<h1 class="title"><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis">http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis</a></h1><h1 class="title">Analysis: EC policy papers on ICANN</h1>
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by Kieren McCarthy | 31 Aug 2011 | </span>
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<p>For those that have followed the interplay between the
organizations that maintain and evolve the Internet and the world’s
governments, this series of six policy papers from the European
Commission is likely to provoke the same despairing response: Here we go
again.</p>
<p>Together the papers represent a wholesale effort to put governments
in charge of the Internet. They would be put in a position to decide how
the Internet’s underlying naming structure – the domain name system –
expands and evolves. </p>
<p>If the DNS evolves in the right way of course, governments won’t need
to do anything, they will let others get on with it. But just in case
people decide to do something that isn’t in the public’s interest, then
governments will be there to firmly but politely inform them that they
are not allowed to do that. Well, that’s the theory anyway. </p>
<p>It’s a mindset that is familiar, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous. </p>
<p><strong>Van de Graaf generator</strong></p>
<p>The sudden and surprising shift in the EC position follows precisely
from the first appearance of the head of its Internet Directorate,
Gerard de Graaf, at an ICANN meeting in Singapore in June. </p>
<p><img src="http://news.dot-nxt.com/images/cartoons/van-de-graaf.png"></p>
<p>De Graaf caused an immediate outcry when he told ICANN Chairman Peter
Dengate Thrush at a public meeting that the conversation between Board
and GAC struck him as “a discussion between the deaf and the stupid”
(the GAC is the governments’ body within ICANN). He simply could not
understand why people would not take his word as fact and do his
bidding.</p>
<p>On a discussion over trademarks, De Graaf asked, perplexed: “Why
don't you take the European trademark regime and make that the model for
the rest of the world?”</p>
<p>During a discussion on competition law, De Graaf chimed in: “I think
there is a bit of a misunderstanding particularly about how the ICANN
board or the legal counsel how competition law is enforced… we would
encourage the legal counsel to continue to improve his understanding of
competition law in the European Union.”</p>
<p>Later on, the same mindset: “I find it interesting that the ICANN
board members think that they have more knowledge about the competition
than the competition authorities.”</p>
<p class="pullquote-container"><span class="pullquote-processed pullquote-quote">There were reports of De Graaf insulting and offending his European colleagues</span>This inability to understand why governmental authority was not immediately accepted extended beyond the public meetings. <span class="pullquote pullquote-processed">There were reports of De Graaf insulting and offending his European colleagues</span>
for not forcing change through ICANN. ICANN’s management was also at
the end of De Graaf’s indignation. And even the chair of the
Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), Canada’s representative Heather
Dryden, was forced to deal with a number of efforts to undermine her
authority when she failed, in De Graaf’s eyes, to push through
government-mandated changes.</p>
<p>Undaunted and apparently still with the backing of EC Commissioner
Neelie Kroes, the policy papers produced by the EC this month need to be
seen in that light: as the products of an outsider determined to bring
people to their senses whether they like it or not. </p>
<p><strong>Some good ideas (already raised)</strong></p>
<p>Not that the papers do not contain some ideas that ICANN observers
will recognize and may agree with. Most have been taken from reports or
public comments from others. </p>
<p class="pullquote-container"><span class="pullquote-processed pullquote-quote">One
point in one of the six papers argues for the automation of changes at
the top-level of the Internet – something registry managers have been
requesting for years</span><span class="pullquote pullquote-processed">One
point in one of the six papers argues for the automation of changes at
the top-level of the Internet – something registry managers have been
requesting for years</span>. </p>
<p>It is also suggested ICANN draw up a stronger conflict of interests
policy for Board members and staff – an issue that has been hotly
debated for several months. </p>
<p>One of the papers calls for election candidates to Board positions to
be made public, along with their conflict of interest statements.
Greater resources for the GAC are needed, along with higher-level
representation and more efficient decision-making processes. And there
should be a stronger independent review of ICANN’s decisions and
finances. All of these things have been argued for by a large number of
people within the Internet community over a number of years.</p>
<p>However, it is the strident tone, the apparent refusal to accept
counter-balancing views, to recognize work in progress, or to identify
ways to make changes through existing systems, on top of several clear
misunderstandings of how ICANN and the domain name system actually
functions, that give cause for alarm.</p>
<p><strong>What’s this WSIS?</strong></p>
<p class="pullquote-container"><span class="pullquote-processed pullquote-quote">a European statement nearly derailed the negotiations</span>All
this is like déjà vu from WSIS, the World Summit on the Information
Society (2003-2005), a UN process which was characterized by tense
inter-governmental negotiations about how the Internet should be
regulated. Towards the finale, <span class="pullquote pullquote-processed">a European statement nearly derailed the negotiations</span>
– and diplomatic relations between the EU and the United States – by
seeming to support authoritarian governments who wanted more
governmental control over the domain name system.</p>
<p>Despite this, WSIS led to the formation of the Internet Governance
Forum, and introduced the world to multistakeholder governance – where
governments, private sector and civil society, technical and academic
communities participate on an equal footing.</p>
<p>Since WSIS, a whole new generation of Internet policymakers has
evolved. Through regular contact with others from widely different
backgrounds and widely different cultures talking about the same issues,
there is an extraordinarily broad understanding of Internet problems
from multiple perspectives. </p>
<p>Agreement remains difficult but most recognise that all stakeholders
need to have an equal say for the simple reason that policies created
that way end up working better online. And, conversely, those that don’t
benefit from all perspectives and a broad buy-in, invariably fail.</p>
<p>Ever since, that Class of 2005 has been diligently working on making
the “multi-stakeholder model” work properly, and the results of that
work can be seen in the fact that the G8 and the OECD recently agreed to
use the model as the main means by which they would reach agreement on
future Internet issues. </p>
<p>Quite some achievement for a model that’s barely 10 years old and
which aims to supersede an inter-governmental approach that has been in
place for over 100 years, with a notion of sovereignty that has been in
place for over 350. </p>
<p>What stands out in this model however is when a newcomer, almost
always from the governmental world, turns up and proceeds to tell
everyone else they have gone mad and that they should be putting their
foot down. This is the way of the world, the confused newbie yelps, the
Internet is no different.</p>
<p>Except of course, the Internet is different. Its most valuable
quality – the ability to allow people to communicate simply and directly
at almost no cost – does away with the need for many of the previous
systems for information. You can view it as a threat, or as an
opportunity; it usually depends on how comfortable you are with a lack
of control.</p>
<p><strong>ICANN far from blameless</strong></p>
<p><img src="http://news.dot-nxt.com/images/cartoons/icann-shock.png" align="right" hspace="8">It
should be noted that ICANN has brought many of its problems on itself.
The organization continues to labor under the false belief that it has
people’s support because of the job it does. In reality, it gets
widespread support *despite* its actions. </p>
<p>Following WSIS, the staff and Board at ICANN convinced themselves
that it was their hard work, cogent views and smart lobbying that had
led to governments supporting them. The reality was quite different:
governments had decided to support ICANN as the lesser of two evils. Its
management was widely mistrusted, and its Board members seen as
ideological and out-of-touch, even deluded. </p>
<p>While representatives like De Graaf have one narrative – that
governments need to be put in charge and every problem is a reflection
of the fact that they aren’t – ICANN has its own narrative to compete
with it – we are right, we need to protect ourselves from these efforts
to change what we have, and the silent majority support us.</p>
<p>WSIS effectively gave ICANN five years to prove itself on the world
stage. Could it become sufficiently internationalized, professional,
reliable and self-sufficient to be trusted with managing a critical
global resource – the Internet’s domain name system?</p>
<p>For the first three years at least it started down the right path.
ICANN’s then CEO Paul Twomey had seen first-hand how close the
organization came to annihilation and determinedly set out to fix it. He
was, in part, successful. New staff, independent reviews, greater
resources, better operational effectiveness, expanded communications. It
was far from perfect but it was working and ICANN was becoming more
able and professional. </p>
<p class="pullquote-container"><span class="pullquote-processed pullquote-quote">Sadly, that process started to unravel under a new CEO, Rod Beckstrom</span><span class="pullquote pullquote-processed">Sadly, that process started to unravel under a new CEO, Rod Beckstrom</span>.
Rushed into place in order to have a new man at the helm when ICANN
signed an historic agreement that gave it autonomy from the US
government, Beckstrom had little or no understanding of the
geo-political situation and, it turned out, was also insecure, a
hopeless manager and a relentless self-publicist. </p>
<p>With a new Chairman coming from the legal field, and with ICANN’s
senior staff either edged out or leaving in order to escape the
one-man-show that ICANN was rapidly becoming, the organization lost its
institutional memory, lost the trust of many of its natural allies, and
many of the reforms that were put in place to avoid a rerun of WSIS were
left to wither. </p>
<p>As change slowed and ICANN started to believe in its own
infallibility again, it was met with an extraordinary series of public
letters and speeches from US Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry
Strickling <a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/03/14/usg-to-icann-board-head-out-of-ass">lambasting ICANN</a>
for its failure to consider government issues. The relationship between
the GAC and ICANN was left untended and began to turn sour. </p>
<p>When the GAC finally put down its foot, it was met with indignation
and, on occasion, sheer arrogance. Rather than try to fix the problems,
ICANN staff started drawing up systems to ignore governments. When it
tried to force the GAC onto a tight timeline and through a process of
its own choosing, it threw up its hands in disbelief when those efforts <a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/03/04/gac-letter-to-board">were dismissed</a>. </p>
<p class="pullquote-container"><span class="pullquote-processed pullquote-quote">As the community began to notice and started criticizing the organization, ICANN fell back into its persecution complex</span><span class="pullquote pullquote-processed">As the community began to notice and started criticizing the organization, ICANN fell back into its persecution complex</span> and chose to believe that the wider Internet community was behind it, despite mounting evidence otherwise.</p>
<p>But it was when Beckstrom failed to show for the third day of a
crucial GAC-Board meeting in Brussels, and Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush
attempted to bully representatives from the United States and European
Union that the wheels came off the wagon. </p>
<p>Following a further tortuous series of meetings in San Francisco where the Board openly <a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/04/03/icann-gac-board-stall">stalled a room of over 50 government representatives for two days</a>,
and then the next day approved the controversial dot-xxx Internet
extension despite strong GAC advice to the contrary, governments took
events into their own hands and held their <a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/05/13/kroes-strickling-meeting-summary">own bilateral meetings</a>, even revealing their dates, agenda, correspondence and releasing select minutes. </p>
<p>The results were inevitable. The US government announced an <a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/06/10/ntia-fnoi-iana">overhaul of the IANA contract</a>
from which ICANN derives much of its authority, dismissing ICANN’s
request to be handed the contract on a permanent basis out of hand; and
the EC sent in its enforcer to remind ICANN that it is only one World
Summit away from oblivion.</p>
<p><strong>So where is this all going?</strong></p>
<p>Unfortunately for Internet governance experts, the EC policy papers
represent just the latest example of a government or organization
deciding by itself what changes need to be made to the Internet’s
overall functioning, without taking the time to consult with, or
consider the views of, the many other affected parties. </p>
<p><img src="http://news.dot-nxt.com/images/cartoons/degraaf.png" align="left" hspace="8">The
fact that it comes from the European Commission, which everyone had
considered a strong proponent of the current model, will come as a
shock, and may bolster efforts by some governments, including China and
Russia, to move the Internet into an entirely inter-governmental
context. </p>
<p>We understand that EU member states are also furious at what they see
as heavy-handed and misguided efforts by De Graaf’s team to force
change on ICANN and DNS management.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, the papers derive from a weak understanding of the
complexities of Internet governance, having cherry-picked and
extrapolated criticisms of the current system without accounting for the
broader eco-system. </p>
<p>They also reflect a dangerous arrogance. The problems within the
domain name system do not exist within a vacuum or as a result of a lack
of energy, forward-thinking or efforts to introduce change. </p>
<p>As the EC will most likely find out over the next 12 months, it is
easy to make a lot of noise within the Internet governance world, but it
is far, far harder to introduce effective change that works.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Read the EC policy papers in full [registration required]</strong></p>
<ul><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-gac">A more efficient and more effective GAC</a></li><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-cctlds">Country-code Top Level Domains</a></li><li>
<a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-corporate-governance">Applying the highest standards of corporate governance</a></li><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-finances">Financial and staff situation of ICANN</a></li>
<li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-new-gtlds">New gTLD process</a></li><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-paper-applicable-law">Respect for applicable law</a></li></ul>
<p><strong>News and analysis</strong></p>
<ul><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-details">What the papers actually say</a></li><li><a href="http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-greater-government-control">European Commission calls for greater government control over Internet</a></li>
</ul>
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