Leading up to IGF 2008 in Hyderabad the IGP is releasing a second publication, Regional Address Registries, Governance and Internet Freedom. This paper looks at the Regional Internet Address Registries (RIRs), which are private, nonprofit and transnational governance entities that evolved organically with the growth of the Internet to manage and coordinate Internet Protocol addresses. We argue the RIR’s management of Internet address resources is becoming more contentious and more central to global debates over Internet governance. This is happening because of two transformational problems: 1) the depletion of the IPv4 address space; and 2) the attempt to introduce more security into the Internet routing system. We call these problems “transformational” because they raise the stakes of the RIR’s policy decisions, make RIR processes more formal and institutionalized, and have the potential to create new, more centralized control mechanisms over Internet service providers and users. A danger in this transition is that the higher stakes and centralized control mechanisms become magnets for political contention, just as ICANN’s control of the DNS root did. In order to avoid a repeat of the problems of ICANN, we need to think carefully about the relationship between RIRs, governments, and Internet freedom. In particular, we need to shield RIRs from interference by national governments, and strengthen and institutionalize their status as neutral technical coordinators with limited influence over other areas of Internet governance.

IGP submitted comments yesterday to the Department of Commerce regarding the deployment of DNSSEC at the root zone. The Notice of Inquiry raised numerous questions, and put forth six proposed process flows, including ones submitted by ICANN and VeriSign. Just over 35 comments had been submitted by last night, with comments filed by organizations and individuals from the technical community, registries, government contractors involved with DNSSEC deployment, and others. We'll have more analysis on the comments filed later, but my first impression after quickly scanning them is that while there is general agreement that signing the root would obviously be helpful for DNSSEC deployment, it should not be done in haste for a variety of reasons. And numerous parties raised the point that it is critical that any process flow implemented serve the global Internet community, otherwise the presumed benefits of signing will be for naught.

Our comments argued that the act of signing the DNS root raises political and economic issues as well as technical ones.   more »

In anticipation of the upcoming Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India the IGP is releasing the paper, Appraising the Success of the Internet Governance Forum. The paper was written by Dr. Jeremy Malcolm, with some editing and additions by the IGP Scientific Committee. IGP does not wholly endorse the positions taken by Malcolm but is publishing the paper because we believe it raises important points about the degree to which the Internet Governance Forum is fulfilling its mission. We'll be debating and discussing the paper on the IGP blog, feel free to chime in. Our goal is to advance discussion of the IGF's performance in order to contribute to the review of the IGF and the possible renewal of its mandate in 2010.

In this spirit, IGP is concurrently launching an online IGF feedback forum website. The site allows anyone to easily submit and indicate their support for ideas for improving the IGF. It is bottom-up, multistakeholder-driven, collaborative effort - so have at it! Whether your ideas reflect positively or negatively on the IGF, let the Secretariat hear your voice.

The speech by the International Telecommunication Union’s Hamadoun Touré brought the ongoing power struggle over Internet governance into the open. Toure spoke openly of the ongoing “war” between ICANN and the ITU. He demanded a stronger role for governments in ICANN, dismissing ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as “cosmetic” (quite wrong, as I will show later). He correctly accused the UN Internet Governance Forum of “avoiding issues” but also rather harshly dismissed it as a “waste of time.” I commend Secretary General Touré for his forthrightness, which is all too rare in international organizations. Unfortunately, his blunt speech supports the wrong cause.

Let me be blunt, too. Mr. Secretary-General, this is all about competition for power, isn’t it? Your international organization lost a lot of authority over the communications industry when the Internet emerged, and now you are trying to get some of it back. The same goes for the governments who constitute the GAC. And of course, for the U.S. government, it’s all about holding on to the special powers it got because of its historical control over the contractors who ran the early internet. Why should internet users and civil society care about your demands?   more »

Poor GNSO. As all the policy making power gravitates to GAC and ccTLDs, we see the GNSO Council laboring in a big room with no one watching.

ICANN's policy for adding new generic TLDs was (sort of) settled in June. Now the staff has come up with a 200-page implementation plan that is being circulated at the Cairo meeting and online. The plan will clearly have to be modified; it is generating massive discontent and controversy.   more »