ICANN warns UN may sideline tech community from future internet governance
- Reference: 1692698590
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/22/icann_un_digital_compact_warning/
- Source link:
The [1]Global Digital Compact is an effort to "outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all." The UN hopes the compact will address issues such as digital inclusion, internet fragmentation, giving individuals control over how their data is used, and making the internet trustworthy "by introducing accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content."
But ICANN, the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), and the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) worry that recent articulations of the Compact suggest it should use a tripartite model for digital cooperation with three stakeholder groups: the private sector, governments, and civil society.
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That's dangerous, ICANN and co argue, because technical stakeholders would lose their distinct voice.
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They've therefore co-signed and published a [5]document criticizing the Compact as it stands today.
"The technical community is not part of civil society and it has never been," the document states, citing outcomes of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) – a UN event staged in 2003 and 2005 that defined a multi-stakeholder internet governance framework. 2015's WSIS+10 event affirmed that strategy.
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"This model excludes the technical community as a distinct component, and overlooks the unique and essential roles played by that community's members separately and collectively," DNS overlord ICANN and the registries added.
[7]Ukraine invasion: We should consider internet sanctions, says ICANN ex-CEO
[8]ICANN responds to Ukraine demand to delete all Russian domains
[9]It only took four years and thousands of complaints but ICANN finally kills off rogue Indian domain registrar
[10]ICANN begs Europe: Please fill in the blanks on this half-assed GDPR-compliant Whois we came up with
In the write-up Paul Wilson, the director general of APNIC, along with ARIN CEO Paul Wilson, and ICANN interim president and CEO Sally Costerton, argue the UN model therefore goes against established practices.
The document argues that the tripartite model represents an unnecessary change to internet governance.
Citing growth in internet users from one billion in 2005 to over five billion today, the authors argue that today's governance models – that include the technical community as a distinct stakeholder – have worked.
And they argue that such arrangements will continue to deliver a robust internet for all – just what the UN wants the Compact to deliver.
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The post concludes: "The technical community will certainly continue to play its critical roles in the future of the internet, and it behooves the UN to recognize this reality in its formulation of any future processes related to internet governance." ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.un.org/techenvoy/global-digital-compact
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZOTbpDrihatoY9uoqYXNDAAAAsw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZOTbpDrihatoY9uoqYXNDAAAAsw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZOTbpDrihatoY9uoqYXNDAAAAsw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/the-global-digital-compact-a-top-down-attempt-to-minimize-the-role-of-the-technical-community-21-08-2023-en
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZOTbpDrihatoY9uoqYXNDAAAAsw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/10/internet_russia_sanctions/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/icann_ukraine_russian_domains/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/04/icann_domain_woes/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/08/icann_whois_plans/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZOTbpDrihatoY9uoqYXNDAAAAsw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Not stupid IMHO
Civil society participation in such processes is about opinions, in many cases about feelings, about motivations of and affects to special interest groups, minorities, equal opportunity, etc.
The technical feedback on the other hand is about "this will work" or "this will not work".
Call me preoccupied (I'm an engineer ) but I think that distinction is quite important.
Given that that both, governments and the private sector, have excessively shown that they have no problems putting magic thinking into policy, I think a technical verification by the technical community is critical when shaping a technical policy.
Re: Not stupid IMHO
Given that that both, governments and the private sector, have excessively shown that they have no problems putting magic thinking into policy, I think a technical verification by the technical community is critical when shaping a technical policy.
It's an old argument that's almost as old as the Internet. Traditionally, it's been allowed to be pretty much self-governing, which kinda goes against national interests. Plus political arguments that the current governance structure is and has been too US-centric. So basically the old ITU debate. That does much the same thing, includes the 'technical community', or at least a subset of it and has the 'advantage' of being established by custom, practice and treaty. It's far from perfect, but then again, neither is the existing Internet governance structure given the well-documented dodginess by ICANN et al.
Re: Not stupid IMHO
Is ICANN being wanting to be included as part of the technical community, or is it being treated as a special interest group?
I just ask because they [1]tried very hard to pretend that GDPR wasn't going to exist and attempted to get their registrars in Europe to do things that broke the law in Europe where they operated. Their solution after ignoring this for 6+ years was to [2]ask a court for permission to break the law for a few years while they figured out how to comply with the law . Presumably they missed the point that European courts don't actually have the power to grant you the permission to ignore laws, they exist to determine guilt or innocence and sentence people who are found guilty.
Page two of that last link suggests that the GDPR fiasco was caused by ICANN being beholden to Intellectual Property lawyers and their interpretation of "this will work" or "this will not work" tended more towards an interpretation of those IP lawyers interests than of comments by the technical community.
That would tend to undermine ICANN's position of needing a technical community involvement (as in their own private veto?) rather than being a part of wider civil society.
The UN doesn't appear to cause planes to fall out of the sky etc, so i'm not sure why people appear inclined to believe that they'd accidentally break the internet.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/10/gdpr_whois_regulations/?page=1
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/14/whois_icann_gdpr_europe/
Re: "The technical community is not part of civil society and it has never been"
Whilst I agree the UN delivering a free, secure, and open internet is unlikely. ICANN et al don't want them trying as they lose their stranglehold, and the whole thing will not be US-centric at a governance level anymore. So less money/influence for them. I say let them try.
Reality is overrated
...three stakeholder groups: the private sector, governments, and civil society.
One can argue this is the group described by "only profits count", "manipulation and ignorance" and "no one listens to them anyway". They will exclude any technical voice because policy is not to be bound by physics, mathematics and reality.
Or is it just shear incompetence that the reality group is to be excluded?
Re: Reality is overrated
Applying Hanlon's Razor results in "incompetence".
Maybe combined with a grain of Dunning-Kruger: "How hard can it be to come up with a global Internet policy? I use Facebook everyday..."
Re: Reality is overrated
Applying reverse Hanlon's Razor: Anything adequately explained by incompetence has a core of malice.
Re: Reality is overrated
Incompetence is ubiquitous, but it doesn't preclude malignancy.
Re: Reality is overrated
True, but Hanlon's Razor itself is subject to Grey's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
Back in 2001...
Someone asked me what things would be like in 20 years and I said "buy guns and learn karate". My reasoning was loss of control of government funding (aka taxation) when people could stash their cash all over the planet via the internet. No tax, no government. Well that little idea got stomped on pretty quickly by HMRC et al.
This has the same whiff about it... control and no techies to say "but, but, but...."
Re: Back in 2001...
buy guns and learn karate
It's good of you to take responsibility for both Musk and Zuckerberg, but I think the growing dystopia may have deeper roots.
Which internet do they mean? The one that ICANN administers, however stupidly that might be every now and then, or one that the UN is going to set up for itself?
So ICANN
An incredibly corrupt and opaque organisation, is worried about losing its monopoly?
Maybe if they weren't such a bunch of self centred cowboys, then it wouldn't of come to this.
Can we do the same for the IOC, FIFA and the FIA?
Re: So ICANN
Beer for the eloquent expression, so much more tactful than I could have put it.
However the civil community will turn out to be those well-heeled pressure groups which win the battle to hijack the committees. Which almost certainly includes ICANN, >sigh!<
At the end of the day, will we be able to tell the pigs from the men, around the dinner table?
Design-by-committee vs. design-by-developers
Given the historical success of ITU "standards" in the past (X.400, X.500, the ISO protocol stack implementations) vs. the IETF counterparts (SMTP, LDAP, TCP/UDP/IP), I'd like to think there's little to worry about. Having worked some years in a Former US Telecom Monopoly firm, the mindset of "rough consensus & running code" is anathema to many gov-based entities.
Useless Numpties
UN should be disbanded. That organisation has no credibility whatsoever.
It's a circlejerk of yes men who are secretly worshipping Russian terrorists.
Just close it down and turn the lights off. Will you?
"The technical community is not part of civil society and it has never been"
For an organisation like ICANN put out a statement as dumb as that is beyond stupid. Where the hell does this "technical community" exist then?
Also, the idea that the UN is going to ensure an "open, free and secure" internet with the participation of countries in its governance where such a thing is non-existent is going to ensure that the proposal goes nowhere.-