The world's most egalitarian information system, the Internet, will, at last, be shared among equals as the US government has relinquished its perceived tight control over it.
Yesterday, the agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) and the US government's Department of Commerce expired.
A new agreement, the Affirmation Agreement, with the US Department of Commerce, confirms the effectiveness of the Icann model of international multi-stakeholder and bottom-up governance of the global Internet addressing system. This is according to a statement from the international organisation that administers the highly-technical addressing system that enables people to surf 187 million domain names.
“This means there can no longer be any doubt that the Internet belongs to the world and is not under the control of any single government or special interest group,” says Mike Silber, a local member of Icann's board of directors.
Icann was established 11 years ago and the US government turned over the governance of the Internet to Icann, but continued to have an outsized say in its running. Icann's mandate essentially came from a memorandum of understanding that was signed with the Department of Commerce. This arrangement was highly criticised at the Tunis round of the World Summit on Information Society, in 2007, but the US government refused to change the status quo then.
However, the new agreement means the US government will be just one government that signs an agreement with Icann and, if necessary, other governments can do the same.
“SA currently participates in the existing Icann Government Advisory Committee, as do various other African governments. Now, however, the US government becomes one among equals,” Silber notes.
He says his appointment as a member of the board of directors of Icann, the first South African and only the sixth African to hold this position, indicates African voices from business, civil society and users - in other words - the African Internet community, are being considered.
Speak up
“Now these voices can speak with greater clarity and influence,” Silber says.
He says there is no need for separate agreements; however, Icann is willing to consider such agreements and is cognisant of the important message that signing multiple agreements will send.
Silber says where any country is willing to formally recognise Icann's role as co-ordinator of global Internet identifiers (domain names, but also IP addresses, AS numbers and protocol port and parameter numbers) then Icann is willing to formally recognise its accountability to that country.
“Where the recognition is not formal, the accountability still exists as countries and governments are an important part of the global Internet community.”
However, governments, as part of the global Internet community, are not the only voice of a specific community.
“Icann remains committed to its private sector-led focus, while recognising inputs from all sectors of the community. It was the private sector that transformed the closed US Department of Defence research network, Arpanet, into the global Internet phenomenon and the role of the private sector should similarly not be undermined.”
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