a week of William New's articles from the ICANN meeting

[Frannie Wellings]

In my attempt at Spanish (sorry if it doesn't make sense)...
Aquí estan los artículos escritos por William New para el diario
National Journal Technology Daily durante la semana de las reuniones
de ICANN.  Deseo que podría traducir los artículos.  Convengo que que
la información debe llegar a todos, en su propia lengua para
precisamente entender que es un proceso global.- Frannie

And in English...
Here are the articles William New wrote for National Journal's
Technology Daily during the week of the ICANN meetings. I wish I
could translate the articles.  I agree that this is a global process.
I wish we had the translation tools necessary for all to communicate,
but also that people would make the effort to understand and
communicate in languages other than English and translate their work
where possible.  - Frannie




03-01-2004

Net Governance: Lawsuits, Governance Top Issues At ICANN's Rome Meeting



ROME -- At a weeklong meeting of hundreds of veteran constituents of the
Internet community that started Monday, debate is occurring on myriad
technical issues. But stealing the limelight at the board meeting of the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are new
lawsuits and a debate over the organization's role in global Internet
governance.


The nonprofit ICANN oversees the Internet-addressing system but is working
to dispel the notion that it has overstepped its bounds into other types
of policy issues.


ICANN President Paul Twomey on Monday tried to do that in a report to the
body's Government Advisory Committee. ICANN is involved in "creating
technical policy, not public policy," he said. Characterizations lately
that ICANN is an organization for developed countries are "far from the
truth," he said.


Paolo Vigerano, speaking on behalf of the host Italian government, said
government participation in ICANN is essential to represent the public
interest.


ICANN handles technical coordination, which Twomey said is at the bottom
of five layers of Internet governance. Above it are legal and
administrative issues, development, economic issues and culture. Twomey
pleaded with officials to inform their people of ICANN's limited technical
role.


On Thursday, ICANN was hit with a lawsuit from VeriSign, the manager of
Internet addresses ending in .com and .net, for allegedly impeding its
ability to introduce new technologies. Then on Friday, ICANN and VeriSign
were sued for antitrust by a group of registrars for allegedly colluding
on a proposed wait-listing service for expired domain names.


"The relief was that on Saturday the courts were closed," so ICANN could
not be sued three days in a row, Twomey joked.


ICANN currently is the subject of five lawsuits, something that Twomey and
board chairman Vint Cerf, an Internet founder, termed commonplace in the
business world. Several suits involve who would get the money from the
wait-listing service, Twomey said.


In his report, Twomey emphasized ICANN's origins, in which it was directed
to ensure stability, competition, bottom-up coordination and broad
representation in the Internet community. ICANN, based near Los Angeles,
was created as a result of a 1998 U.S. government white paper.


Twomey reported on months of consultations with more than a dozen Internet
constituencies spanning governments, holders of domain suffixes for
countries (like .de for Germany), technical experts, Internet users, law
enforcement and intellectual property holders.


The message from the groups was for ICANN to finish separating itself from
the U.S. Commerce Department, preserve future stability, augment core
functions, introduce new domains suffixes, help developing countries,
introduce multilingual domain formats and promote consumer
services.


On Monday, ICANN announced the formation of the Country-Code Naming
Supporting Organization (CCNSO), which will develop and recommend to ICANN
policies related to country-based suffixes. The announcement comes after
years of negotiations to get managers of country domains to buy into
ICANN.


A European official at the meeting expressed concern that the announcement
could effectively freeze the process of getting new country domain
managers to join ICANN, and several large countries have not.


By William New

_____________________________

03-02-2004

Net Governance: Debate Over Wait List For Domains Is All About Money



ROME -- One of the hottest issues at the board meeting of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) here, whether the group
should proceed with a wait-listing service for expired Internet addresses,
is at its core a fight over money.


"The difficult thing is that it's about monetary interests," John Jeffrey,
ICANN general counsel, said on Tuesday. "One party says we have gone too
fast, the other says we have gone too slow."


ICANN is the subject of two lawsuits over the service. VeriSign, which
proposed the service, said ICANN's delay has interfered with its ability
to introduce new services. A group of registrars, or domain-name
retailers, sued to say ICANN is unfairly aiding VeriSign by supporting the
service. And an earlier lawsuit by three registrars was dropped last fall.
Several of the eight registrars in the suit were not accredited when the
ICANN board approved the service.


The ICANN board is scheduled to decide Saturday whether conditions it
imposed in accepting the service at last June's meeting have been
negotiated to its liking. If approved, the proposal will go to the
Commerce Department for approval.


Commerce has an agreement with ICANN that it must approve any changes in
the relationship with VeriSign, the manager of the .com and .net domain
extensions that account for the majority of domains. Commerce could kick
the issue to the FTC, one source said.


The board's plan is for a one-year trial of the service with a review at
the end. Some people at the meeting have called for the trial to be
limited to .net domains.


At issue are the thousands of domains that are dropped after owners do not
renew their annual fees of $6 to VeriSign.


VeriSign's Chuck Gomes told the non-commercial constituents on Tuesday
that the company has invested millions of dollars without return in
developing the pool of names that the other companies use for gain. Under
the wait-listing service, VeriSign would charge $24 per year to registrars
to reserve the rights to a name, on a first-come basis, when it becomes
available.


The Canadian firm Pool.com strongly opposes the wait list because nine
months after launching an alternative service, it is earning the
equivalent of $30 million a year. Every day at 2 p.m., VeriSign drops an
average of 20,000 domains, and 40 registrars under contract with Pool.com
try to get any that it had requested, typically 500 to 1,000.


If Pool.com has more than one request for a domain -- and it gets as many
as 200 per name -- it holds an auction that generates hundreds of
thousands of dollars. The company argues that the wait list will kill a
$50 million industry and is unnecessary now that other changes have been
made by ICANN, such as a 30-day period for notifying domain holders of the
impending expirations.


Pool.com, based in Ottawa, Ontario, also has a complaint against ICANN in
an Ottawa court that is currently deciding on jurisdiction.


By William New


___________________________

03-02-2004

Net Governance: ICANN Opens Doors To Opposing Groups, With Limits



ROME -- The organization that manages the Internet-addressing system has
broken with years of "tradition" and is letting groups that oppose its
policies sponsor one of its meetings.


New.net, a registry for 87 Internet domain extensions in six languages, is
not accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) but has tried since its inception three years ago to participate
in an ICANN meeting as a sponsor. ICANN repeatedly has rebuffed the
proposal, never fully explaining why, according to New.net CEO Dan Sheehy.
But at this week's ICANN meeting here, New.net has a booth.


In addition, a last-minute sponsorship was awarded to Pool.com, which is
using its prominent booth to urge that the ICANN board kill a plan to
institute a wait-listing service for domain names whose registrations have
expired.


Both had to agree to curtail their criticism of ICANN and, in Pool.com's
case, of VeriSign, which has proposed the wait-listing service. According
to Claudio Corbetta, CEO of meeting organizer Register.it, ICANN at first
refused the Pool.com application, then changed its mind.


ICANN states on its Web site that it "reserves the right not to accept
sponsorships from organizations whose missions and activities conflict
with ICANN policies." ICANN officials did not want to comment for this
story.


New.net was started out of frustration with the slow pace at ICANN in
launching new domain suffixes. The registry operates a parallel domain
system on an alternative global network by getting Internet service
providers to agree to make their servers recognize the New.net names.
Seven registrars, or domain retailers, sell New.net names , which include
.shop, .family, .familia, .boutique, .travel, .inc and .gmbh (the German
incorporation mark).


New.net is working with a registry called Tralliance, which has an
application into ICANN for .travel to be introduced in the next round of
approved domain endings that may be used only by entities fitting specific
descriptions. ICANN has called for applications by March 15.


New.net's ultimate goal is to be the accredited registry, or sole manager,
of the names it controls if ICANN ever introduces them. Sheehy, who
attended last year's ICANN board meeting, stopped the company's practice
of publicly bashing ICANN. A formal meeting finally occurred in December,
he said.


ICANN's management also has changed, with Australian Paul Twomey just
completing one year as president. In the meeting with New.net, ICANN
officials "were really listening," Sheehy said, and did not "just view us
as these heretics out to get them."


One possible reason for the broader sponsorship is ICANN's eagerness to
change the perception that it is not a representative organization.
Another possibility is that it wanted to allow additional opportunities
for revenue to be made by Register.it.


The Rome meeting is the first as a business investment. Corbetta said
three sponsors -- a group managing .org, VeriSign and the Italian
Web-hosting company Seeweb -- paid about $50,000. Other sponsors,
including New.net, paid half that. Register.it will fall about $40,000
short of breaking even, which it considers a good investment, Corbetta
said.


By William New

__________________________

03-03-2004

Intellectual Property: Internet Firms, Consumers Question European Directive




ROME -- U.S. and European Internet service providers (ISPs) and consumer
groups continue to express alarm about a draft directive on intellectual
property scheduled for a vote by the European Parliament next
week.


Sarah Deutsch, vice president at Verizon Communications, which is a member
of a European ISP alliance, said efforts continue for a "slow and careful
consideration" of the draft instead of a "rush to passage."


The draft has taken the step of "deputizing bounty hunters, agents and
other third parties" to seek broad injunctions to obtain the identities of
online users suspected of infringement and to seize assets, including
those from ISPs, Deutsch said. "They could seize servers or network
equipment," she said. The effect of the law "could be to literally take
down your business if you're an online company."


Deutsch addressed the issue here on Wednesday while attending the board
meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers.


The proposed directive is markedly different from U.S. law, where the
recording industry currently may not use subpoenas to obtain records
without going through a judge. The European draft leaves that decision to
"judicial authorities" of European Union countries, which Deutsch said
could mean either a clerk or a judge. Under the U.S. Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, a court has to apply a special four-part test before
ordering action.


Another issue in the European draft is the lack of reimbursement for ISPs
for relinquishing data to meet requests for customer information. ISPs get
requests from many sectors, she said.


The draft has improved a little from the ISP perspective since emerging
from a parliamentary committee months ago, Deutsch said. For instance, a
provision was stripped that would have required ISPs to report
intellectual property infringements to rights holders.


An international coalition of civil liberties and consumer rights groups
is preparing a protest in favor of digital rights the day before the March
9 European Parliament vote in Brussels, Belgium. The groups oppose the
directive because of its "excessive treatment of users and consumers for
minor and non-commercial infringements," putting them on par with large
commercial counterfeiters, the U.S. group IP Justice said in a
release.


Members of the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) include IP
Justice, European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Foundation for Information
Policy Research (FIPR) and the Foundation for a Free Information
Infrastructure (FFII).


The groups are calling for the draft directive to be more narrow and
proportionate and to define "intellectual property rights." They also want
officials to drop the ability of copyrights holder to hire private police
to invade the homes of alleged infringers, as well as the ability to
freeze assets before a court hearing. And they oppose the ability for
rights holders to obtain personal information on users of file-sharing
software, and to seize and destroy ISPs' equipment.


The groups called for more debate before a vote.

By William New

__________________________________

03-03-2004

Net Governance: Tensions Rise Over New Internet Registry Services




ROME -- Tensions have soared at this week's international Internet meeting
here over how to handle a revision of rules for the introduction of new
services related to the core suffixes for Internet addresses.


The fight is epitomized by the differences between registries, the
managers of such domain extensions like .com that are the subject of the
change, and registrars, the retailers of domain names under those
extensions.


"Registries tend to support a more relaxed approach that is sensitive to
the market position of the registry involved," said Roger Cochetti, a
Washington-based domain expert. Overall, they lean toward more caution for
larger registries and less caution for smaller registries, he said.
VeriSign, the registry for .com and .net and the dominant industry player,
took exception to that notion in a Wednesday statement issued by the
registry constituency.


"The registrars tend to support a more cautious approach that focuses on
technical or market issues that could arise," Cochetti said. Registrars
previously have asked only that any proposed services be quickly examined
for their effect on the technical stability of the Internet and whether
they would impact competition. Under those measures, most plans would be
readily approved.


The issue is on the agenda of the board of the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet-addressing
system.


Internet service providers have asked that the domain-name system not be
altered without notifying them. And business users have voiced concerns
about competition and stability as well. NeuLevel, the registry for .biz
and .us domain suffixes, has called for predictability.


The broader debate over how to handle changes to registry services runs
into a sharp disagreement about a proposed wait-listing service for
domains whose registrations expire. Domain holders must pay a nominal
yearly fee, usually around $6, to retain domains. VeriSign, the .com and
.net registry, proposed the wait-listing service two years ago and last
week sued ICANN for taking so long to decide on its proposal.


Registrars oppose the service because a multimillion-dollar business in
reselling expired domains has emerged in the last year while ICANN
deliberated over VeriSign's proposal. The business constituency also
opposes the service.


The broad-based names council decided Wednesday to remind the board of its
2002 decision against the wait-listing proposal.


The registry-service issue -- as well as the wait-listing lawsuit -- is at
least in part about how to better define the terms of VeriSign's unique
contract with ICANN. As the dominant registry, any changes that affect the
domain database it controls must be approved by ICANN and the U.S.
Commerce Department.


VeriSign argued in its lawsuit that the wait list falls outside the
contract terms. But the board is scheduled to rule on it Saturday, and the
decision would create an interesting situation for VeriSign if the list
were approved.


The level of disagreement over the issue led one high-level participant to
exclaim afterward, "I think the registrars want to choose what type of
toilet paper I use."


By William New

___________________________________

03-04-2004

Net Governance: ICANN Urged To Seek Purpose For Web Contact Data



ROME -- An Internet oversight body is being urged by government and
nonprofit privacy experts to consider the underlying purpose it has in
collecting contact information for every owner of an Internet address and
making it public.


The proposal comes during a weeklong meeting here of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as a way to break a
deadlock on the issue of "Whois" data. George Papapavlou, an architect of
the European Union privacy directive and until recently head of the EU
Internet-related services unit, initiated the idea in a Tuesday meeting
with the ICANN non-commercial and registrar constituencies.


"You must ask what is the purpose of the Whois so you can then ask what
data are we talking about," Papapavlou said.


In the EU privacy directive, data is used for a particular purpose, which
leads to a decision of what data to use for what purpose. ICANN, on the
other hand, requires registrars for domain-name suffixes such as .com to
collect basic contact information from all registrants of Web sites. That
data is then made public and, for $10,000, may be used by anyone, such as
marketing firms.


European registrars have had a hard time satisfying the Whois requirements
because the rules do not meet the standards of the EU privacy directive.
"It is not at all clear to me what is the purpose," Papapavlou
said.


He said the directive requires "adequate protection" of personal data if
it is sent to third countries, though it does not specifically address
domain names. If data subjects do not agree with a use of their data or
there is a mistake, they can appeal either to their national data
authority or to a court, although they can be overridden if a need sharing
information is shown.


The directive also requires that the data be accurate and relevant. Data
subjects have a right to remain anonymous and refuse to be included in
directories, like the Whois database. In addition, data must be subjected
to the "least privacy intrusive" option in any case. Europe considers
using personal data for marketing without permission to be privacy
infringement.


On Wednesday, Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller, chairman of
the non-commercial constituency of the Internet, carried Papapavlou's idea
forward in a Whois task force meeting. If the purpose of the data is for
rights holders to bypass lawsuits in resolving disputes, as they have
said, then ICANN should state it, he said.


This week, there also have been lengthy discussions about high levels of
inaccuracy and fraud in the Whois database. One problem is that
unauthorized marketers have obtained access to the database without paying
the $10,000 and are offering it for sale. Holders of intellectual property
rights and law enforcement agencies want greater accuracy to catch illegal
spammers and other fraud artists. And a primary concern regarding the
Whois database is privacy.


Bernard Turcotte of the .ca registry said the bulk registrar Tucows easily
fixed problems with its Whois data after being notified.


By William New

_________________________________

03-04-2004

Privacy: Italian Official Questions 'Safe Harbor,' ICANN Contracts




ROME -- A senior Italian official responsible for the protection of
personal information Thursday called into question the validity of
contracts signed by owners of Internet addresses and criticized the
U.S.-European agreement on privacy.


There is no doubt that the domain-name contracts conflict with Italian law
and should not be recognized, Giovanni Buttarelli, secretary-general of
the Italian Data Protection Authority, told a gathering here at this
week's meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN).


But Buttarelli, who addressed non-commercial users of the Internet, said
there is flexibility in practice because data protection is still a new
concept and some relationships are made without recognition of the law. He
added, however, that European authorities increasingly would begin to pay
attention to the inconsistency between the ICANN contracts and privacy
law.


Specifically, Buttarelli said a requirement imposed by ICANN that the
contact information provided to domain retailers and those registering
names be made public is not consistent with the European Union privacy
directive. Buttarelli serves on the EU working party established under
that directive to monitor its implementation. He cited a paper adopted by
the working party last June.


Buttarelli also took issue with the "safe harbor" agreement negotiated by
the United States and the European Union. U.S. companies that voluntarily
sign the safe harbor agree to provide "adequate" protection of EU
citizens' personal data.


"We have the feeling that effective application is a little difficult," he
said. For instance, he said companies get complaints about the deal but
that they are never passed on to third parties.


Buttarelli said he is "not optimistic" that problems with the "Whois"
contact data for domains will be resolved any time soon, as the ICANN task
forces created to examine the issue showed little progress this week. He
also complained that he was not invited to participate in a series of
workshops on Whois this week, saying that his exclusion furthers the
concern that ICANN is working on the issue without the participation of
privacy experts.


Kathryn Kleiman of the ICANN constituency of non-commercial Internet users
praised Buttarelli's remarks afterward. "Today Dr. Buttarelli reminded us
powerfully and persuasively that ICANN and domain names exist within the
network of national privacy laws, and these laws protect personal data
that registrants must provide," she said.


But in the ICANN Whois task force on which she serves, she said "powerful
corporate interests argue that ICANN policy exists outside and above
national laws. I fear that in the ICANN policy-development process, might
will supercede rights."


Several members of ICANN's intellectual property constituency complained
later that they were not made aware of the Whois meeting (see previous
story).


Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, said, "I think ICANN's Whois process seems to operate in the
absence of informed expertise."


By William New

______________________________

03-04-2004

Net Governance: Officials Urge Limited Government Role Over Internet



ROME -- Global governance over policy issues facing the Internet and the
role of the body that oversees the Internet-addressing system were debated
here Thursday.


Paul Twomey, president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), again said ICANN does not seek to reach beyond its role
as a technical coordinator of the Internet. ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf said
other existing international bodies already are addressing many
issues.


Lucio Stanca, the Italian minister of innovation and technology, told the
ICANN public forum that Italy's position is that "government must be
involved only when public policy is at stake." He proposed that a U.N.
task force being developed to define and discuss Internet governance
include anyone with an interest -- such as governments, the private
sector, nonprofit groups, ICANN and the Internet Engineering Task
Force.


Issues that Stanca said would fall under government responsibility include
child pornography, digital signatures and e-government.


Fiorello Cortiana, an Italian member of the European Parliament, said he
has proposed a European Union directive for an  "Internet bill of rights."
The proposal would provide basic protection for individuals' rights, so
the same battle does not have to be fought with every new law. He cited
examples of pending EU directives on software patents and intellectual
property. The proposal would need a two-thirds majority to become a
directive.


Champion Mitchell, CEO of the Network Solutions domain-name retailer, made
an impassioned plea to the ICANN board to address the privacy of Internet
users and to allow the introduction of more new Internet services demanded
by users.


VeriSign, the wholesaler of .com and .net Internet addresses, recently
spun off Network Solutions. He urged the approval of new registry services
based on consumer demand but criticized VeriSign's handling of its new
services. VeriSign last week filed a lawsuit against ICANN for its delay
in approving VeriSign's proposed services.


Mitchell also said he cleaned house administratively when he took over at
Network Solutions. "When I came in, I inherited a group of monopolists
with arrogance beyond belief," he said.


He said the company surveyed its users and found overwhelmingly that their
biggest concern is privacy of their information and the threat of abuses
like identity theft and fraud.


Mitchell called the "Whois" contact data collected on each person
registering a domain a "huge deterrent" to privacy. Ways can be found to
stop making the data public while providing necessary access to law
enforcement and intellectual property owners, he said.


One-half of Network Solutions customers provide their personal home
information for the Whois databases, and ICANN requires that the data be
made public, Mitchell said. The company gets complaints every week from
its users who have received unsolicited e-mail offers to buy a database of
personal information.


Following through on one offer, the company obtained a diskette with
15,000 names from the Whois database. The diskette is being turned over to
the FTC and Justice Department.


By William New

___________________________

03-05-2004

Net Governance: Business Orientation, Lobbying Of Internet Body Criticized



ROME -- On the final day before votes on a multimillion-dollar policy
change, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
received heavy lobbying from business interests and heavy criticism about
that lobbying from non-business interests.


"I think ICANN has to show that it is more than a group of business people
flying around the world to meet together, mainly from the United States,"
Vittorio Bertola, chair of the ICANN
Interim At-Large Advisory Committee, said at the ICANN meeting
here.


Former ICANN board member Amadeu Abril i Abril of Spain called for "less
lobbying and more public dialogue," adding, "The only thing you are doing
here, my dears, is taking money from one hand and putting it in
another."


The ICANN board is poised to vote Saturday on a proposed wait-listing
service for expired Internet addresses. VeriSign, the manager of the .com
and .net domain-name suffixes that comprise the majority of all domains,
developed the service.


VeriSign's unique contract with ICANN requires that ICANN's board and the
U.S. Commerce Department approve key changes. VeriSign sued ICANN last
week for taking too long to decide on the service, first proposed in 2001,
and allegedly inhibiting the company's ability to compete.


In the last nine months, a new $50 million market has emerged that
includes companies obtaining and reselling expired domains. The lead
company, Pool.com of Ottawa, has been omnipresent this week. VeriSign
representatives have matched Pool.com's arguments point by point. And a
steady stream of companies, nonprofits and ICANN backers have voiced
support or objection, depending mainly on whether they stand to gain
financially from one or the other.


"VeriSign is a bully in the schoolyard," one long-time participant named
Jeff Field said. He recommended "punching the bully in the nose" to gain
respect.


Speakers at the public forum on Thursday and Friday also spoke to
democratic principles of ICANN. Other ICANN faithful took aim at the
perceived lack of inclusiveness in the organization and its board
decisions.


Bruce Tonkin, chair of ICANN's powerful names council, warned board
members not to forget their public at the risk of collapse like the Roman
Empire. "In the most recent Star Wars [movie], the Jedi council was
annihilated," Tonkin said. "Let's hope that doesn't happen here."


He called for better decision-making to avoid litigation, as well as
better compliance with and more analysis of and public input into ICANN
decisions.


ICANN continues to face problems of multilingualism, both on the Internet
and in its internal operations. Some participants praised the opening of a
second office in Brussels, Belgium, because French and English are spoken
there and the location helps alleviate time-zone problems in terms of
contacting the main office in Los Angeles.


But critics also complained that participation in ICANN still requires
English because there is no translation service for meetings or
documents.


Some noted with favor the increase in the government advisory committee's
membership from 70 to 91 in the past year.


By William New

_____________________________

03-08-2004

Domains: ICANN OKs Wait-Listing System For Expired Domain Names



The governing body of the Internet-addressing system on Saturday
overwhelmingly approved a waiting list for redistributing expired domain
names. National Journal's Technology Daily Senior Writer William
New reports that the service now moves to the Commerce Department
for final approval. In August 2002, the board of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) first approved the wait-listing
service proposed by VeriSign, the registry that manages domains ending in
.com and .net. On Saturday, the board approved the conditions for
implementing the service that had been negotiated by the two sides since
that time. A Commerce spokesman said the department would review the
proposal in light of pricing and competition concerns in the domain
market.


National Journal's Technology Daily

--

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Frannie Wellings
Policy Fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Center
Coordinator, The Public Voice
1718 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 200
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wellings at epic.org
+1 202 483 1140 extension 107 (telephone)
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