Taking ownership of the internet

US governments have essentially had command over the web since the 60s, but who will step in once the US shortly cedes control, asks Benny Avni

Turns out, the internet doesn’t run itself.

Until mid-March, a branch of the US government was responsible for such duties as assigning and managing domain names. Suffixes such as ‘.com’ or ‘.org’, which outside of the US also end in country identifiers like ‘.de’ for Germany, or ‘.ie’ for Ireland, are all organised by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is a contractor of an arm of the US department of commerce.

On March 14, however, Washington announced it would “transition” these duties away, let its contract with ICANN expire in 2015, and thus shed the last remnants of internet control by America. US governments have held some control over the web ever since the launch in the late 1960s of a program that was developed in America by the military and academia to exchange information. That program became the internet.

But who will take over once the US cedes control? The short answer: No-one knows.

Optimists envision a model 21st century body — from tech whiz kids to Google-sized corporations, from human rights advocates to interested governmental bodies — all harmoniously managing together the important aspects of the most egalitarian tool of the age.

But they acknowledge that such a vision is yet to be fleshed out. A process to define a new approach to internet governance was launched at a March conference in Singapore. Another gathering will be hosted in late April by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in Sao Paolo. There, organisers hope, global “stakeholders” will form a body capable of taking over the functions currently performed by the US government. There will be other conferences, including one next September in Turkey, whose prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, just tried to muzzle Twitter in his country.

Pessimists note international conferences often end in disagreement and rancour. Just look at what has happened to international talks on environmental issues, where for decades governments and activists have failed to agree on meaningful measures to combat climate change. Instead of a meeting of the minds, the pessimists fear, powerful, undemocratic governments will muscle in and stifle the freedoms now enjoyed by web users.

In this dark vision, an unidentified UN bureaucrat will decide who can register an internet domain name and who will be deemed too disruptive by authoritarian governments that already exercise too much power over the UN bureaucracy.

Some such criticism surfaced immediately after the US commerce department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced that it had instructed ICANN, which it controls, to “transition” its functions away, starting a “final phase” of privatising the internet.

“I trust the innovators and entrepreneurs more than the bureaucrats — whether they’re in DC or Brussels,” said John Thune of South Dakota, the ranking Republican on the Senate commerce committee.

But, he added, “there are people who want to see the internet fall into the grip of the UN” or another “unaccountable organisation with the power to control the internet, and we cannot allow them to determine how this process plays out”.

Perhaps to answer concerns over a UN takeover, the NTIA’s top spokesman, Lawrence Strickling, recently issued a statement that he hoped would clear up “misunderstandings” about the plan. Any transition, he stressed, must “protect the security, stability, and resiliency of the internet”.

America “will not accept a proposal that replaces NTIA’s role with a government-led or an intergovernmental solution”, Strickling added, vowing that the transition plan would be halted, and his department “will continue to perform our current stewardship role”, as long its concerns are not met — and if a body like the UN tries to take over the administration of the net. UN officials do not, however, exclude an “intergovernmental” body’s future involvement. As one UN official said when I asked if the UN expects to take over America’s duties, “we cannot foresee how the transition will unfold”.

Immediately after Washington made the announcement, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon rushed to “welcome” the move. So did Hamadoun Toure Itu, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, a UN body that some powerful UN members hope will have a central role in the future. The ITU is controlled by a 48-member council that includes representatives from Cuba, Egypt, and China, and other countries where web access is strictly controlled by the government.

As a young man, the Malian-born Toure Itu, who has headed the ITU since 2010, honed his computer engineering skills at universities in Leningrad and Moscow, in what was then the communist Soviet Union.

No wonder that amid the hesitant welcome in Washington for the NTIA’s decision-which, surprisingly, included not only Democrats and several web giants but also government-weary conservatives who often criticise the administration — there were also warnings.

In fact, the March announcement dates back to a decision made by the George W Bush administration back in 2005. The US participated then in a conference in Tunisia organised by the UN, ostensibly to bridge the gap between internet haves and have-nots.

In that conference, America joined a consensus in agreeing that ICANN’s duties should eventually be transferred from US hands to a “global body” with full authority to manage domain names and other duties of internet governance.

More recently, in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s theft of National Security Agency documents, Washington found itself under growing pressure from world leaders and internet firms all expressing concern over web snooping and the infringement of privacy.

Rousseff, the host of April’s Sao Paolo conference, and German chancellor Angela Merkel were at the forefront of the sharp criticism of snooping by US agencies.

The European Commission has volunteered to become an “honest broker” in Sao Paolo and in the future as a new internet management model emerges.

“Europe must play a strong role in defining what the net of the future looks like,” said the commission’s vice president, Neelie Kroes.

Like the US, Kroes said, she is opposed to any “top-down” model, such as transferring control into the hands of the UN or the ITU.

Nevertheless, echoing concerns about America’s secret snooping program, Kroes’ deputy chief of staff, Pearse O’Donohue, said “complacency over the current model”, in which the US government controls domain names, is no good either. Neither a “model of greater control” nor “a lack of governance” would work, O’Donohue warned.

However, in America, some are concerned that by ceding control, the US guarantees that the process will end in internet anarchy — or control by the wrong forces.

“What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to?” tweeted former US House speaker Newt Gingrich. “This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”