[WSIS CS-Plenary] Think Web's virtually government free? Think again

[Rikke Frank Joergensen]

Fyi, Rikke
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Dec. 1, 2003. 01:00 AM

Think Web's virtually government free? Think again

MICHAEL GEIST
LAW BYTES

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will be held 
next week in Geneva, promises to be one of the most interesting 
technology-related events in recent memory. The result of months of 
discussion, the meeting will attract more than 50 heads of state and 
6,000 delegates who will address issues from the digital divide to 
Internet governance.

Internet governance questions have proved to be the most contentious 
during the lengthy preparations for the summit. At the global level, the

domain name system is administered by the Internet Corporation for 
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation in 
California. While ICANN enjoys support from the United States as well as

the governments of several other developed countries, including Canada, 
many countries worldwide have begun to voice the view that all 
governments should share in the administration of the domain name 
system. Largely absent from the Internet governance debate in the late 
1990s, these countries have awoken to its importance and have sought to 
place the issue firmly on the global agenda.

The push for greater governmental involvement in the domain name system,

however, has many critics. Reflecting the popular notion that the 
Internet's remarkable growth has come largely without governmental 
regulation, critics of increased governmental participation in Internet 
governance believe the domain name system is best left to a 
decentralized, self-regulatory approach.

A new study I jointly conducted with the International 
Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency, is being 
released today. It casts doubt on the perception that governments are 
not already active participants on Internet governance issues. In fact, 
governments commonly view their national domain names as critical public

resources that must be subject to governmental oversight. Given the 
near-ubiquitous role of government at the national level, it should 
therefore come as little surprise that governments have begun to seek a 
similarly influential role at the international level, where policy 
decisions may have a direct impact on their national domains.

The study surveyed all 189 ITU member states on the role of national 
governments within their domestic, country-code top-level domain 
(ccTLD). The survey featured questions on the policies of their national

domains and governmental involvement in national and international 
Internet governance issues.

Fifty-six countries, representing every global region as well as a broad

cross-section of developed and developing countries, responded to the 
survey. This includes the very large, including the United States, 
Canada, China, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and South Korea, 
as well as the very small, including Seychelles, Burkina Faso, the 
Dominican Republic, Luxembourg and Cambodia.

Contrary to most expectations, the study finds virtually every 
government that responded to the survey either manages, retains direct 
control, or is contemplating formalizing its relationship with its 
ccTLD. This is true even for governments, such as the United States, 
that generally adopt a free-market approach to Internet matters.

When asked about governmental involvement with their ccTLD, 47 per cent 
of responding governments said they retain ultimate control over their 
ccTLD by either running the domain as a public entity or enacting 
legislation granting themselves control over its administration. A 
further 25 per cent have taken steps to assert ultimate authority over 
their national ccTLD, while 20 per cent of respondents said they were 
considering formalizing their relationship with their ccTLD and expected

that relationship to change in the future. Only 7 per cent of 
governments said they had no role in their ccTLD and had no plans to 
alter the present situation.

While the survey reveals an increasing consensus among governments on 
the need to assert a proprietary interest in their national ccTLD, it 
also uncovers striking differences in the commercial approaches of those

domains.

Domain names are typically administered by one of four types of entities

at the national level:

    * Public institutions.
    * Non-profit entities.
    * Academic institutions and individuals.
    * Commercial companies.


The difference in approach often has a significant impact on both 
commercial and policy priorities.

Responding countries with public ccTLDs consistently ranked the public 
interest and the protection of intellectual property rights as top 
priorities, while the number of domain name registrations was viewed as 
the least critical priority. As the ccTLDs move toward increasing 
commercialization, the data suggest priorities begin to invert as the 
public interest and intellectual property protection diminish in 
importance, while the number of domain name registrations increase in 
priority.

This finding is supported by the fact that public ccTLDs are far more 
likely to include restrictions on domain name registrations that limit 
access to the domain to only those registrants who comply with national 
presence requirements. Those domains appear willing to forego larger 
registration numbers in favour of protecting the public interest - 
seemingly defined to include limitations on registrations designed to 
preserve the national character of a ccTLD.

With governments already actively participating in the Internet 
regulatory and policy process at home, they were bound to demand similar

involvement internationally. The true debate at next week's summit is 
therefore not whether governments should be involved in Internet 
governance. Rather it is how they will be involved.


Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce 
Law at the University of Ottawa and technology counsel with the law firm

Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. He is on-line at http://www.michaelgeist.ca

and http://www.osler.com (mgeist at uottawa.ca). The opinions expressed 
herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the 
University of Ottawa or Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.