[Ecommerce] Notes from Tunis - the new Internet Goverance Forum

[James Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/notes-from-tunis-the-
n_b_10698.html
November 15, 2005

James Love  11.15.2005
Notes from Tunis - the new Internet Goverance Forum

I=92m in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),
where the biggest debate is over the future of "Internet Governance."
The final text for this was agreed upon about 30 minutes ago.

The two quick sounds bites are that (1) the US and the US based
Internet Corporation for Domain Names and Numbers (ICANN) retain, for
now, control over the most important aspects of the global Internet
Domain Name System (DNS), and (2) the conversation over this issue
and a surprisingly broader governance agenda is continuing, under the
United Nations.

The Tunis resolution will create a new "multi-stakeholder" Internet
Governance Forum (IGF). This new entity will include governments,
various UN agencies, businesses and civil society. It=92s first meeting
will be held in Athens sometime next year. Kofi Anan has been asked
to make it happen, under a fairly complex but open-ended terms of
reference.

The new IGF is, in my opinion, a pretty important development. It is
supposed to provide a space where virtually any Internet governance
issue can be discussed. And while it is not supposed to be a body
that has any binding authority, it will be influential.

Businesses tried to set up their own such forums several times in the
past seven years under such names as the Internet Law and Policy
Forum, or the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce. These
groups were pretty effective in lobbying governments and influencing
global norms, but lacked real legitimacy, for obvious reasons.

Right after the final negotiation on the WSIS Internet Governance
text ended, a few minutes ago, two top US officals held a press
conference -- Ambassador David A Gross from the Department of State
and Michael Gallagher from the US Department of Commerce. They were
pumped up about retaining control over ICANN and the DNS, but then
talked about the new IGF.

They said it would be a place where people could talk about Spam,
identify theft, consumer protection, and a million other things. At
one point Gallagher mentioned the US had a treaty on spam with the
UK, which was news to me. Then he said it was really a tri-lateral
agreement on spam with Australia, the UK and the US.

I asked Gallagher, would the US consider expanding the tri-lateral
agreement on spam to a multilateral agreement with many more
countries. He said, sure. It would be particularly useful to do so in
countries that did not have good spam laws, he said. I then asked,
what about Athens, could such an agreement be discussed at Athens? He
said yes, that would be a good example of what could be done in the IGF.

This is just an example, but a telling one. It would seem as though
there is now a new place that is sort of a global town hall, with
governments very much involved, but open to civil society too, where
people are going to raise issues, and try to craft solutions.

People are going to have to think about what this means, and where it
will go.

Right now I=92m going to get some sleep.

(I=92m in Tunis Wednesday as well, with a local cell +216.22.023.857,
and by email at james.love@cptech.org)


---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040