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<p style="margin-bottom:0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">BY ALEX GAKURU<br></font></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">I</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">nternet
Governance </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">'</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">problem</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">'</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">
is a creation of the mind and not a </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">result
of </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">technical constraint</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">s</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">
or limitation</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">s</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">.
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Unique name </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">and
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">collisions </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">thereof
are</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"> presented as problem</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">atic</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">
whereas </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">in reality </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">plurality,
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">diversity and context </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">are</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">
indisputably accepted </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">as in
the best global public interest</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">.
</font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">The
n</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">ecessary </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">competitive
global internet system </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">will
never be realised through current single </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">DNS
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">root file </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">which
has resulted in </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">“innovation
capture” </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">on a </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">monolithic,
hegemonic </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">numbers exhausted
I</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">nternet </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">just
after 30 per cent (2.1 of 7 billion) are connected. </font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Consumers
deserve expanded choices, increased online visibility and reduced
presence costs. </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">I</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">CANN
needs a competitor(s), truly global net management institutions and
less technically prone to individual stakeholders unilateral
manipulation and or control – a menu driven online login internet
system.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">The
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Affirmation of Commitments
(Affirmation) by the United States Department of Commerce and the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">called
for promoted competition, consumer trust, and consumer choice.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Competition,
trust and choice can all be achieved with the organised introduction
of several different zonefiles managed by different entities, for
example, ICANN can manage the current one while new entities manage
new others.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">The
DNS root zone file had a size of 119KB on 12-December, 2004
comprising 5335 lines of text <a href="http://www.isoc.org/briefings/020/zonefile.shtml">http://www.isoc.org/briefings/020/zonefile.shtml</a>
.
This file is smaller than the ISOC home page <a href="http://www.isoc.org/">http://www.isoc.org/</a>.
The
root zone file also does not change very frequently; it changed
only 7 times
between 11-Nov-2004 and 12-Dec-2004 and only 90 times in the
year
preceding 12-Dec-2004. The individual changes are all localized and
relatively small,
according to the ISOC presentation to the IGF
</font><a href="http://intgovforum.org/Substantive_1st_IGF/briefing19.pdf"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">http://intgovforum.org/Substantive_1st_IGF/briefing19.pdf</font></a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">It
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">would just </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"></font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">involve tweaking </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">the
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">BIND file to offer Internet
users </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">menu-like </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">options
onto which DNS of their choice to connect through. All those
Trademarks, copyright and other IP governance resultant encroachment
problems dissipate or subside at least at the monolithic global scale
they are today (</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">RFC 1591 and
trademarks</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">) – </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Read
diminished DNS romanticism.</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">But
No! </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">ICANN Board so decided
that </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">competition, consumer
trust, and consumer choice </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">can
only be achieved through introduction of </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">new
gTLDs </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">with postponed
effectiveness assessment, stating,</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">“<font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Phase
Two will occur after new gTLDs have been in operation for one year,
and involves examining data to assess the extent to which the
introduction or expansion of gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer
trust, and consumer choice. Additionally, the Review Team will
evaluate the effectiveness of the application and evaluation process,
as well as the safeguards put in place by to mitigate issues involved
in the introduction or expansion of new gTLDs. ”</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><a href="http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-16aug13-en.htm"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-16aug13-en.htm</font></a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Consider
b</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">elow name collisions </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">despite
which </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">travelling individuals
confidently choose </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">where
travel without much global fuss</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">.<font face="Calibri, sans-serif"> (Source: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/12-places-with-the-same-n_n_4170470.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/12-places-with-the-same-n_n_4170470.html</a>) <br>
</font></font></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"> 1. Granada, Spain vs. the nation of Grenada<br><br>2. Memphis, Egypt vs. Memphis, Tennessee<br><br>3. The nation of Lebanon vs. Lebanon, New Hampshire<br>
<br>4. The nation of Antigua vs. Antigua, Guatemala<br><br>5. Auckland, New Zealand vs. Oakland, California<br><br>6. Beverly Hills, California vs. Beverly Hills, Texas<br><br>7. La Paz, Mexico vs. La Paz, Bolivia<br><br>
8. Moscow, Russia vs. Moscow, Kansas<br><br>9. Waterloo, Belgium vs. Waterloo, Canada<br><br>10. Sydney, Australia vs. Sydney, Canada<br><br>11. Paris, France vs. Paris, Texas<br></font></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Then why on
earth aren't </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">we </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"></font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">terribly </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">worried
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">about the above name
collisions </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">subsequently
followed by series of global conferences preoccupied</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">with “</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">seeking
</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">unique locations </font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">naming
solution</font><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">s”? </font>
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</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">It is
about time the Internet learnt from what exists in the real world and
adopted it, rather than perpetually attempting to redefine reality,
for everyone, including the unconnected 70% majority. </font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif"></font></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Regards,</font></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif">Alex<br>
</font></p></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 10:03 PM, Edward Morris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:emorris@milk.toast.net" target="_blank">emorris@milk.toast.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
Amr,</div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
Jon Zittrain made a post today that in refuting the right wings attack on
the Obama administration "giving away the internet to the UN " I
think encapsulates the gist of what is going on:</div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
<h5 style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(51,51,51);margin:0px 0px 2px;padding:0px 22px 0px 0px;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.38;font-family:'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
</h5>
<div style="color:gray">
<span style="font-weight:bold"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/zittrain" style="color:rgb(59,89,152);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">Jonathan Zittrain</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:5px;line-height:1.38;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'lucida grande',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
"US gov't cedes control of Internet" announcement is 99%
symbolic - and not bizarre UN giveaway. It empowers ICANN, not UN/ITU.</div>
</div>
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</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
A cynic would say that the Americans have decided that de jure control is
no longer tenable and by dumping the IANA functions to ICANN would empower
an organisation in which it has substantial leverage and control. As NTIA
has largely been hands off the practical consequences of the occurrence are
perhaps not as revolutionary as one might first think.</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
What we need to be careful about is the organisational structure and legal
position of ICANN coming out of these changes. This Board has shown a
propensity for empowering itself and it's friends at the expense of the
bottom up nature of MS most of us subscribe to. Since we filed our initial
Reconsideration petition eleven months ago there have been twenty nine new
reconsideration petitions filed, as opposed to three in 2011 and 2012
combined. Universally these petitions have been unsuccessful. This Board has
ignored it's own Bylaws, flaunted it's accountability processes,
denied our efforts to obtain documentation as we seek explanation for
decisions made and, as above, largely shown an unwillingness to reflexively
and honestly examine it's own decisions despite repeated requests by
Community members.</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
<span style="font-size:10pt">NCSG member Rolf Weber co-wrote an
interesting piece a few years ago illustrating the "who controls
the board" problem at ICANN, with a suggested solution, a problem
that may be exacerbated by this weeks US government announcement:
<a href="http://www.stlr.org/html/volume14/WeberGunnarson.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.stlr.org/html/volume14/WeberGunnarson.pdf</a> . </span><span style="font-size:10pt"> Milton has also written in the past about the
concept of Members, ICANN's lack thereof, and consequences under the
current legal accord.</span></div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
<span style="font-family:tahoma;font-size:10pt">I have deep concerns
about the maturity of ICANN and the </span>commitment of many in the
organisation, particularly in legal, to an open, transparent and accountable
governance structure. In fact, the cynic in me conceives of new oversight by
Jones Day (ICANN's outside law firm) replacing that of the NTIA. I
don't think that would be progress.</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
There will be opportunity here, of course, to make positive change but let
us not be so overjoyed by the proposed internationalisation of IANA to
ignore the fact that ICANN itself has deep and abiding problems. There may
be possibilities in the current chaos to correct some of these problems,
foremost of which is sorting a way in which staff and Board are held
accountable to someone or something other than themselves or the nebulous
and poorly defined "community". </div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-RIGHT:0px;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;BORDER-LEFT:#000000 2px solid;MARGIN-RIGHT:0px"><div class="">
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Amr Elsadr <<a href="mailto:aelsadr@EGYPTIG.ORG" target="_blank">aelsadr@EGYPTIG.ORG</a>><br>
To: <a href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU" target="_blank">NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU</a><br></div><div><div class="h5">
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:02:37 +0100<br>
Subject: Re: US Government Announcement about transfer IANA functions
stewardship<br>
<br>
<div>
I hope you’re right, Sam. However, this paragraph of the NTIA press
release is what prompted my question:</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<span style="line-height:17px">
>From the inception of ICANN, the U.S. Government and Internet stakeholders
envisioned that the U.S. role in the IANA functions would be
temporary. The Commerce Department’s June 10, 1998 </span>
<a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/6_5_98dns.pdf" style="line-height:17px;text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">Statement of Policy</font></a><span style="line-height:17px">
stated that the U.S. Government “is committed to a transition
that will allow the private sector to take leadership for DNS
management.” ICANN as an organization has matured and taken
steps in recent years to improve its accountability and transparency and its
technical competence. At the same time, international support
continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance as
evidenced by the continued success of the Internet Governance Forum and the
resilient stewardship of the various Internet institutions.</span>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style><span style="line-height:17px">The paragraph somehow indicates (as I read it at
least) that the “How to do this” is associated </span>
</span><span style="line-height:17px">with the “Why the
changes”. So to rephrase my question; I wonder wether after some 17
years, does the NTIA’s belief in ICANN’s maturity and competence
reflect its confidence in ICANN to simply be the convener of a
dialogue amongst the different stakeholders to collectively reach some
form of consensus on how to transition NTIA’s role to a yet
undetermined institution, or does it reflect confidence in ICANN to
coordinate this discussion in order to see how best ICANN can assume this
role without NTIA involvement?</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="line-height:17px">Frankly, ICANN's </span><i style="line-height:17px">“…, steps in recent years to improve
its accountability and transparency…,”</i><span style="line-height:17px"> still leave much to be desired.
Yeah…, steps were taken, but ICANN’s not quite there yet. In
fact, several actors across different stakeholder groups have recently been
voicing discontent claiming the exact opposite of this. One of the
earlier examples is </span><a href="https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/NCSG+Request+for+Reconsideration+of+Staff+Decision+to+Expand+Scope+of+TMCH" target="_blank">
NCSG’s reconsideration request</a><span style="line-height:17px">
of ICANN’s decision to expand the scope of the Trademark
Clearinghouse to include up to 50 confusingly similar variants of brand
names.</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="line-height:17px">I still don’t know if my concerns
are unfounded or not, but I do find it difficult to simply dismiss them, but
we will all see how things’ll unfold over the next few months.</span>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="line-height:17px">Thanks.</span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="line-height:17px">Amr</span></div>
<br>
<div>
<div>
On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:36 PM, Sam Lanfranco <<a href="mailto:lanfran@YORKU.CA" target="_blank">lanfran@YORKU.CA</a>> wrote:</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div>
Amr Elsadr poses the questions:<br>
<br>
<i><font color="#330099">On the other hand, have any proposals
suggesting that institutional separation of the IANA function from ICANN
been preemptively squashed??<br>
Or is the principle still a viable option that can be promoted??</font>
</i><br>
</div>
What this announcement does is set a deadline on what has to be done, in
the absence of delays by unforeseen forces at play. The key implication is
to shift the discussions from "What changes" and "Why the
changes" to the "How to do this" while honoring the four
stated principles and producing a set of viable and sustainable structures
and processes. That will have ripple effects in structures and
processes across the Internet ecosystem. This is more than just replacing
one structure by another, and probably nothing has been preempted. A
successful outcome will call for heightened stakeholder awareness and
engagement, within ICANN, within constituencies, and beyond ICANN.<br>
<br>
Sam Lanfranco</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div></div></blockquote>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-size:13px;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,0);font-family:tahoma;font-weight:400;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-image:none">
</div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br></div>