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<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">Thanks very much for
this Pranesh, indeed a topic that is complex and hits many of
our activities. Reading this with interest.<br>
</font></font></p>
<p><font size="+1"><font face="Lucida Grande">cheers Stephanie
Perrin</font></font><br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2016-06-29 5:17, Pranesh Prakash
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:5773923C.8040505@cis-india.org" type="cite">Dear
all,
<br>
In CIS's submissions to the WSIS process, to the ICG, to the
CCWG-Acct, we have raised the multi-faceted issue of jurisdiction,
and why dealing with that now (before the transition) is
important. Given that it hasn't been dealt with as part of WS1, I
believe the "IANA transition" ends up being meaningless in terms
of what it set out to achieve, and what were the goals laid down
in the Montevideo Statement and in the NETmundial Statement.
<br>
<br>
I believe civil society actors ought to discuss our positions on
the topic of jurisdiction, which frankly hasn't really happened on
this list.
<br>
<br>
To instigate debate, I've written a long-ish piece on the topic:
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/jurisdiction-the-taboo-topic-at-icann">http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/jurisdiction-the-taboo-topic-at-icann</a>
<br>
<br>
Regards,
<br>
Pranesh
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Jurisdiction: The Taboo Topic at ICANN
<br>
======================================
<br>
<br>
In March 2014, the [US government announced] that they were going
to end the contract they have with ICANN to run the [Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority] (IANA), and hand over control to the
“global multistakeholder community”. They insisted that the plan
for transition had to come through a multistakeholder process and
have stakeholders “across the global Internet community”.
<br>
<br>
Why is the U.S. government removing the NTIA contract?
<br>
------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
The main reason for the U.S. government’s action is that it will
get rid of a political thorn in the U.S. government’s side:
keeping the contract allows them to be called out as having a
special role in Internet governance (with the Affirmation of
Commitments between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN, the
IANA contract, and the cooperative agreement with Verisign), and
engaging in unilateralism with regard to the operation of the root
servers of the Internet naming system, while repeatedly declaring
that they support a multistakeholder model of Internet governance.
<br>
<br>
This contradiction is what they are hoping to address. Doing away
with the NTIA contract will also increase — ever so marginally —
ICANN’s global legitimacy: this is something that world
governments, civil society organizations, and some American
academics have been asking for nearly since ICANN’s inception in
1998. For instance, here are some demands made [in a declaration
by the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus at WSIS, in 2005]:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“ICANN will negotiate an appropriate host
country agreement to replace its California Incorporation, being
careful to retain those aspects of its California Incorporation
that enhance its accountability to the global Internet user
community.”ICANN’s decisions, and any host country agreement,
must be required to comply with public policy requirements
negotiated through international treaties in regard to, inter
alia, human rights treaties, privacy rights, gender agreements
and trade rules. … “It is also expected that the
multi-stakeholder community will observe and comment on the
progress made in this process through the proposed \[Internet
Governance\] Forum.”
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
In short: the objective of the transition is political, [not
technical]. In an ideal world, we *should* aim at reducing U.S.
state control over the core of the Internet’s domain name
system.[^1]
<br>
<br>
It is our contention that **U.S. state control over the core of
the Internet’s domain name system is *not* being removed** by the
transition that is currently underway.
<br>
<br>
Why is the Transition Happening Now?
<br>
------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
Despite the U.S. government having given commitments in the past
that were going to finish the IANA transition by “September 30,
2000”, (the [White Paper on Management of Internet Names and
Addresses] states: “The U.S. Government would prefer that this
transition be complete before the year 2000. To the extent that
the new corporation is established and operationally stable,
September 30, 2000 is intended to be, and remains, an ‘outside’
date.”) and later by “fall of 2006”,[^2] those turned out to be
empty promises. However, this time, the transition seems to be
going through, unless the U.S. Congress manages to halt it.
<br>
<br>
However, in order to answer the question of “why now?” fully, one
has to look a bit at the past.
<br>
<br>
In 1998, through the [White Paper on Management of Internet Names
and Addresses] the U.S. government [asserted it’s control over the
root], and asserted — some would say arrogated to itself — the
power to put out contracts for both the IANA functions as well as
the ‘A’ Root (i.e., the Root Zone Maintainer function that Network
Solutions Inc. then performed, and continues to perform to date in
its current avatar as Verisign). The IANA functions contract — a
periodically renewable contract — was awarded to ICANN, a
California-based non-profit corporation that was set up
exclusively for this purpose, but which evolved around the
existing IANA (to placate the Internet Society).
<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, of course, there were criticisms of ICANN from multiple
foreign governments and civil society organizations. Further,
despite it being a California-based non-profit on contract with
the government, domestically within the U.S., there was pushback
from constituencies that felt that more direct U.S. control of the
DNS was important.
<br>
<br>
As Goldsmith and Wu summarize:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“Milton Mueller and others have shown that
ICANN’s spirit of “self-regulation” was an appealing label for a
process that could be more accurately described as the U.S.
government brokering a behind-the-scenes deal that best suited
its policy preferences … the United States wanted to ensure the
stability of the Internet, to fend off the regulatory efforts of
foreign governments and international organizations, and to
maintain ultimate control. The easiest way to do that was to
maintain formal control while turning over day-to-day control of
the root to ICANN and the Internet Society, which had close ties
to the regulation-shy American technology industry.” \[footnotes
omitted\]
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
And that brings us to the first reason that the NTIA announced the
transition in 2014, rather than earlier.
<br>
<br>
### ICANN Adjudged Mature Enough
<br>
<br>
The NTIA now sees ICANN as being mature enough: the final
transition was announced 16 years after ICANN’s creation, and
complaints about ICANN and its legitimacy had largely died down in
the international arena in that while. Nowadays, governments
across the world send their representatives to ICANN, thus
legitimizing ICANN. States have largely been satisfied by
participating in the Government Advisory Council, which, as its
name suggests, only has advisory powers. Further, unlike in the
early days, there is [no serious push for states assuming control
of ICANN]. Of course they grumble about the ICANN Board not
following their advice, but no government, as far as I am aware,
has walked out or refused to participate.
<br>
<br>
### L’affaire Snowden
<br>
<br>
Many within the United States, and some without, believe that the
United States not only plays an exceptional role to play in the
running of the Internet — by dint of historical development and
dominance of American companies — but that *it ought to* have an
exceptional role because it is the best country to exercise
‘oversight’ over ‘the Internet’ (often coming from [clueless
commentators]), and from dinosaurs of the Internet era, like
[American IP lawyers] and [American ‘homeland’ security hawks],
Jones Day, who are ICANN’s lawyers, and other [jingoists] and
those policymakers who are controlled by these narrow-minded
interests.
<br>
<br>
The Snowden revelations were, in that way, a godsend for the NTIA,
as it allowed them a fig-leaf of [international][] [criticism][]
[with which] to counter these domestic critics and carry on with a
transition that they have been seeking to put into motion for a
while. The Snowden revelations led Dilma Rousseff, President of
Brazil, to state in September 2013, at the 68th U.N. General
Assembly, that Brazil would “present proposals for the
establishment of a [civilian multilateral framework for the
governance and use of the Internet]”, and as [Diego Canabarro]
points out this catalysed the U.S. government and the technical
community into taking action.
<br>
<br>
Given this context, a few months after the Snowden revelations,
the so-called [I\* organizations] met — seemingly with the
blessing of the U.S. government[^3] — in Montevideo, and put out a
[‘Statement on the Future of Internet Governance’] that sought to
link the Snowden revelations on pervasive surveillance with the
need to urgently transition the IANA stewardship role away from
the U.S. government. Of course, the signatories to that statement
knew fully well, as did most of the readers of that statement,
that there is no linkage between the Snowden revelations about
pervasive surveillance and the operations of the DNS root, but
still they, and others, linked them together. Specifically, the
I\* organizations called for “accelerating the globalization of
ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all
stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal
footing.”
<br>
<br>
One could posit the existence of two other contributing factors as
well.
<br>
<br>
Given political realities in the United States, a transition of
this sort is probably best done before an ultra-jingoistic
President steps into office.
<br>
<br>
Lastly, the ten-yearly review of the World Summit on Information
Society was currently underway. At the original WSIS (as seen from
the civil society quoted above) the issue of US control over the
root was a major issue of contention. At that point (and during
where the 2006 date for globalization of ICANN was emphasized by
the US government).
<br>
<br>
Why Jurisdiction is Important
<br>
-----------------------------
<br>
<br>
Jurisdiction has a great many aspects. *Inter alia*, these are:
<br>
<br>
- Legal sanctions applicable to changes in the root zone (for
instance, what happens if a country under US sanctions requests a
change to the root zone file?)
<br>
- Law applicable to resolution of contractual disputes with
registries, registrars, etc.
<br>
- Law applicable to labour disputes.
<br>
- Law applicable to competition / antitrust law that applies to
ICANN policies and regulations.
<br>
- Law applicable to disputes regarding ICANN decisions, such as
allocation of gTLDs, or non-renewal of a contract.
<br>
- Law applicable to consumer protection concerns.
<br>
- Law applicable to financial transparency of the organization.
<br>
- Law applicable to corporate condition of the organization,
including membership rights.
<br>
- Law applicable to data protection-related policies &
regulations.
<br>
- Law applicable to trademark and other speech-related policies
& regulations.
<br>
- Law applicable to legal sanctions imposed by a country against
another.
<br>
<br>
Some of these, but not all, depend on where bodies like ICANN (the
policy-making body), the IANA functions operator (the proposed
“Post-Transition IANA”, insofar as the names function is
concerned), and the root zone maintainer are incorporated or
maintain their primary office, while others depend on the location
of the office \[for instance, Turkish labour law applies for the
ICANN office in Istanbul\], while yet others depend on what’s
decided by ICANN in contracts (for instance, the resolution of
contractual disputes with ICANN, filing of suits with regard to
disputes over new generic TLDs, etc.).
<br>
<br>
However, an issue like sanctions, for instance, depends on where
ICANN/PTI/RMZ are incorporated and maintain their primary office.
<br>
<br>
As [Milton Mueller notes], the current IANA contract “requires
ICANN to be incorporated in, maintain a physical address in, and
perform the IANA functions in the U.S. This makes IANA subject to
U.S. law and provides America with greater political influence
over ICANN.”
<br>
<br>
He further notes that:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">While it is common to assert that the U.S.
has never abused its authority and has always taken the role of
a neutral steward, this is not quite true. During the
controversy over the .xxx domain, the Bush administration caved
in to domestic political pressure and threatened to block entry
of the domain into the root if ICANN approved it (Declaration of
the Independent Review Panel, 2010). It took five years, an
independent review challenge and the threat of litigation from a
businessman willing to spend millions to get the .xxx domain
into the root.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Thus it is clear that even if the NTIA’s role in the IANA contract
goes away, jurisdiction remains an important issue.
<br>
<br>
U.S. Doublespeak on Jurisdiction
<br>
--------------------------------
<br>
<br>
In March 2014, when NTIA finally announced that they would hand
over the reins to “the global multistakeholder community”. They’ve
laid down two procedural condition: that it be developed by
stakeholders across the global Internet community and have broad
community consensus, and they have proposed 5 substantive
conditions that any proposal must meet:
<br>
<br>
- Support and enhance the multistakeholder model;
<br>
- Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the
Internet DNS;
<br>
- Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and
partners of the IANA services; and,
<br>
- Maintain the openness of the Internet.
<br>
- Must not replace the NTIA role with a solution that is
government-led or an inter-governmental organization.
<br>
<br>
In that announcement there is no explicit restriction on the
jurisdiction of ICANN (whether it relate to its incorporation, the
resolution of contractual disputes, resolution of labour disputes,
antitrust/competition law, tort law, consumer protection law,
privacy law, or speech law, and more, all of which impact ICANN
and many, but not all, of which are predicated on the jurisdiction
of ICANN’s incorporation), the jurisdiction(s) of the IANA
Functions Operator(s) (i.e., which executive, court, or
legislature’s orders would it need to obey), and the jurisdiction
of the Root Zone Maintainer (i.e., which executive, court, or
legislature’s orders would it need to obey).
<br>
<br>
However, Mr. Larry Strickling, the head of the NTIA, in his
[testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Communications
and Technology], made it clear that,
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“Frankly, if \[shifting ICANN or IANA
jurisdiction\] were being proposed, I don’t think that such a
proposal would satisfy our criteria, specifically the one that
requires that security and stability be maintained.”
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Possibly, that argument made sense in 1998, due to the significant
concentration of DNS expertise in the United States. However, in
2015, that argument is hardly convincing, and is frankly
laughable.[^4]
<br>
<br>
Targetting that remark, in ICANN 54 at Dublin, we asked Mr.
Strickling:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“So as we understand it, the technical
stability of the DNS doesn’t necessarily depend on ICANN’s
jurisdiction being in the United States. So I wanted to ask
would the US Congress support a multistakeholder and continuing
in the event that it’s shifting jurisdiction.”
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Mr. Strickling’s response was:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">“No. I think Congress has made it very
clear and at every hearing they have extracted from Fadi a
commitment that ICANN will remain incorporated in the United
States. Now the jurisdictional question though, as I understand
it having been raised from some other countries, is not so much
jurisdiction in terms of where ICANN is located. It’s much more
jurisdiction over the resolution of disputes.
<br>
<br>
“And that I think is an open issue, and that’s an appropriate
one to be discussed. And it’s one I think where ICANN has made
some movement over time anyway.
<br>
<br>
“So I think you have to … when people use the word jurisdiction,
we need to be very precise about over what issues because where
disputes are resolved and under what law they’re resolved, those
are separate questions from where the corporation may have a
physical headquarters.”
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
As we have shown above, jurisdiction is not only about the
jurisdiction of “resolution of disputes”, but also, as Mueller
reminds us, about the requirement that ICANN (and now, the PTI) be
“incorporated in, maintain a physical address in, and perform the
IANA functions in the U.S. This makes IANA subject to U.S. law and
provides America with greater political influence over ICANN.”
<br>
<br>
In essence, the U.S. government has essentially said that they
would veto the transition if the jurisdiction of ICANN or PTI’s
incorporation were to move out of the U.S., and they can prevent
that from happening *after* the transition, since as things stand
ICANN and PTI will still come within the U.S. Congress’s
jurisdiction.
<br>
<br>
Why Has the ICG Failed to Consider Jurisdiction?
<br>
------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
Will the ICG proposal or the proposed new ICANN by-laws reduce
existing U.S. control? No, they won’t. (In fact, as we will argue
below, the proposed new ICANN by-laws make this problem even
worse.) The proposal by the names community (“the CWG proposal”)
still has a requirement (in Annex S) that the Post-Transition IANA
(PTI) be incorporated in the United States, and a similar
suggestion hidden away as a footnote. Further, the proposed
by-laws for ICANN include the requirement that PTI be a California
corporation. There was no discussion specifically on this issue,
nor any documented community agreement on the specific issue of
jurisdiction of PTI’s incorporation.
<br>
<br>
Why wasn’t there greater discussion and consideration of this
issue? Because of two reasons: First, there were many that argued
that the transition would be vetoed by the U.S. government and the
U.S. Congress if ICANN and PTI were not to remain in the U.S.
Secondly, the ICANN-formed ICG saw the US government’s actions
very narrowly, as though the government were acting in isolation,
ignoring the rich dialogue and debate that’s gone on earlier about
the transition since the incorporation of ICANN itself.
<br>
<br>
While it would be no one’s case that political considerations
should be given greater weightage than technical considerations
such as security, stability, and resilience of the domain name
system, it is shocking that political considerations have been
completely absent in the discussions in the number and protocol
parameters communities, and have been extremely limited in the
discussions in the names community. This is even more shocking
considering that the main reason for this transition is, as has
been argued above, political.
<br>
<br>
It can be also argued that the certain IANA functions such as Root
Zone Management function have a considerable political
implication. It is imperative that the political nature of the
function is duly acknowledged and dealt with, in accordance with
the wishes of the global community. In the current process the
political aspects of the IANA function has been completely
overlooked and sidelined. It is important to note that this
transition has not been a necessitated by any technical
considerations. It is primarily motivated by political and legal
considerations. However, the questions that the ICG asked the
customer communities to consider were solely technical. Indeed,
the communities could have chosen to overlook that, but they did
not choose to do so. For instance, while the IANA customer
community proposals reflected on existing jurisdictional
arrangements, they did not reflect on how the jurisdictional
arrangements should be post-transition , while this is one of the
questions at the heart of the entire transition. There were no
discussions and decisions as to the jurisdiction of the
Post-Transition IANA: the Accountability CCWG’s lawyers, Sidley
Austin, recommended that the PTI ought to be a California
non-profit corporation, and this finds mention in a footnote
without even having been debated by the “global multistakeholder
community”, and subsequently in the proposed new by-laws for
ICANN.
<br>
<br>
Why the By-Laws Make Things Worse & Why “Work Stream 2” Can’t
Address Most Jurisdiction Issues
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
The by-laws could have chosen to simply stayed silent on the
matter of what law PTI would be incorporated under, but instead
the by-law make the requirement of PTI being a California
non-profit public benefit corporation part of the *fundamental
by-laws*, which are close to impossible to amend.
<br>
<br>
While “Work Stream 2” (the post-transition work related to
improving ICANN’s accountability) has jurisdiction as a topic of
consideration, the scope of that must necessarily discount any
consideration of shifting the jurisdiction of incorporation of
ICANN, since all of the work done as part of CCWG Accountability’s
“Work Stream 1”, which are now reflected in the proposed new
by-laws, assume Californian jurisdiction (including the legal
model of the “Empowered Community”). Is ICANN prepared to re-do
all the work done in WS1 in WS2 as well? If the answer is yes,
then the issue of jurisdiction can actually be addressed in WS2.
If the answer is no — and realistically it is — then, the issue
of jurisdiction can only be very partially addressed in WS2.
<br>
<br>
Keeping this in mind, we recommended specific changes in the
by-laws, all of which were rejected by CCWG’s lawyers.
<br>
<br>
The Transition Plan Fails the NETmundial Statement
<br>
--------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
The [NETmundial Multistakeholder Document], which was an outcome
of the NETmundial process, states:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">In the follow up to the recent and
welcomed announcement of US Government with regard to its intent
to transition the stewardship of IANA functions, the discussion
about mechanisms for guaranteeing the transparency and
accountability of those functions after the US Government role
ends, has to take place through an open process with the
participation of all stakeholders extending beyond the ICANN
community
<br>
<br>
\[…\]
<br>
<br>
It is expected that the process of globalization of ICANN speeds
up leading to a truly international and global organization
serving the public interest with clearly implementable and
verifiable accountability and transparency mechanisms that
satisfy requirements from both internal stakeholders and the
global community.
<br>
<br>
The active representation from all stakeholders in the ICANN
structure from all regions is a key issue in the process of a
successful globalization.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
As our past analysis has shown, the IANA transition process and
the discussions on the mailing lists that shaped it [were neither
global nor multistakeholder]. The DNS industry represented in
ICANN is largely US-based. 3 in 5 registrars are from the United
States of America, whereas less than 1% of ICANN-registered
registrars are from Africa. Two-thirds of the Business
Constituency in ICANN is from the USA. While ICANN-the-corporation
has sought to become more global, the ICANN community has remained
insular, and this will not change until the commercial interests
involved in ICANN can become more diverse, reflecting the
diversity of users of the Internet, and a TLD like .COM can be
owned by a non-American corporation and the PTI can be a
non-American entity.
<br>
<br>
What We Need: Jurisdictional Resilience
<br>
---------------------------------------
<br>
<br>
It is no one’s case that the United States is less fit than any
other country as a base for ICANN, PTI, or the Root Zone
Maintainer, or even as the headquarters for 9 of the world’s 12
root zone operators (Verisign runs both the A and J root servers).
However, just as having multiplicity of root servers is important
for ensuring technical resilience of the DNS system (and this is
shown in the uptake of Anycast by root server operators), it is
equally important to have immunity of core DNS functioning from
political pressures of the country or countries where core DNS
infrastructure is legally situated and to ensure that we have
diversity in terms of legal jurisdiction.
<br>
<br>
Towards this end, we at CIS have pushed for the concept of
“jurisdictional resilience”, encompassing three crucial points:
<br>
<br>
- Legal immunity for core technical operators of Internet
functions (as opposed to policymaking venues) from legal sanctions
or orders from the state in which they are legally situated.
<br>
- Division of core Internet operators among multiple
jurisdictions
<br>
- Jurisdictional division of policymaking functions from
technical implementation functions
<br>
<br>
Of these, the most important is the limited legal immunity (akin
to a greatly limited form of the immunity that UN organizations
get from the laws of their host countries). This kind of immunity
could be provided through a variety of different means: a
host-country agreement; a law passed by the legislature; a U.N.
General Assembly Resolution; a U.N.-backed treaty; and other such
options exist. We are currently investigating which of these
options would be the best option.
<br>
<br>
And apart from limited legal immunity, distribution of
jurisdictional control is also valuable. As we noted in our
submission to the ICG in September 2015:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Following the above precepts would, for
instance, mean that the entity that performs the role of the
Root Zone Maintainer should not be situated in the same legal
jurisdiction as the entity that functions as the policymaking
venue. This would in turn mean that either the Root Zone
Maintainer function be taken up Netnod (Sweden-headquartered) or
the WIDE Project (Japan-headquartered) \[or RIPE-NCC,
headquartered in the Netherlands\], or that if the IANA
Functions Operator(s) is to be merged with the RZM, then the IFO
be relocated to a jurisdiction other than those of ISOC and
ICANN. This, as has been stated earlier, has been a demand of
the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. Further, it would
also mean that root zone servers operators be spread across
multiple jurisdictions (which the creation of mirror servers in
multiple jurisdictions will not address).
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
However, the issue of jurisdiction seems to be dead-on-arrival,
having been killed by the United States government.
<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, despite the primary motivation for demands for the
IANA transition being those of removing the power the U.S.
government exercises over the core of the Internet’s operations in
the form of the DNS, what has ended up happening through the IANA
transition is that these powers have not only not been removed,
but in some ways they have been entrenched further! While earlier,
the U.S. had to specify that the IANA functions operator had to be
located in the U.S., now ICANN’s by-laws themselves will state
that the post-transition IANA will be a California corporation.
Notably, while the Montevideo Declaration speaks of
“globalization” of ICANN and of the IANA functions, as does the
NETmundial statement, the NTIA announcement on their acceptance of
the transition proposals speaks of “privatization” of ICANN, and
not “globalization”.
<br>
<br>
All in all, the “independence” that IANA is gaining from the U.S.
is akin to the “independence” that Brazil gained from Portugal in
1822. Dom Pedro of Brazil was then ruling Brazil as the Prince
Regent since his father Dom João VI, the King of United Kingdom of
Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves had returned to Portugal. In
1822, Brazil declared independence from Portugal (which was
formally recognized through a treaty in 1825). Even after this
“independence”, Dom Pedro continued to rule Portugal just as he
had before indepedence, and Dom João VI was provided the title of
“Emperor of Brazil”, aside from being King of the United Kingdom
of Portugal and the Algarves. The “indepedence” didn’t make a whit
of a difference to the self-sufficiency of Brazil: Portugal
continued to be its largest trading partner. The “independence”
didn’t change anything for the nearly 1 million slaves in Brazil,
or to the lot of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, none of whom
were recognized as “free”. It had very little consequence not just
in terms of ground conditions of day-to-day living, but even in
political terms.
<br>
<br>
Such is the case with the IANA Transition: U.S. power over the
core functioning of the Domain Name System do not stand diminished
after the transition, and they can even arguably be said to have
become even more entrenched. Meet the new boss: same as the old
boss.
<br>
<br>
[^1]: It is an allied but logically distinct issue that U.S.
businesses — registries and registrars — dominate the global DNS
industry, and as a result hold the reins at ICANN.
<br>
<br>
[^2]: As Goldsmith & Wu note in their book *Who Controls the
Internet*: “Back in 1998 the U.S. Department of Commerce promised
to relinquish root authority by the fall of 2006, but in June
2005, the United States reversed course. “The United States
Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the
Internet’s Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS),” announced
Michael D. Gallagher, a Department of Commerce official. “The
United States” he announced, will “maintain its historic role in
authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root
zone file.”
<br>
<br>
[^3]: Mr. Fadi Chehadé revealed in an interaction with Indian
participants at ICANN 54 that he had a meeting “at the White
House” about the U.S. plans for transition of the IANA contract
before he spoke about that when [he visited India in October 2013]
making the timing of his White House visit around the time of the
Montevideo Statement.
<br>
<br>
[^4]: As an example, [NSD], software that is used on multiple root
servers, is funded by a Dutch foundation and a Dutch corporation,
and written mostly by European coders.
<br>
<br>
[US government announced]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions">https://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntia-announces-intent-transition-key-internet-domain-name-functions</a><br>
[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority]: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.iana.org/">https://www.iana.org/</a>
<br>
[in a declaration by the Civil Society Internet Governance
Caucus at WSIS, in 2005]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/sca/hbf-29.doc">https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/sca/hbf-29.doc</a>
<br>
[not technical]:
<br>
[White Paper on Management of Internet Names and Addresses]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.icann.org/resources/unthemed-pages/white-paper-2012-02-25-en">https://www.icann.org/resources/unthemed-pages/white-paper-2012-02-25-en</a>
<br>
[asserted it’s control over the root]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.icannwatch.org/archive/mueller_icann_and_internet_governance.pdf">http://www.icannwatch.org/archive/mueller_icann_and_internet_governance.pdf</a><br>
[no serious push for states assuming control of ICANN]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.internetgovernance.org/2012/05/24/threat-analysis-of-itus-wcit-part-1-historical-context/">http://www.internetgovernance.org/2012/05/24/threat-analysis-of-itus-wcit-part-1-historical-context/</a><br>
[clueless commentators]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447362610955656">http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447362610955656</a>
<br>
[American IP lawyers]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140316_if_the_stakeholders_already_control_the_internet_netmundial_iana/">http://www.circleid.com/posts/20140316_if_the_stakeholders_already_control_the_internet_netmundial_iana/</a><br>
[American ‘homeland’ security hawks]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/03/who-controls-the-internet-address-book-icann-ntia-and-iana/">http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/03/who-controls-the-internet-address-book-icann-ntia-and-iana/</a><br>
[jingoists]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/cummings.nextto.html">http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/cummings.nextto.html</a>
<br>
[international]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4529516c-c713-11e3-889e-00144feabdc0.html">http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4529516c-c713-11e3-889e-00144feabdc0.html</a>
<br>
[criticism]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.rt.com/usa/nsa-fallout-relinquish-internet-oversight-002/">https://www.rt.com/usa/nsa-fallout-relinquish-internet-oversight-002/</a>
<br>
[with which]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/carolinegreer/status/454253411576598528">https://twitter.com/carolinegreer/status/454253411576598528</a>
<br>
[civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of
the Internet]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/68/BR_en.pdf">https://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/68/BR_en.pdf</a>
<br>
[Diego Canabarro]: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://icannwiki.com/Diego_Canabarro">https://icannwiki.com/Diego_Canabarro</a>
<br>
[I\* organizations]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.apnic.net/community/ecosystem/i*orgs">https://www.apnic.net/community/ecosystem/i*orgs</a>
<br>
[‘Statement on the Future of Internet Governance’]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.apnic.net/publications/news/2013/montevideo-statement-on-future-of-internet-cooperation">https://www.apnic.net/publications/news/2013/montevideo-statement-on-future-of-internet-cooperation</a><br>
[Milton Mueller notes]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96">http://content.netmundial.br/contribution/roadmap-for-globalizing-iana-four-principles-and-a-proposal-for-reform-a-submission-to-the-global-multistakeholder-meeting-on-the-future-of-internet-governance/96</a><br>
[testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Communications
and Technology]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v-yWye5I0w&feature=youtu.be">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v-yWye5I0w&feature=youtu.be</a>
<br>
[NETmundial Multistakeholder Document]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf">http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf</a><br>
[were neither global nor multistakeholder]:
cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder<br>
[he visited India in October 2013]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-22/news/43288531_1_icann-internet-corporation-us-centric-internet">http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-22/news/43288531_1_icann-internet-corporation-us-centric-internet</a><br>
[NSD]: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/">https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
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