WSIS C2C / CàC SMSI : Wsis 2: Trade off allows break through on Internet Governance

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Wsis 2: Trade off allows break through on Internet Governance - What Next?

by Wsis NetiZen on 2005, November 16 - 1:20pm

Late on the evening of November 15th, at a pre-summit cliffhanger meeting in Tunis, a show down over Internet Governance was averted by the skilful chairing of Ambassador Khan (Pakistan), with a memorable assist from Canada's negotating team. "You know this is a Canadian style win, when all sides have some reason to claim victory," commented Dr Liss Jeffrey, director of the eCommons/agora's Witness 2 Wsis 2 netizen news project, and Civil society member of the 2003 Canadian delegation to Wsis 1 in Geneva.

As quoted below in the International Herald Tribune, David Gross, coordinator of international communications and information policy for the U.S. State Department, said late Tuesday in Tunis: "I didn't think it was possible. We did not change anything about the role of the U.S. government. It's very significant." The US retains political control of the technical infrastructure of the Internet.

Plus the "Tunis Agenda" final document accomodates the insistence on international cooperation by the EU and other nations. An Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will convene under the patronage of the United Nations, in early 2006, in Greece, and will include multi-stakeholders (civil society, and private sector, not only governments). The IGF will not intervene in day to day operations of the Internet, but will have unspecified capacities to raise issues and develop cooperative agreements and actions on non technical public policy issues, such as spam and cybercrime. The IGF will evolve in composition and mandate. For civil society and governments, who are mistrustful of unliateral political or commercial control of the Internet, this evolution represents unqualified progress.

It could have been an unqualified victory, but it is not. There are two main reasons. First,the relentless focus of the world press on Internet governance has eclipsed what should have been the central place of the Millennium Development Goals on the Tunis Agenda.

Second, the Tunisian government stands indicted for its unwillingness to respect fundamental rights and freedoms, and control the thugs who have beaten and intimidated Tunisian NGOs, foreign journalists, and who knows who else while the world was not watching. It is not good enough to run a lovely conference, while denying basic rights to foreign and domestic NGOs. It is troubling that from this distance in Canada, witnessing the live Summit webcast and reading the blogs is like entering a cyberspace bubble, a well lit oasis of platitudes and crafted irrelevancies that ignore the documented realities outside the charmed summit. Bravo for the Swiss representative who at least mentioned the issue in the Plenary! Shame on those who did not even refer subtly to this brutality.

For these reasons, and others, the W2W2 eCommons/agora project supports the Citizen-summit.org, the parallel alternative vision summit. We sincerely wish clarity and courage to all participants at Wsis 2, but let there be no mistake: many world citizens and many Canadians are watching closely, and with some alarm.

If such an historic summit on the information society, under the patronage of the UN itself, after planning since 1998, cannot live up to the hopes of those who ignored the warnings about fundamental rights violations in Tunisia, then how much can we expect from an agreement signed under such conditions?

I have never been cynical, and I do not propose to start now. To develop an evolving action plan with humane policies and media requires answering this question in the hopeful and visionary spirit in whch Wsis was conceived. Civil society has a central role to play. We will now need to engage together creatively, sustainably, and respectfully, as we evolve from the current top down environment into a post-Wsis era that includes all. Wanted: imagineers for this challenge!
- November 16, Liss Jeffrey.
=======================================================================================
International Herald Tribune

Agreement allows U.S. to control Web names
By Victoria Shannon International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2005

TUNIS Representatives from the United States and from nations that had sought to break up U.S. control over the Internet have agreed to leave the supervision of domain names and other technical resources unchanged, taking instead an evolutionary approach to Internet management.

But the accord, a document of principles agreed to late Tuesday night by delegates from more than 100 countries, also established an international forum intended to give governments a stronger voice in Internet policy issues, including the address system, a trade-off that the United States said it was willing to accept.

The document is due to be approved at the UN World Summit on the Information Society, which opened in Tunis on Wednesday.

U.S. delegates who had been working on the document celebrated the outcome. In September, the European Union proposed putting some of the powers currently vested in the United States under the authority of a new agency. And in the prelude to the talks that resumed this week, increasing pressure had been brought on the United States to share its powers.

David Gross, coordinator of international communications and information policy for the U.S. State Department, said late Tuesday in Tunis: "I didn't think it was possible. We did not change anything about the role of the U.S. government. It's very significant."

The United States had said that diluting the authority of the organization that now manages the Internet address structure - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann - could jeopardize the stability and security of the global network if it were to be politicized.

The Internet is dependent on a centralized master file that decodes its address scheme. That master file is under the jurisdiction of Icann, a California-based nonprofit group that is answerable to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Although many of the Internet's basic infrastructure grew out of U.S. government and academic research in the 1960s and 1970s, most Internet users are now outside the United States. The computer network has grown into a critical international tool for communications and commerce, and other governments question why control of certain parts of the Internet remains with the United States.

Masood Khan, chairman of the working group, said the process of re-examining government involvement in the Internet would persuade Icann officials to take the new forum seriously.

The forum, he said, is free to take up any Internet issue, whether cybercrime, spam, or freedom of expression - and even domain-name address questions. However, it will have no power beyond the ability to bring together all the "stakeholders" in the Internet, from consumers to governments or businesses.

The group, the Internet Governance Forum, would begin operations in the first three months of 2006.
_______________________________________________
Plenary mailing list
Plenary@wsis-cs.org

Mainstream media mania: gotta have a horse race!

by Wsis NetiZen on 2005, November 16 - 11:03pm

Mainstream media mania: gotta have a horse race!
by Wsis NetiZen on 2005, November 16 - 8:09am
The mainstream media mania for turning all events into horse races or show-downs has reached epic proportions at Wsis 2 in Tunisia.
Wsis 1 in Geneva in 2003 was a tame and 'invisible' summit by contrast.
Who will control the Internet? trumpet the headlines. All other objectives seem lost in the rush to call the race. I was assured by one journalist who called for a comment on Wsis that the only story that mattered to the public was who would control the Internet. Everything else was too boring to print.
So why is there so much confusion about the outcome on Internet Governance?
Maybe thigs are just not so simple! Maybe there are multiple points of view, as there are multi stakeholders. Maybe the jury is still out, and the proof will be in what happens next.

Media mania for the horse race:
Here are two headlines from today:
First:

WSIS - US caves in over monopoly control of the Internet
http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=1904
16 nov 2005 |
The U.S. has agreed to consult with other governments over top-level domain names in a major shift in the U.S. policy on control of the Internet, European Union (E.U.) officials confirmed on Wednesday.

and Seond:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1874797,00.html
US set to maintain grip on the web

The United States looks set to maintain its control over the internet after an eleventh-hour deal averted a potential split between America and the rest of the world over the future governance of the web.
======================================
OK So first:

WSIS - US caves in over monopoly control of the Internet
http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=1904
16 nov 2005 |
The U.S. has agreed to consult with other governments over top-level domain names in a major shift in the U.S. policy on control of the Internet, European Union (E.U.) officials confirmed on Wednesda

At the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis Tuesday, the U.S. signed up to a set of principles of Internet governance proposed by the E.U., according to E.U. officials.

Under the deal struck late Tuesday night, all parties agreed that "no government should have the last word on another country's top level domain", said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for E.U. Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, who attended the meeting.

This marks a "major step towards internationalization" of Internet governance, he said.

A U.S. government official, who asked to speak on background, confirmed that the U.S. was "happy with the deal".

The current system where ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is responsible for day-to-day management decisions concerning the Internet will remain in place., Selmayr said.

Under the changes, however, if ICANN made a decision affecting a non-U.S. country's TLD (top level domain), it would make a proposal to its controlling body, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). The DOC would then have to consult with the country involved, Selmayr said. Under the current structure, there is no consultation with other countries.

The details of how the procedure would work will be worked out in the first half of next year, he added.

The E.U. has been leading attempts to increase influence of non-U.S. governments over the Internet and the summit's decision represents a considerable victory over the U.S. which wanted to maintain the status quo.

E.U. governments have complained that, under the current system, disputes concerning TLDs have to be settled in the U.S. under U.S. law, putting other countries and non-U.S. firms at a disadvantage.

The summit attendees also agreed to set up an international forum next year to look at general issues of Internet architecture, addressing questions such as spam and child protection. The first meeting will take place in Greece next year under the aegis of the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

===============================================

Sounds plausible enough right?
Now hear this: And second:
============================================
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1874797,00.html
US set to maintain grip on the web
By Rhys Blakely

The United States looks set to maintain its control over the internet after an eleventh-hour deal averted a potential split between America and the rest of the world over the future governance of the web.

It had been feared that disagreement between the US, which made clear it would not relinquish its control over the way domain names such as ".com" are assigned, and other countries, which have called for more open control, could have led to the establishment of two competing internet standards.

However, diplomats attending a key conference in Tunisia today said agreements had been reached overnight on several crunch clauses, which should be endorsed at the World Summit on the Internet Society (WSIS), which starts in Tunis today.

The three-year deadlock in the talks has centred on Washington’s exclusive oversight of the private body that oversees the key technical and administrative roots of the global network. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is now expected to have its tender renewed by the US government next summer.

Washington’s critics warned that no single nation could maintain control over top-level domain or country names - such as .cn, .fr and .uk - without opening itself to accusations of misuse. In response, the US had warned that regimes such as China or Iran, charged with blocking freedom of speech online, might instead be in a position to have leverage over the internet.

"We did not change anything on the role of the US Government with regard to the technical aspects that we were very concerned about," David Gross, the American team’s lead negotiator, said.

"We saw the world’s countries recognising how very important the internet is and how important the growth of the internet is, and no one created a problem that could help retard that growth."

Countries such as Iran and China had sought UN oversight of ICANN or internet governance. The European Union had also called for US powers to be diluted and had called for for an inter-governmental oversight body to be formed.

However, the tentative agreement reached overnight set up two parallel tracks of multilateral talks, including an open-ended process "towards enhanced co-operation" by "relevant international organisations" on oversight and public policy issues. The process will be triggered by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan early next year, but will have no set targets.

The other track creates an Internet Governance Forum (IGF) for an initial five-year term to hold talks on all internet issues, including problems such as spam, cyber crime or computer viruses.

After a final session during which US, Chinese and Iranian diplomats swapped suggestions for new wording, officials applauded efforts to widen the scope of formal discussion to industry and civil society.

The IGF, which Greece has offered to host, will also be allowed to "build on the existing structures of internet governance" but has no concrete powers.

"The worst has been avoided but we’re not sure that the best is to come in the future. We have left a door open," a member of the French delegation, Bernard Benhamou, said.

"We did not close the door to the essential part: international cooperation," he added.

Shashi Tharoor, the UN Under Secretary General for Communications, said: "We need more voices in the process and we need more voices on the net … [it is] very important that the internet remain a realm for freedom of expression and freedom of opinion".

Businesses such as Google and Microsoft have backed the present model of internet governance.

==========================

Spin matters. The reporters wrote it as they saw it. They did their job. Nothing is wrong or incorrect.
BUT the model is flawed.
The world is too complex for this horse race / shoot out/ show-down mentality. These are not the sort of simple minded metrics that will be needed if Wsis is to accomplish its goals, or if citizens are to be informed adequately so they can participate in the decisons that affect them.
Hey, maybe we need to look a bit more closely at the evidence!
Maybe the story has yet to be told, maybe it isn't over yet; maybe there is room for constructive solutions, shaping the outcomes, and not the zero sum game where if I win, you lose.
In fact, it seems evident that all sectors will be needed to bridge the digital divides: the private, public and civil society sectors. What a radical idea! How about a winning solution for Civil Society, Governments, and the private sector. That would not look like a show down / shoot out / horse race.
Pardon the mixed metaphors but: If Wsis loses sight of its complex objectives, or if the public only encounters this horse race model from their trusted media, if there is no room for the spectators to get into the action, get on the field, and make some changes, then the whole world will lose a chance to make a difference. And that would be a loss.
My 2 cents!