[ga] ITU and the ccTLDs (was RE: The telephone network and the internet

[barrister@chambers.gen.nz]

On 8 Mar 2003 at 15:43, Karl Auerbach wrote:

> 
> Let's compare the who has power in ICANN against who has power in the
> ITU and see which gives the internet user community a better chance at
> having an impact:
> 

Can I make the point (forgive me for the repetition) that this discussion is not about 
the cctld registries, (nor their millions of cctld registrants ) who are not yet part of 
ICANN, and of whom only a tiny fraction have contracts with ICANN?

Local internet communities including governments make their impact on their cctld 
manager by sovereign national processes, and don't need/can't use impact at 
ICANN.

What you are talking about is g-tld policy making, in which ICANN is to be the 
equivalent of the local internet community to which each cctld relates.

The issue in that forum is the best way for governmental views to be provided for.

The cctld world, in its complexity, may provide some guidance, as it demonstrates a 
range of models of how the (unitary) government relates to the registry, and how the 
rest of that local community are provided for. In my country, for example, the 
registry is run as a for-profit company, but is wholly owned by a not-for-profit 
incorporated society, which is open to all interested in making policy for the dotnz 
space (or any of the other actiivities of Internet New Zealand). There is no official 
government role or connection, but the relationship with government is an important 
one, and there is frequent exchange.

Some countries do the same, others differ, along a gradient of government 
involvement culminating in total government ownership and policy control.

Clearly, the ITU, as a forum for governments, and in which only governments vote, 
albeit with a mechanism for listening to private sector groups, poses a solution to a 
different problem than exists between the cctlds and ICANN.

Nor does it appear to provide a solution for those (few) cctlds in which there is a 
conflict between the cctld manager and the government, or, as happens, with 
separate branches of a government in internal conflict over IT policy, or in 
case of civil war, where there are rival claimants to be the relevant government.

But it might provide another forum for governments to establish jointly what position 
they want to take on issues of g-tld policy, and to bring that position to the GAC, 
where the ITU has its own seat, and where, if there were a united governmmental 
position, a GAC position might quickly emerge.

Such a position would then need to be responded to by the rest of the g-tld policy 
making process, in which, as in my country, the (now multiple ) government view is 
one of the factors that go into determining what is best for the entire g-tld 
community.

The same is true of IP address issues, and other related matters in which 
governments have an interest.

At heart, though is whether one accepts a fundamental principle of the White Paper, 
which is that management of internet resources is to be government free.

My preference for ICANN is for a situation as applies in many of the cctlds, where a 
publicly accessible, private sector, transparent, bottom-up organisation is vested 
with management by a community including the government, which trusts the 
organisation to exercise its management functions in the benefit of the entire 
community, and which works collaboratively with that orgnanisation to ensure this 
occurs.

If we were to begin to reach that, we could turn our attention to the next issue, which 
would be to ensure that that ICANN was as independent of US governmental 
influence as of any other.

regards

Peter Dengate Thrush


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