[governance] Substance: What issues should the WGIG focus on?

[Marc Schneiders]

Yes, I agree. But we should allign woth small businesses for which the
same things are true. And again: I think that in IPv6, due to how it
works, we are fighting a lost battle.

On Thu, 9 Sep 2004, at 11:35 [=GMT-0400], Harold Feld wrote:

> I believe that we should raise the issue of the administration of the
> number space within the context of the WGIG.  We should highlight those
> issues in number allocation that inhibit noncommercial use of the Internet
> and should press for examination of these policies with a goal of changing
> them to policies that facilitate noncommercial use.
>
> Similarly, competitive effects of IP address allocation should be
> examined.  Artificially inflated prices caused by allocation policies that
> inhibit the development of competition hurt all users, but noncommercial
> users in particular.  Artificially inflated prices are essentially a
> regressive tax on IP allocations.
>
> Harold
>
> At 07:21 PM 9/8/2004, you wrote:
> >Not sure what this means. The tendency is to allocate number space to
> >large players (big ISPs which then sub-allocate to smaller comapnies
> >etc.), with no possibility to have your own small subset of IP space
> >as an end user (even if you are an .org with 100 computers). Is this
> >what you'd like to have changed? With IPv6 this seems sort of
> >impossible (so I am told). I think it is a pity too.
> >
> >On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, at 16:32 [=GMT-0400], Harold Feld wrote:
> >
> > > Allow me to suggest an addition:
> > >
> > > 5. Access to number space in a manner that fosters non-commercial access
> > > and is competitively neutral.
> > >
> > > Harold Feld
> > >
> > > At 11:38 AM 9/5/2004, Milton Mueller wrote:
> > > > >>> "William Drake" <wdrake at ictsd.ch> 9/5/2004 12:23:56 AM >>>
> > > > >Can we identify five to seven leading issues and recommendations
> > > > >that we think are the most pressing with regard to IG?  These can
> > > > >be either individual issue-areas (e.g. management of identifiers is
> > > > >obviously one of them) or cross-cutting meta-level problems.
> > > >
> > > >Our forthcoming report will clarify many of these issues.
> > > >We (the Internet Governance Project) will be able to release
> > > >it in a few days. At the moment we are still subject to a
> > > >vetting process. Unfortunately, some of the actors are playing
> > > >games, either strategically refusing to comment or commenting
> > > >privately but telling us that they are officially "not commenting"
> > > >(but still giving us some valuable insight into what they think).
> > > >
> > > >Nevertheless, I can identify several areas that I think will
> > > >prove to be strategic:
> > > >
> > > >1. Relationship of Intellectual Property Protection to
> > > >Free Expression and Privacy.
> > > >I believe that certain international organizations and
> > > >perhaps some business interests will attempt to claim
> > > >that IPR is off the table, and that it has nothing to do
> > > >with Internet governance. Nothing could be further
> > > >from the truth. The Internet has forced a complete
> > > >revision of global copyright and trademark agreements
> > > >In a variety of venues, including
> > > >WIPO and ICANN, we see IPR protection issues
> > > >coming into direct contact with free expression and
> > > >privacy norms and even some scientific inquiry norms.
> > > >These issues should not be worked out exclusively
> > > >in arenas such as WIPO, which are historically mandated
> > > >to serve IPR interests and see IP owners as their
> > > >constituency.
> > > >
> > > >2. ICANN's status as a non-state actor.
> > > >This is a tricky one. ICANN is under attack on three fronts,
> > > >1) its basis in US Govt/law 2) its non-governmental nature
> > > >3) the degree to which it does "policy" as opposed to
> > > >"technical management" (which may be just an extension of
> > > >issue 2). There is no doubt that specific governments intend
> > > >to make an issue of this, and there is still the possibility that
> > > >it will overwhelm everything else. Imho, we need to defend
> > > >the multi-stakeholder, non-state governance of the regime
> > > >against the possibility that it will become more governmental
> > > >and regulatory, while recognizing (critically) that ICANN *does*
> > > >do policy and supporting efforts to find a model that
> > > >does not rely on US govt contracting. There are some even
> > > >deeper issues regarding the use of contracting as a global
> > > >governance mechanism, too much to go into here.
> > > >
> > > >3. Relationship between security/surveillance on the
> > > >Internet and civil liberties.
> > > >Here again, the narrow, issue-specific regimes focused
> > > >on attacking terrorism/crime tend to override other legitimate
> > > >concerns. We could promote a broadened dialogue
> > > >that forces Internet surveillance and security measures to be
> > > >respectful of human rights in a globally uniform way.
> > > >
> > > >4. Right to internetwork globally
> > > >The most fundamental issue is the hardest to convey.
> > > >Territorial governments must formally recognize and
> > > >explicitly accept the non-territorial nature of IP networking
> > > >and the Internet's architecture. No serious agreements about
> > > >Internet governance in any given area can be made until that
> > > >issue is dealt with. Either the potential of global networking
> > > >is accepted as a factual starting point, or governance
> > > >gravitates toward chopping it up into territorially-controlled
> > > >architectures and resource allocation procedures (thus
> > > >destroying much of the value of the Internet). It may be
> > > >too much to ask territorial governments to accept the
> > > >reality and salience of nonterritorial interconnection, but
> > > >that is really the choice they are faced with.
> > > >
> > > >--MM
> > >
>