Think for a moment of the enduring legacy of African slavery in America. Think of the way it tainted this country's culture and politics; think of the bloody Civil War, the ghettos and race riots after emancipation, the distorted interpersonal relations, the segregated housing patterns. What if we could roll back the clock and ensure that our society was "designed" so that slavery was never permitted?

Would you give me 20 million dollars to conduct research on that possibility? Would you think I was an honest man if I implied that my research would "fix" racism? Probably not.

But what if I told you that my computer science lab was working on a "new Internet" that would solve all the security and privacy problems of the existing one? Would you find this claim more credible than a proposed retroactive solution to the problem of slavery?   more »

Wednesday's announcement by the Obama administration, that former Washington state governor Gary Locke has been nominated as the next Secretary of Commerce could be a good sign for Internet governance, and the continued globalization of the ICANN regime. The Chinese-American Locke brings key political capital and experience to the table. He is well respected within and has access to the most senior levels of the Chinese government. And his firm, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, has deep expertise in Internet policy, having represented companies in China and on ICANN issues related to free expression. But, if confirmed, he will have his work cut out for him.   more »

How reformers in the ICANN Board’s Governance Committee translated the recommendations of the LSE report into a blueprint for change.   more »

The current round of ICANN reforms started in September 2006, when the London School of Economics Public Policy Group released a report assessing ICANN's Supporting Organization that makes policy for domain names. In its recommendations, LSE suggested that GNSO be restructured into three basic groupings: Registration Interests (registries and registrars), Businesses, and Civil Society. There was no way around it: in addition to some sensible but less controversial changes, ICANN’s own hired experts were proposing a major redistribution of power in the GNSO.   more »

Important changes are taking place in ICANN’s representational structures. They are the most sweeping changes in ICANN since the so-called “evolution and reform” process of 2001-2. The new changes will directly affect opportunities for people to participate in ICANN – hopefully in a more positive way. Indeed, there are some (potentially) good things about the planned reforms, such as a more balanced representation of commercial and noncommercial users and more flexible working group structures. But there are also serious problems and dangers in this effort.

That is why the Internet Governance Project is initiating a series of blogs explaining and analyzing the structural changes underway in ICANN. If you think reading about this topic is about as appealing as getting a tetanus shot, we sympathize, and promise to make it as lively and interesting as possible. At the very least, we guarantee that reading this unfolding report will be more pleasurable than reading the 23 different ICANN staff reports, 5-6 Board resolutions, months of Council minutes and multiple email lists you would have to monitor to piece it all together for yourself.   more »

Europe is very interested in the Internet of the future, having ceded to the United States so much of the standards and governance of the Internet of the past. A September 29, 2008 European Union staff working paper, “Early Challenges to the Internet of Things,” shot some policy concerns across the bow. How should the IoT be regulated? EU seemed especially concerned about the apparent linkage between the Object Naming System (ONS) used by EPC Global (contracting with VeriSign) and the U.S.-controlled DNS root. Comment upon and responses to this staff paper are now posted online. If you are interested in the evolution of thinking about IoT a look through these comments might be rewarding.   more »