US Not Giving Up Control Over the Internet

CNET reports that the United States Department of Commerce has decided to maintain its control over the “root” — a central Internet resource that allows the US a certain level of governance on the Internet.  This is according to the new principles issued by the US DoC on the domain name system (DNS).

This is a significant shift in policy.  It was earlier believed that the US will divest itself of its control over the root to ICANN, a California-based non-profit to which the US DoC has contracted the technical operation of the DNS and certain coordination functions.  The new announcement means that the divestment is unlikely to happen and the US DoC will continue its oversight function over the DNS.

This, I’m sure, will be a disappointment to those in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), who had hoped to wrest the “root” from ICANN in behalf of the international community.  The plan to do this, in my view, was premature and ill-advised.  More importantly, while ICANN stood to lose out, I believe ICANN itself was to blame for making itself an easy takeover target.  If ICANN had restricted itself simply to coordination and operation of the DNS instead of low-level Internet governance, it might have escaped attention.  But ICANN has chosen to become a major international organization with quarterly meetings in different continents and participants from various countries.  One would think that kind of organization is better run by the United Nations than a US non-profit.  Hence, WSIS and WGIG.

In my view, ICANN’s business can be run out of a small office with a staff of no more than ten people.  But it would mean taking a very different view of how the DNS should handle the concerns of trademark holders which have influenced much of ICANN’s policy making from the ultra-slow addition of new gTLDs and the dispute resolution policies that govern domain name registrations.  This has created a gridlock at ICANN and has made it more difficult for the DNS to grow beyond the demands of the trademark holders.  It’s unfortunate but it’s not impossible to find other solutions.

So, things are coming to a head.  If WSIS and WGIG are to succeed, then the US must give up the “root” which today it has indicated, it will not do.  Let’s see what happens next.