1. What is Internet Governance?
Concepts and Definitions

2. The WSIS definition
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”

3. Breaking down “Internet governance”
What is the Internet?
What is governance?
What is governance of the Internet?
Who governs?

4. What is the Internet? The basics
Issues of Internet governance relate to Internet-unique technical architecture rather than the larger sphere of information and communication technology policy” Laura Denardis
The basics

6. Resources for internetworking
Numbers
IP Addresses
Autonomous System Numbers
Protocols
IP (Internet protocol)
TCP (Transport control protocol)
BGP (inter-domain routing protocol)
Names
DNS

7. Autonomous Systems

9. What is governance?
Steering a distributed system

10. Governance, rules, order
Steering or shaping of a complex system
Governance vs. government
Different modes of governance
Markets
Hierarchies
Networks

11. What is governance of the Internet?
Cyberspace as a new domain

12. The cyberspace governance problem
Mismatch between territorial boundaries of states and global cyberspace
Novel legal problems
Transformations of trademark & copyright law
Jurisdiction issues
Content regulation

13. Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
John Perry Barlow, 1996

14. Distributed governance

15. Centralized coordination of Internet
Numbers
IP Addresses
Autonomous System Numbers
Protocols
IP (Internet protocol)
TCP (Transport control protocol)
BGP (inter-domain routing protocol)
Names
DNS

16. Technical Resources and Policy
Rights
Scarcity and externalities
Uniqueness and exclusivity

17. Who governs?
Techies, Businesspeople, Lawyers, Politicians

20. “We reject kings, presidents, and voting
“We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.” (David Clark, IETF, 1992)

21. Expansion of the relevant community
Trademark lawyers
Civil society rights advocates
Internet industry
People in developing countries
Governments

22. History of Internet Governance
From NSF to WSIS to WCIT

23. Liberalization of telecommunications
Privatization of state-owned PTTs
Competition in local and long distance networks
Competition in telecom equipment
Separation of information services and telecommunications
WTO free trade agreements in equipment (ITA) and services (BTS)

24. Internet takes off,

25. From research network to commercial mass medium
US federal government privatizes NSFNet backbone,
Multiple, competing ISPs
Allows charging for domain names 1995
Network Solutions, Inc.

26. Framework for Global Electronic Commerce
Private sector leadership
Governments should avoid undue restrictions
Rely on contract law, not national legislation
E-commerce should be global

27. Governance conflicts over the internet
Domain name – trademark conflicts (1994 – 1998)
Attempt by ISOC, ITU and WIPO to self-privatize the DNS (1996-7)
The Communications Decency Act (1996)
Attempt to censor “indecent content” thrown out by U.S. Supreme Court
Private intermediaries have immunity for publishing third party content
Private intermediaries have immunity for efforts to censor third party content
U.S. Department of Commerce White Paper proceeding in
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998)
Notice and takedown procedure for copyright infringements

28. Formation of
A California non-profit public benefit corporation

29. Domain name rights conflicts: 2nd level
Trademarks
The cases of miller.com, clue.com, pokey.org, panavision.com
Country names
SouthAfrica.com
Amazon TLD
Personal names
Britneyspears.com
Georgebush.com
Georgebushsucks.com

30. Domain name rights conflicts: Top-level
Demand for New TLDs
How many?
What character strings will be created?
Who will they be assigned to?
Regulation of TLDs
Assigned forever, as private property, or temporarily?
Charge for the assignment, or not?
Country codes
National governments’ sovereignty claims

31. Domain Name Rights Conflicts: The Root
Who runs the root zone functions?
Who gets to decide what new TLDs exist?
How is this person/organization made accountable?
Elected?
Appointed? By whom?

32. A New Governance Model Privatization of the governance function
Contractual relations
Generic TLD Registries (.com, .org, .info, etc.)
Registrars (accredited)
Country code TLD registries (loose or no contracts)
Root server operators (no contracts yet)
IANA functions contract
Tied ICANN to US government
Accountability issues

33. ICANN and Visions of Global Democracy
Initially conceived as a membership organization
Individual members would elect half the board
Members had specific legal rights under California law
“Trial” election in 2000 brought 3 ICANN critics onto the board
ICANN abolished elections in 2002, replaced it with At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and RALOs.

34. World Summit on the Information Society

35. The first challenge to the model
From
Attempt by some states to subject Internet to conventional intergovernmental model
Attempt by non-state actors to gain a stronger role in global governance

36. What was it all about?
How do we make ‘public policy’ for the global internet?
What is the role of national governments relative to the private sector and civil society in policy making for the Internet?
Why does one government (the U.S.) control ICANN?
Should there be governmental oversight of the organically developed Internet institutions (especially ICANN)?

37. WSIS and stakeholder roles
Geneva Resolutions and Tunis Agenda attempt to force different stakeholder groups into specific ‘roles’
‘Policy authority’ reserved to states as a ‘sovereign right’
Business relegated to ‘technical and operational matters’ that ‘do not impact on international public policy issues’
Civil society ‘has played an important role on Internet matters…at the community level’
This division of the world simply does not work
Public policy issues mixed up with technical and operational matters
The ‘public’ in the ‘public policy’ is transnational, not national
There is no ‘sovereignty’ in cyberspace

38. The WSIS definition of IG
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”

39. The WSIS definition of IG
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”

40. International regime theory
“a set of explicit or implicit principles, norms, rules, and decision making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area.”
-- Stephen Krasner

41. The WSIS definition of IG
“Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”

42. The Tunis Agenda

43. The Tunis Agenda

44. The Internet Governance Forum
Product of a political bargain
Key actors and interests
State actors (developing world)
State and private sector actors from the developed world
Civil society actors
U.S. govt and private sector actors
All could agree on a nonbinding discussion forum

45. Continued State / Internet issues
Tensions in the ICANN GAC
The UN Committee on Internet Related Policies
The “Enhanced Cooperation” Working Group (UN CSTD)
Growing efforts by states to filter, censor global information flows
Growing concerns about cybersecurity

46. WCIT, the ITRs and the ITU
Revising the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs)
Dubai December 1 – 14, 2012
The 1988 WATTC
Telecom liberalization
Article 9 “special arrangements”
“information services” vs. “telecommunications”
Revising the ITRs
Role of the ITU in internet Governance
Nonbinding resolution
The ETNO proposal
Cyber security and spam

47. A split world?
Black
Votes for
Red
Votes against

48. The NSA revelations Reveals increased scope and scale of surveillance
Links military/national security to Internet
Reveals pre-eminence of one state (USA)
Shows how the state leverages the private sector, linking US economic lead to US military power
Undermines US claims of neutral stewardship
Triggers nationalistic responses

49. The IANA transition
March 14 NTIA announcement that it will complete the transition
Designated ICANN as “convenor” of a process to execute the transition, set Sept 30, 2015 as the target for completion
IANA Stewardship Coordination Group formed
Accountability concerns linked to the transition
Successful conclusion October 1, 2016

50. Additional materials Ruling the Root (MIT Press, 2002)
From technical community to formation of ICANN
Networks and States (MIT Press, 2010)
Internet governance in the post-WSIS period
Will the Internet Fragment? (Polity Press, 2017)
IG, sovereignty and alignment