


-----Message d'origine-----
De : africann-bounces at afrinic.net [mailto:africann-bounces at afrinic.net] De
la part de Adamou Nacer
Envoyé : mercredi 8 août 2012 09:59
À : africann at afrinic.net
Objet : [AfrICANN-discuss] ITU to control Internet?

Hi all,
you have certainly already read this post [1] on the next ITU's WCIT 
meeting by the end of this year. This week, this is certainly the fifth 
post I read on the subject and I am asking myself some questions. So as 
I am new on Internet Governance issues, I would finally look for answers 
from you:
- I saw strong opposal from US representatives arguing that the current 
governance model is working pretty well and don't need to be change. I 
am agreing with that, except on some points. For a country to have its 
ccTLD for exemple redelegated, we need approval from the US DoC. A US 
court's decision can seals the sort of any website as soon as this 
website is hosted by a US law's ruled company. Even, ICANN in charge of 
Internet Governance coordination is ruled according to US laws. These 
are just some examples on the subject.
- I have even read an article a few days ago (than to our fellow Mamadou 
Lo) on the fact that US government can take control of Internet in case 
of emergency, as if Internet was like the US telephone system.

I don't ignore the huge positive impact US has had through the history 
on the development of Internet as we know it nowadays, but we are 
talking about something that is no longer belonging to a country, but 
that is an universal resource where full openness and democracy are rules.

So now I am asking, how can we reject to China/Russia proposal of 
putting Internet under the UN's ITU management and break its present 
governance model while we are not struggling to have a less US dependent 
Internet which is an issue of same nature in my opinion?
What would be the african position (if there is any) on this issue?

Thanks in advance for your help.
Regards

[1] 
http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-board-trustees-expresse
s-concern-about-potential-impact-world-conference 

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