BY ALEX GAKURU
Internet Governance 'problem' is a creation of the mind and not a result of technical constraints or limitations. Unique name and collisions thereof are presented as problematic whereas in reality plurality, diversity and context are indisputably accepted as in the best global public interest.
The necessary competitive global internet system will never be realised through current single DNS root file which has resulted in “innovation capture” on a monolithic, hegemonic numbers exhausted Internet just after 30 per cent (2.1 of 7 billion) are connected.
Consumers deserve expanded choices, increased online visibility and reduced presence costs. ICANN needs a competitor(s), truly global net management institutions and less technically prone to individual stakeholders unilateral manipulation and or control – a menu driven online login internet system.
The Affirmation of Commitments (Affirmation) by the United States Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers called for promoted competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice.
Competition, trust and choice can all be achieved with the organised introduction of several different zonefiles managed by different entities, for example, ICANN can manage the current one while new entities manage new others.
The DNS root zone file had a size of 119KB on 12-December, 2004 comprising 5335 lines of text http://www.isoc.org/briefings/020/zonefile.shtml . This file is smaller than the ISOC home page http://www.isoc.org/. The root zone file also does not change very frequently; it changed only 7 times between 11-Nov-2004 and 12-Dec-2004 and only 90 times in the year preceding 12-Dec-2004. The individual changes are all localized and relatively small, according to the ISOC presentation to the IGF http://intgovforum.org/Substantive_1st_IGF/briefing19.pdf
It would just involve tweaking the BIND file to offer Internet users menu-like options onto which DNS of their choice to connect through. All those Trademarks, copyright and other IP governance resultant encroachment problems dissipate or subside at least at the monolithic global scale they are today (RFC 1591 and trademarks) – Read diminished DNS romanticism.
But No! ICANN Board so decided that competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice can only be achieved through introduction of new gTLDs with postponed effectiveness assessment, stating,
“Phase Two will occur after new gTLDs have been in operation for one year, and involves examining data to assess the extent to which the introduction or expansion of gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice. Additionally, the Review Team will evaluate the effectiveness of the application and evaluation process, as well as the safeguards put in place by to mitigate issues involved in the introduction or expansion of new gTLDs. ”
http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-16aug13-en.htm
Consider
below name collisions despite
which travelling individuals
confidently choose where
travel without much global fuss. (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/12-places-with-the-same-n_n_4170470.html)
1. Granada, Spain vs. the nation of Grenada
2. Memphis, Egypt vs. Memphis, Tennessee
3. The nation of Lebanon vs. Lebanon, New Hampshire
4. The nation of Antigua vs. Antigua, Guatemala
5. Auckland, New Zealand vs. Oakland, California
6. Beverly Hills, California vs. Beverly Hills, Texas
7. La Paz, Mexico vs. La Paz, Bolivia
8. Moscow, Russia vs. Moscow, Kansas
9. Waterloo, Belgium vs. Waterloo, Canada
10. Sydney, Australia vs. Sydney, Canada
11. Paris, France vs. Paris, Texas
Then why on earth aren't we terribly worried about the above name collisions subsequently followed by series of global conferences preoccupied with “seeking unique locations naming solutions”?
It is about time the Internet learnt from what exists in the real world and adopted it, rather than perpetually attempting to redefine reality, for everyone, including the unconnected 70% majority.
Regards,
Alex
Amr,Jon Zittrain made a post today that in refuting the right wings attack on the Obama administration "giving away the internet to the UN " I think encapsulates the gist of what is going on:
"US gov't cedes control of Internet" announcement is 99% symbolic - and not bizarre UN giveaway. It empowers ICANN, not UN/ITU.A cynic would say that the Americans have decided that de jure control is no longer tenable and by dumping the IANA functions to ICANN would empower an organisation in which it has substantial leverage and control. As NTIA has largely been hands off the practical consequences of the occurrence are perhaps not as revolutionary as one might first think.What we need to be careful about is the organisational structure and legal position of ICANN coming out of these changes. This Board has shown a propensity for empowering itself and it's friends at the expense of the bottom up nature of MS most of us subscribe to. Since we filed our initial Reconsideration petition eleven months ago there have been twenty nine new reconsideration petitions filed, as opposed to three in 2011 and 2012 combined. Universally these petitions have been unsuccessful. This Board has ignored it's own Bylaws, flaunted it's accountability processes, denied our efforts to obtain documentation as we seek explanation for decisions made and, as above, largely shown an unwillingness to reflexively and honestly examine it's own decisions despite repeated requests by Community members.NCSG member Rolf Weber co-wrote an interesting piece a few years ago illustrating the "who controls the board" problem at ICANN, with a suggested solution, a problem that may be exacerbated by this weeks US government announcement: http://www.stlr.org/html/volume14/WeberGunnarson.pdf . Milton has also written in the past about the concept of Members, ICANN's lack thereof, and consequences under the current legal accord.I have deep concerns about the maturity of ICANN and the commitment of many in the organisation, particularly in legal, to an open, transparent and accountable governance structure. In fact, the cynic in me conceives of new oversight by Jones Day (ICANN's outside law firm) replacing that of the NTIA. I don't think that would be progress.There will be opportunity here, of course, to make positive change but let us not be so overjoyed by the proposed internationalisation of IANA to ignore the fact that ICANN itself has deep and abiding problems. There may be possibilities in the current chaos to correct some of these problems, foremost of which is sorting a way in which staff and Board are held accountable to someone or something other than themselves or the nebulous and poorly defined "community".Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:02:37 +0100
Subject: Re: US Government Announcement about transfer IANA functions stewardship
I hope you’re right, Sam. However, this paragraph of the NTIA press release is what prompted my question:From the inception of ICANN, the U.S. Government and Internet stakeholders envisioned that the U.S. role in the IANA functions would be temporary. The Commerce Department’s June 10, 1998 Statement of Policy stated that the U.S. Government “is committed to a transition that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS management.” ICANN as an organization has matured and taken steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency and its technical competence. At the same time, international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as evidenced by the continued success of the Internet Governance Forum and the resilient stewardship of the various Internet institutions.The paragraph somehow indicates (as I read it at least) that the “How to do this” is associated with the “Why the changes”. So to rephrase my question; I wonder wether after some 17 years, does the NTIA’s belief in ICANN’s maturity and competence reflect its confidence in ICANN to simply be the convener of a dialogue amongst the different stakeholders to collectively reach some form of consensus on how to transition NTIA’s role to a yet undetermined institution, or does it reflect confidence in ICANN to coordinate this discussion in order to see how best ICANN can assume this role without NTIA involvement?Frankly, ICANN's “…, steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency…,” still leave much to be desired. Yeah…, steps were taken, but ICANN’s not quite there yet. In fact, several actors across different stakeholder groups have recently been voicing discontent claiming the exact opposite of this. One of the earlier examples is NCSG’s reconsideration request of ICANN’s decision to expand the scope of the Trademark Clearinghouse to include up to 50 confusingly similar variants of brand names.I still don’t know if my concerns are unfounded or not, but I do find it difficult to simply dismiss them, but we will all see how things’ll unfold over the next few months.Thanks.Amr
On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:36 PM, Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Amr Elsadr poses the questions:What this announcement does is set a deadline on what has to be done, in the absence of delays by unforeseen forces at play. The key implication is to shift the discussions from "What changes" and "Why the changes" to the "How to do this" while honoring the four stated principles and producing a set of viable and sustainable structures and processes. That will have ripple effects in structures and processes across the Internet ecosystem. This is more than just replacing one structure by another, and probably nothing has been preempted. A successful outcome will call for heightened stakeholder awareness and engagement, within ICANN, within constituencies, and beyond ICANN.
On the other hand, have any proposals suggesting that institutional separation of the IANA function from ICANN been preemptively squashed??
Or is the principle still a viable option that can be promoted??
Sam Lanfranco