[Ecommerce] Internet governance: report due Aug 15

[Manon Ress]

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=199789&source=r_technology

The Internet's Chief Operating Officer Australian Seeks to Defuse Feuds

It has been nearly 15 years since Paul Twomey first connected to the
Internet from Australia, back when the Web's tentacles had just
tentatively encircled the world. Today, as the administrator who
keeps the Internet's wheels turning, Twomey finds himself at the
heart of a global tempest over how the network should be run. Since
2003, Twomey has been chief executive of the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann, a not-for-profit concern
with headquarters in Marina del Rey, California and overseen by the
U.S. government.

In July, a United Nations task force concluded that because of that
oversight, U.S. interests could unfairly dominate the global network.
It agreed that major changes in Internet governance were needed, but
there was no consensus on what to do. The working group's report will
provide points for debate in Geneva in September at the last large-
scale conference on the topic before a UN summit meeting on the
information age in Tunisia in November. Public comment on the report
is due Aug. 15. Twomey will be in Geneva and Tunis to wave the flag
for Icann's independence. When people talk about the future of the
Internet, passions flame and interests collide, and Icann is often in
the middle, a ready target for people who fear American dominance or
the potential for political exploitation. "Having to answer to just
improving shareholder value would be a delight," Twomey, 44, said,
referring to the main job of most chief executives. "It has taken
more attention and more personal time than I expected." Yet he seems
uniquely suited to his hybrid role. A former management consultant
with McKinsey, he has also directed Australia's information
technology policy, a private-public combination that prepared him to
write nuanced policy statements, balance a multimillion-dollar budget
and understand Internet protocols. That background also helps him
work with the many flavors of debate from the front-room decorum of
diplomats and politicians, who then hammer things out in the
corridors, to the strident, auditorium arm-waving of those with a
cause. Equally important as these qualifications may be another: He
is not an American. That lets him carry the banner of neutrality on
the topic of U.S. control. Some ministers feel more comfortable
confiding frustrations "without feeling constrained that I am the
party they are concerned about," he said. His Australian-ness also
imbues him with Anglo-Saxon political and business values as well as
an understanding of Asia. Having worked for a time in Cambodia and
Thailand, he said he could also appreciate the position of the not-
so-wired.

Marcus Kummer, executive director of the UN working group on Internet
governance, isn't sure how much Twomey's nationality matters. But the
fact that he is Australian "certainly makes the point that Icann is a
global organization," Kummer said. In the end, most people don't care
how the Internet is run, Twomey conceded. They care only that it
runs. Icann's main job is to manage the addressing system that lets
computers on the network find one another.

The upcoming debates in Geneva and Tunis will probably center on
whether Icann should be left alone, or disbanded and reconstituted
with more global ownership, or absorbed into an existing agency like
the UN-run International Telecommunication Union. The Syrians, for
instance, want that agency to manage the domain-name system, the
World Intellectual Property Organization to resolve ownership issues,
and Unesco to handle content matters. Saudi Arabia has argued for
more accountability to governments. India believes it should also
take on issues of spam, cybercrime, the digital divide and others
public policy areas that Twomey believes are far afield from Icann's
purview. The 41 members of the UN working group agreed that Icann
should remain the technical coordinator of the Internet, but left
accountability issues to be resolved. It proposed four models without
recommending any. Still, the fact that they did not emerge with a
political agenda pleases Twomey. "In a UN context, this is not a
politicized document, and I think that is a great step forward."
Twomey said he believed that Icann, with its 21-member, international
board and eight supporting committees, was fulfilling its "multi-
stakeholder" role and ensuring the security and stability of the
Internet. Twomey is paid $260,000 a year and oversees a $25 million
annual budget and about 50 employees. He says some people have
thanked him for doing the job, "because they can't think of anyone
else who would do it." Twomey, who has a doctorate in international
relations from Cambridge University, is fond of saying that "Icann
does not speak on behalf of the United States government." The
statement is somewhat more convincing delivered in Twomey's Down
Under accent.


Source: International Herald Tribune