How Best to Govern the Internet

Recently, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in Geneva. The issue of Internet governance proved to be the most contentious issue during the preparations for the summit. The degree of national control over the Internet is an issue that has divided countries – developing countries want the Internet regulated by a UN body, while industrialized countries would like to limit the involvement of international agencies. Currently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation based in California, administers the domain name system on a global level. ICANN is supported in part by governments of several developed countries, including the United States and Canada, but other countries have begun to advocate greater governmental involvement in the domain name system. However, a recent study suggests that governments are already active participants on Internet governance issues. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a UN agency, and Michael Geist, the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, conducted a survey of governments' roles in the administration of domestic country-code top-level domains (ccTLD, e.g. the 'ca' in www.canada.ca). The survey posed questions on the policies of such national domains as well as governmental involvement in national and international Internet governance issues. Released on December 1st, the study found that, of the 56 of 189 ITU Member States that responded, 47% of governments retain ultimate control over their ccTLD. An additional 25% have taken steps to assert ultimate authority, 20% are considering formalizing their relationship with their ccTLD and only 7% had no role and no plans to alter their present situations. Although the results show significant differences in the approach of domain name administration at the national level, they also show an "increasing consensus among respondents on the need for national governments to assert a proprietary interest in their national ccTLD." Shortly before the WSIS, negotiators agreed that, rather than deal with governance issues at the conference, a UN group should be set up to study new ways to run the Internet. Professor Geist concluded that the debate will not be whether governments should be involved but how they will be involved in Internet governance. This group's proposals will be presented at a future information summit, to be held in Tunisia in 2005. To access the text of the Survey, see: www.michaelgeist.ca/geistgovernmentcctlds.pdf. A column by Michael Geist is found at: http://shorl.com/fastokobruhako. Also see: http://news.findlaw.com/ap/ht/1700/12-8-2003/20031208063003_08.html. For the web site of the summit, see: www.itu.int/wsis. Summary by: Clare McCurley