ICANN and internet governance: who should control the internet?

The US currently has more influence than any other stakeholder over internet governance.

• 40% of the internet backbone is in or passes through America.
• Ten of the 13 root servers are owned or controlled by American organisations and the three not distributed by anycast are on US soil.
• ICANN is based in California and is subject to US law.
• The Affirmation of Commitments, one of ICANN’s principal governing documents, signed by both former ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom in 2009 and the US Department of Commerce mandates that ICANN remains “a not for profit corporation, headquartered in the United States of America with offices around the world to meet the needs of a global community”.
• The IANA contract gives the US more control over root zone management than any other country. The contract was up for renewal in 2011, but only US-based organisations were permitted to apply.

Tensions between the US and the international community have escalated since whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed PRISM, the US surveillance programme. The recent revelations have provided a catalyst to some governments to accelerate ICANN’s break from what they regard as the US internet stranglehold. Even though ICANN’s independence and DNS management does not relate directly to the NSA and its mass surveillance practices, the US stands condemned.

Brazil is now the spearhead of a very public anti-NSA movement after it was revealed that President Dilma Rousseff’s email and telephone calls were tapped by the US agency. Brazil was also one of the nations that backed International telecommunications Union (ITU) oversight over internet governance at the World Conference on International Communications (WCIT), held in December 2012 in Dubai.

The result of these developments has been the Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation which was signed by internet leaders including representatives from ICANN, the IEGF, W3C, the Internet Society and the five regional internet address registries in Uruguay on 7 October 2013. At this event new models of internet governance were discussed. They will be raised again at the Brazil-ICANN Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, 23-24 April 2014, where the goal is to create a an “institutional framework for multistakeholder internet governance” and to “globalise current institutions”.

At the ICANN meeting in Argentina in November, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé faced some tough questions from all parts of the ICANN community. Why is ICANN prioritising governments above other parties in the multistakeholder model? Does ICANN want to move to Switzerland and become an International Treaty Organisation or part of the ITU? What is the problem that ICANN is trying to address because the Snowden revelations have nothing to do with ICANN? ICANN’s policy making body, the GNSO, criticised Chehadé for heavy handed, top-down decision making; ICANN Board member, Chris Disspain, countered and described Chehadé’s movements as an “effort to preserve the multistakeholder model” and mitigate against the risk of “the governance of the internet falling into governmental control”.

If you are interested in contributing to the discussion on the future of internet governance, or would like to stay updated on recent developments, you are invited to join the open mailing list: https://nro.net/mailman/listinfo/i-coordination. In addition, a comprehensive website on the topic will soon be released at this address:http://www.1net.org.

Valideus, Com Laude’s sister company, offers strategic new gTLD consulting and registry management services for applicants engaged in ICANN’s New gTLD Program. It is currently managing 5% of all new gTLD applications for clients from a diverse range of industry sectors, including global leaders in e-commerce, banking, consultancy, food, insurance, media, software and telecoms.