World Wants More DNS ControlBy Jay Lyman
This article appeared in the December issue of Web Host Industry Review magazine. Click Here to subscribe for free.
December 2, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — November’s World Summit in Tunisia marked one of the biggest political showdowns in the history of the Internet, an institution that has been administered by Uncle Sam (admirably so, by most measures) since its birth in 1969, more recently through the internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Some United Nations member states, however, were calling for America to loosen its grip on the Web. Individually, some of these countries – Brazil, Cuba and Iran among them - might have better odds of being invaded by the US than of gaining a hand in the oversight of the Internet, but the addition of the European Union to the ranks of those calling for the US to relinquish some Net governance upped the ante.
The dispute comes as American arrogance seems to be at its peak. With its trademark tact, the current administration has indicated that the US will not budge, and has no plans to interfere with a working control system by bogging down the Web in UN bureaucracy.
Gartner analyst Ron Cowles says the US developed the Internet and created the procedure and policy behind it largely by itself. And although the desire for more control - or some control – is understandable, he says, there may be consequences for the world’s connectivity.
“I don’t know that you need to recreate the whole process [so] it collapses on itself,” says Cowles. “When you get other agencies involved, it’s almost a given they recreate it on their own.”
Nevertheless, Cowles, who covers US regulation of technology for Gartner, says the dialogue on the matter - thus far and to come – is in and of itself a good thing.
“At this meeting, there’s certainly room for input,” he said of the mid-November summit.
But that may not be the case, given the state of US diplomacy, which helped start and continue the “tempest in a teapot,” according to UK attorney Maury Shenk, a partner with the London offices of Steptoe and Johnson. He says the American Department of Commerce, which oversees ICANN, may have started the fight with its strong public words last July.
“The US prompted much of this,” he says, “when the Department of Commerce came out with an aggressive statement in July saying the US would be maintaining its historical role with the Internet.”
Although sensible players, particularly those in Europe, realize that UN Internet oversight would be “a bit of a mess,” Shenk says the conflict is being driven by reaction to broader US policy, including issues such as aircraft subsidies, World Trade Organization difficulties, and deep political disagreement with the US.
Shenk says that while the European Commission is likely sympathetic to a more gradual evolution of Internet control away from the US, the body has taken an emotional approach and sees the Net control issue as a spot where it has more leverage.
“Recent European opinion has been driven largely by extraneous factors and a willingness to take on the US on this,” he says.
Shenk says it will be difficult for the US to argue that it should maintain all of the control over the Internet, which is actually controlled more by corporations than by countries.
“Most of what happens on the Internet is controlled by private parties,” he says.
The chief US complaint over relinquishing some or any of its grip over the Internet is that any kind of UN-style control would unnecessarily slow down the growth and innovation of the Web. However, as the Internet widens its reach and blurs borders even more, there is more need to ensure that rules and policies protect Internet traffic and keep Internet commerce flowing freely. The argument that everything is working fine may have been weakened last month when a dispute between two US Internet service providers – Level 3 and Cogent - disrupted the distribution of Internet traffic.
Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Mukul Krishna says that beyond cooperation on tracking down spammers and sexual predators online, the US and the rest of the world have very different approaches to the Web.
“The agenda of the West - they feel the free flow of information will bring more change, which to the West is good,” he says. “In the Middle and Far East, that’s not good. It’s a difficult situation for everyone. You can’t please everyone.”
Krishna says different languages and type fonts appearing on the Web are also fueling the dispute, which has up and coming Internet nations such as China and established players such as the UK calling for more say in how the Internet is governed.
“A few years back, the US being one of the first innovators, it made perfect sense,” Krishna says. “The [Internet] penetration elsewhere was very little. They were able to have a lot of muscle. Now, we’re seeing huge market penetration elsewhere, particularly in Asia, and it becomes more contentious.
“If you’re the US, you don’t want to give up power. They’re used to the way they’ve done things. Nothing is really going to solve it, at least in the short term.”
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