Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/18/twomey_interview/
ICANN prez delivers internet vision
By Kieren McCarthy (kieren at kmccarthy.eclipse.co.uk)
Published Monday 18th July 2005 15:34 GMT
Interview In his most revealing interview since taking charge of internet
overseeing organisation ICANN in March 2003, president Paul Twomey has
accused governments looking to subsume ICANN into a UN body as "living in a
political fantasy land", while at the same time being thankful that the
internet community doesn't have tanks.
Just months before the future of the internet is decided at a world summit
in Tunisia, Twomey also tackled the US government's recent assertion of
control over the foundation of the internet, plus internal criticism of the
organisation's expanding budget and the recent process that handed ownership
of the dot-net registry to VeriSign.
Twomey also:
* Accused some governments of being short-sighted in their aims
* Offered reform of ICANN's governmental advisory committee (GAC)
* Praised the "robust and colourful" internet community
* Called for greater interaction in ICANN's decision-making processes
* Promised that ICANN would focus on improving its core technical
functions
He also outlined how ICANN was now entering the world of inter-governmental
negotiations as the internet grows from its roots of being an engineer and
academic-created network to a global medium with vital implications for
worldwide education, information and commerce, plus the role he expected to
play in keeping ICANN's best interests at the top of the agenda.
WGIG
But first, with the UN's Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) report
just published in which it outlines four models for the future of the
internet's administration, only one of which sees ICANN retain its autonomy,
Twomey was keen to point out the distinct advantages that the current model
has for world governments.
"I think ICANN came out of that very intense investigation pretty well -
pretty damn well actually. The question is now really focusing on what is
the appropriate place for governments where they can interact.
"I think it¹s very important that in this single interoperable internet that
doesn¹t know boundaries, that has been built up through the academic and
private network, that handles huge numbers of resolutions today, is very
much a source of innovation, it¹s a bit useless just to have governments in
a room - you¹re going to have to go through a multi-stakeholder process just
to inform everybody people about what is going on.
"In that sense I am much more a pragmatist than a purist, I think that the
pragmatic benefit to the international community is to have a
multi-stakeholder focus for discussion."
And, of course, Twomey sees ICANN's own Governmental Advistory Committee
(GAC) as providing governments with the ideal entry point into that process.
He is happy to see changes if they eleviate governments' current concerns:
"If they wish to change the name of it, that¹s up to them inside the GAC. If
they want to revise how it works, that¹s up to them. But it strikes me it
would be exceptionally short-sighted of a government to say I want to get
rid of this¹ for whatever political theory reason when actually it¹s a
mechanism whereby they can ensure that something that they cannot guarantee
will be put in place."
And by "cannot guarantee", Twomey is quite explicit: "The internet is well
over 200,000 interconnecting private networks. Nobody owns the whole thing.
ICANN has contractual agreements - has over 500 of them - with registries
and registrars which help set frameworks for how those functions work across
those networks, and those are contracts written in international private
law.
"One of the key provisions of every contract we sign is that the party
agrees to abide by consensus policy. And consensus policy is a process
outlined in our bylaws whereby all the various parties, stakeholders in
ICANN, can come together and agree a consensus around some policy that needs
to be implemented. Once they agree to this consensus policy - that applies
to every contract we have."
Contrary to one of the models outlined in the WGIG report, Twomey argues
that the GAC cannot be pulled out of the current mechanism. "The government
advisory committee is an essential and integral part of ICANN. It's not a
separable part." And as for the plans to break ICANN apart completely: "If
the UN decides to go with one of the other plans, they could throw a very
important baby out with the bathwater."
Besides, the alternative to the GAC and ICANN process is, in real terms,
non-existent. Governments could of course bring out their own legislation to
cover different elements of the internet, but "they would only apply in
their jurisdiction. A few countries would try to have extra-territoriality
and we'd just ignore them.
"[Alternatively], they could try to pass some international treaty which is
then going to bind private companies, but we¹re talking political fantasy
land. There is no indication as I can see that there is going to be any sort
of support for a binding international treaty that going to cover all
countries of the world and bind all of the companies involved with the
internet through that treaty - I just don¹t see it happening. The internet
fundamentally was built through private contract."
On top of that, Twomey points out that the GAC already has a tremendous
amount of power in the ICANN system: "There¹s no instance that I know of -
and I should know because I was chair of the GAC for four years - no
instance I know of where the GAC has not got what it¹s asked for."
The US government and its 'principles'
But, of course, ICANN had reckoned without the US government announcing just
a few days before the WGIG report was published, a series of four
"principles" in which it stated it will "maintain its historic role"
overseeing the internet's root zone file.
None of the UN's four models of future internet governance see the US
government retain overall control. The report even goes so far to say: "No
single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to
international internet governance."
This puts ICANN in a difficult spot, especially with Twomey having gone on
record numerous times in the past as saying he expected US control to be
handed over when ICANN's contract with the government (a "Memorandum of
Understanding" (MoU)) ends late next year.
Twomey says he was surprised at the media reaction, which reported the
announcement as a US government refusal to hand over control of the
internet. He is more circumspect: "The first three principles are written in
the present tense or the near future tense. They are a statement of the
present state of what they do.
"The key thing about such documents is not what they say, but what they
don't say. It doesn't say anything about the MoU. This is not a bad thing -
contrary to what¹s in the media. We have an MoU that still goes through to
September 2006, it¹s an established document, we¹re working towards that. Do
we see this as some sort of radical disenfranchisement of ICANN? Absolutely
not. I think some of the media misinterpreted it as being a document
directed towards us. I suspect it was a document directed towards other
governments. "
What Twomey is saying is that the first principle which has caused the fuss
is a bargaining tool with the UN as the future of internet governance is
thrashed out. There is no suggestion that the US government will continue to
insist on control of the root zone once the WSIS process is complete.
Here is that first principle: "Given the internet's importance to the
world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the internet
remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking
no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective
and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic
role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone
file."
Twomey is bemused: "I don't think anybody should be surprised that the
United States government would come out with this statement now as a set of
principles with which it could then go and talk to other governments. And I
suspect that is the process happening at the moment."
Internal criticism
If ICANN has found itself under the spotlight from outside, it is also under
stronger criticism from within its own organisation. In particular, its
ever-expanding budget and the recent process by which VeriSign was handed
back control of the dot-org registry.
Twomey begins with an observation of the internet community as a whole.
"There's no point in having a thin skin in this game. In the internet
community from the very beginning it¹s robust. Some of our friends from the
diplomatic community that have come to watch ICANN meetings have sat there
somewhat shocked. I suppose one thing about the internet community is that
we don¹t have tanks. If you¹re a diplomat and you start talking like that,
you know, next week the tanks are rolling."
But such fireworks serve a purpose: "It's very useful because it brings up
problems, it's a way of solving problems. But yes, there's still
personalities, and yes I suppose they are going to continue and they are
going to continue to be noisy and that's fine. I have experienced in my own
previous life as a government officials, the full and varied and colourful
vitriol that Australian citizens can come up with when dealing with the
elected representatives and their officials. I think it¹s healthy. It means
issues come out quickly."
And nowhere has that criticism been as strong as in the recent retendering
process for the dot-net process. The issue saw over 850 complaints lodged
with ICANN's Ombudsman, plus several official statements condemning the
process from several of ICANN's constituencies. The rage was such that
chairman Vint Cerf himself apologised at the start of a public meeting for
how the process had been handled.
Twomey however insists that there was no wrong-doing. "The whole dot-net
process was this 18-month process with a lot of open consultation and a lot
of open transparent processes to put that together. In any environment where
people are going to win and lose, people are going to criticise. But I think
the process has pretty much stood up.
"Whatever came out, whether VeriSign was to be successful or someone else
was successful, people would have had various alternative conspiracy
theories. And there¹s nothing we can do about that. All we can do is follow
a process and put it through.
"I can tell you - and I am absolutely personally emphatic about this - we
ran a process, the process was evaluated, the evaluators came back and gave
us their report, there was a decision made, and there was absolutely no
influence, and no thought throughout that whole process over who should the
winner be."
Alot of the criticism, he claimed, is actually criticism of the outcome. "If
you didn¹t like the outcome, I can understand that. Some people win and some
people lose, but I don¹t think it justified the process was flawed."
Process
The difficulty - and a major issue with ICANN - is that there while the
process itself is open for comment, for one reason or another, people failed
to provide significant input until the process was completed and the
decision made. In the case of dot-net, large changes were made unilaterally
by ICANN staff (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/03/verisign/) but these
were either not noticed or not commented upon during the period made
available for feedback.
Picking on one small point, Twomey explained: "We put the RFP up for
comment. Nobody wrote in and said 'hang on one of the principles of the RFP
should be to ensure that dot-net is held outside the United States'. We
didn't even get that to consider to put into it."
Twomey accepted there was a problem with communication. "There is an issue
about that at the moment. We've got to work more on ways of getting more
people participating. It is a bit frustrating. We've got to run a proper
process but we¹ve also got to be an efficient process. We can't put some
principle in that says 'well we won't stop this until we have 60 responses'.
We've got to say the process of consultation will last four weeks or six
weeks and once you get that period of time, it's over."
And as an example of how ICANN is trying to improve, he refers to the
ongoing strategic planning process. "We are doing a process in three
languages - English, French and Spanish. We are using a group software
process where people can come in and can respond in immediate terms what
they think. We¹re trying to use these sorts of tools, challenging people to
come, to force the feedback rather than post the document waiting for
responses, not get many responses, go to a meeting and get savaged. There¹s
something broken about that so we're going to try to find an alternative,
use alternative tools."
Budget woes
Another bone of contention is ICANN's budget. The projected budget for 2005
was double the previous year at $15.8m, causing significant anger in the
community who accused ICANN of empire building and who will be asked to
stump up the money for it. Now it appears even that figure was conservative
with it expected to come in at $23m, possibly even more.
The outcry has caused the ICANN Board to promise to hold back several
programmes - in particular spending on regional offices - until agreement is
reached with all constituent parts. Twomey is unrepentent.
"One of the things you have to be careful with in the internet community and
ICANN is that there's a great ease in saying we¹re got to do this, this,
this, this and this¹. The meeting finishes and I sit there thinking 'oh well
there's another two million dollars worth of costs, I don't know what I'm
going to do'. That happens a lot. I mean, a lot of people want a whole lot
of things - and you've got to pay for it somehow or other."
Twomey denies the empire building accusation. "Sheez, if I wanted to build a
financial empire I'd go out in the private sector and at least get options
for it. I've been trying to solidify the financial basis and get the budget
in place. That's not because I want to build any damn empires."
As for widening ICANN to the rest of the world, Twomey sees it as vital.
"Part of our experience of having people working in Europe is being in
timezones. It's a big issue if people can ring someone in their own timezone
and deal with in their same timezone. It's a big issue that they can
interact with someone, it's a big issue that they can interact in the
language that they speak, it's a big issue that they understand the culture
that they are coming from.
"It's also important to recognise that there are communities that are not
yet represented here who want to be represented, but will not necessarily
have the same resources. And that¹s an enablement chance for us. An outreach
chance.
"Nitin [Desai - the UN special advisor on internet governance] has said that
the growth in the internet is in the developing countries. They¹re going to
want to be heard, they want a seat. They don¹t think of themselves as
second-class world citizens."
The future and the Twomey legacy
The next four months are going to be vital for ICANN. It is now under
blatant discussion by the world's governments and in November they will
decide exactly what happens to the seven-year-old organisation. It hasn't
exactly passed Twomey by.
"We¹re now in a very different environment. We¹re back in the fairly close
inter-governmental negotiating environment. It will be interesting to watch
in the two weeks in September [Prep-Com3] to see just where the main players
have gone and how the discussions go."
Twomey also recognises the reason he's is on board as ICANN's president is
precisely because of his wide experience as a government official. "I
suspect if you were to ask the Board members, if you were to ask Vint Cerf
and others, why did you choose a certain man as president. I suspect the
choice of who they chose for president was an indication of the Board
understanding the environment they were having to work in. They knew what
sort of skills they needed to have."
Having been in charge of ICANN for nearly two-and-a-half years, Twomey says
he still far from leaving but he already has some reflections on his time
spent at the top: "There are clearly people that disagree with parts of what
they think I¹ve been an agent for. I know there are people out there who
aren¹t necessarily happy with things they think I¹ve been pushing. But I
think alot of people have been on a common view of the common need, I mean,
my real thing is to take this back to the common need."
And as for lessons learnt: "Three-quarters of the things I¹ve learnt I
probably can¹t repeat in public."
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