A Briefing On Public Policy Issues Affecting Civil Liberties Online
from
The Center For Democracy and Technology
(1) CDT Report Calls for Continued ICANN Reform in Light of Internet Governance Debate
(2) ICANN Meeting in Kuala Lumpur With Attention on WSIS, Governance
(3) Report Reviews ICANN's Limited Mission, Powers
(4) CDT Calls for Renewed Focus on This Narrow Mission
CDT has issued a report calling for reform of the Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in light of the growing worldwide debate over Internet governance. The report argues that the vision on which ICANN was founded -- bottom-up, inclusive private-sector coordination of domain name and numbering functions -- remains the best way to manage those critical functions while preserving the democratic character of the Internet. But CDT also believes that ICANN is straying from this vision, and it must change if it is to survive.
The success of ICANN has taken on greater importance given the new focus on Internet governance surrounding the U.N.'s ongoing World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). ICANN has naturally become a target in the Internet governance debate because of its role in managing key Internet assets, and because it looks to many like a regulatory body that might be a precedent for centralized control of the Internet.
CDT's report, "ICANN and Internet Governance: Getting Back to Basics," offers suggestions for ICANN's reform based on the limited role it was intended to fill. CDT's report calls on ICANN to --
Unless ICANN commits to this approach, it risks being altered or supplanted by international efforts to link its management of Internet naming and numbering with broader "Internet governance" goals like content regulation. Such a result could well threaten the revolutionary decentralized characteristics that have been the hallmark of the Internet's promise to promote free speech, civic discourse, and economic opportunity around the world.
CDT's report is now available online at http://www.cdt.org/dns/ The report is being released in the lead-up to ICANN's meeting in Kuala Lumpur next week. Significant issues at that meeting will include ICANN's interaction with the WSIS "Internet governance" initiative, the introduction of internationalized (foreign language) domain names, and ICANN's greatly expanded proposed budget for next year.
The second ICANN meeting of this year will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia July 19-23. Among the issues of importance at the meeting are ICANN's expanded 2004-2005 budget, and its relationship to the ongoing WSIS process.
ICANN's controversial proposed 2004-2005 budget projects an almost doubling of ICANN's 2003-2004 expenditures, and is expected to be a significant point of discussion in Kuala Lumpur. Critics of the budget say it signals an unwise expansion in ICANN's size and activities. Supporters say the funds are necessary to perform ICANN's limited, but important role efficiently and effectively. At the very least, the dramatic increase in ICANN's budget raise questions about the power to increase fees paid ultimately by those who register domain names, and about the size and scope of ICANN's activities.
Real or perceived expansions of ICANN's role are of particular importance because of ongoing discussions about larger issues of Internet governance. This governance debate is a central focus of preparations for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, culminating in November 2005. Concerns among governments participating in WSIS have led to calls for greater centralized Internet governance, or even some kind of general purpose, intergovernmental Internet governance body.
Many who have called for centralization of Internet governance have pointed to ICANN as a precedent. In part, this is due to the misperception that ICANN is a broad regulatory body with broad powers, when in fact ICANN has a very narrow mandate and very limited power. ICANN's role in this governance debate will therefore be another important focus of the Kuala Lumpur meeting.
Change in ICANN is needed-but not by making it an intergovernmental body or broadening its power. Rather, ICANN must be focused on the design that gave it birth, in order to save that vision of decentralized, bottom up coordination.
CDT's report reviews ICANN's history and the role it was intended to serve. In sum, ICANN was founded on three principles:
These principles were embodied in the U.S. Department of Commerce's White Paper, and later endorsed in the International Forum on the White Paper. The White Paper itself stressed that the plan it was outlining "applies only to management of Internet names and addresses and does not set out a system of Internet 'governance.'"
ICANN's power was supposed to be limited in two important ways. One was express limitation on the subjects of ICANN's authority. For example, ICANN is not supposed to condition issuance of a domain name (or a block of IP numbers) on policies regarding the content that is distributed via the domain name.
The second mechanism was consensus-based decision-making. Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registries (like .com or .org) are only bound to comply with policies from ICANN that reflect an actual, documented consensus among affected parties. This was designed to ensure that ICANN could not overreach by passing rules without the consent of those affected by those rules.
Instead, in many ways ICANN is departing from these mechanisms. CDT's report outlines how ICANN has used its "control" over the creation of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) to force new registries and registrars to accept detailed controls on their operations. Even if today's ICANN Board disavows interest in overregulation, such overly detailed controls set a bad precedent-and communicate a potentially dangerous misimpression to the world-of ICANN exercising broader authority than many even within ICANN intend.
Moreover, the top-down impositions of obligations by ICANN's Board and staff have in many ways circumvented the bottom-up consensus approach on which ICANN was founded. The Independent Review Panel that was to serve as an appeals body has not, and may never be, created. And after abruptly eliminating the original structure that would have elected half of ICANN's directors to represent the Internet community at-large, ICANN has not yet developed adequate alternatives for public representation in its decision-making Ð sending a discouraging message to public interest groups and interested individuals.
Given the threats to private-sector coordination of naming and numbering posed by the Internet governance debates, CDT's report calls on ICANN to "get back to basics" through continued reform. Specific recommendations include:
Finally, both WSIS and ICANN need to allow the Internet to continue to develop as it has in the past, on the basis of global cooperation and bottom up, decentralized decision-making. That is the policy framework most likely to support growth of the Internet as an engine of freedom, economic empowerment and human development, particularly for developing nations.
CDT's report "ICANN and Internet Governance: Getting Back to Basics" is available online at: http://www.cdt.org/dns/icann/20040713_cdt.pdf
For more information about ICANN, domain names, or Internet governance more generally, please visit: http://www.cdt.org/dns/
Detailed information about online civil liberties issues may be found at http://www.cdt.org/.
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Policy Post 10.12 Copyright 2004 Center for Democracy and Technology
