The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) sparked a fire when it issued a request for comments (RFC) on its policy of turning DNS management over to the private sector:
In June 1998, the Department issued a statement of policy on the privatization of the Internet DNS, which among other things articulated four primary functions for global Internet DNS coordination and management, the need to have these functions performed by the private sector and four principles to guide the transition to private sector management of the Internet DNS.On June 30, 2005, NTIA released the U.S. Principles on the Internet’s Domain Name and Addressing System, which provides in general: the United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet DNS by maintaining its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file; governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD); ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS; and dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora.
Anti-ICANN forces seized the day. The Internet Governance Project (IGP) whipped up a boilerplate message that allows the angry-and-impotent to lash out at the press of a button.
“IGP is urging Internet users everywhere to respond to the NTIA request for comments with the following statement:”
The Internet’s value is created by the participation and cooperation of people all over the world. The Internet is global, not national. Therefore no single Government should have a pre-eminent role in Internet governance.As the US reviews its contract with ICANN, it should work cooperatively with all stakeholders to complete the transition to a Domain Name System independent of US governmental control.
To help IGP demonstrate the power of a concentrated anti-ICANN effort, DNS watchdog ICANNwatch pushed its readers to deploy IGP’s powerful and insightful boilerplate, reasoning:
It will make it clear to the USG (US government) that its current insistence on unilateral governmental control is not where things should remain. It is particularly important to make the point that the US government’s global authority over Internet governance is not matched by any global accountability mechanisms.
After members of the combined groups mercilessly pounded the besieged bureaucrats for four torturous weeks, Email Battles took stock of the carnage.
All told, NTIA mail servers were forced to deal with… sixty comments. All but one were negative. The non-negative message was from an ITU official saying, in effect, “We’ll work with whatever kind of sausage you grind out.”
Fifty-six were unadulterated IGP boilerplate, offering no insight and shining no light. Fourteen actually came from individuals who were presumably eligible to vote in the US.
Frankly, if I was the US-owned bureaucrat doing the tally, I’d throw out all but fourteen, then ignore any remaining commenters who weren’t smart enough to think for themselves, leaving just three messages from sentient beings… but that’s just me.
Nevertheless, you still have time to send in your boilerplate.
No waiting.
Email Battles Backgrounder:
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June 28th, 2006 at 10:23 am
CharlesB
Imagine an Internet run by Syria, China, Iran and (gulp) France.
ICANN dumb, but not that dumb.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Dr. Milton Mueller
You lack a sense of humor. This is an occupational hazard of political hatchet jobs, I know.
You say if you were NTIA you’d throw out all campaign messages. But is that what NTIA did when the Family Research Council generated a few thousand of the same messages by whipping their pavlovian supporters into a frenzy about .xxx and Internet pornography? No, they didn’t throw them out, they assiduously counted them, day by day. And by doing so, they showed that US supervision of the root is subject to the same kind of sleazy politicking as any other government. IGP is simply reminding them of this. The message is a serious one, of course — far more serious and reasonable than the hysterical emails over .xxx — but anyone with a bit of history in their mind can’t avoid the historical overtones.
I suspect they are doing the same counting with IGP’s campaign. Well of course, political oversight of the DNS root doesn’t get the masses lathered up the way porn does. But you — and NTIA — can’t have it both ways. It’s perfectly acceptable for people who agree with a message to express their support for it by sending an email, and it’s dishonest to complain about this practice when it is part of a campaign you don’t agree with while condoning or ignoring it when it’s part of a campaign you like.
At the latest ICANN meeting, the ?US government showed once again that it manipulates ICANN’s policy making processes when it threatens to go in directions they don’t like. Basically the entire world thinks something needs to be done about this artbitrary power. Unless you think the .xxx affair was one of internet governance’s finest hours, you’d think so to.
This distinction might be a bit too subtle for you, but let’s give it a try: IGP and the people who sent in the messages are not “anti-ICANN.” In fact, we are the ones standing up for the original model of DNS privatization, which called for getting all governments — including the US — out of the technical coordination of the internet and letting the private sector, public interest groups, and the technical community self-govern, subject of course to appropriate legal and political accountability. Until the problem of unilateral oversight of ICANN is solved, the governance of the internet will never be stable.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:01 am
BJ
Hi Milton.
re: “You lack a sense of humor.”
Sorry doctor, You just failed the test.
I don’t see ICANN as a perfect… or even really good… answer.
But when I imagine an Internet run as efficiently as the UN, I see nothing but dark fiber. By comparison, ICANN’s nonsense actually makes sense.
When you come up with an alternative that resonates with growth-oriented, freedom-loving technologists, instead of power-grabbing dictators and petty bureaucrats, let me know. I’ll be the first on the bandwagon.
Until then, keep clogging the issue with boilerplates. They’re hilarious.
There is one downside to your technique. Reasonable discussion is buried under the molehill of garbage… Or was that the objective?
[Private note. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE NOT DR. MILTON MUELLER: I provided footnotes to other Email Battles articles to help readers understand EB’s perspective regarding ICANN. It’s a shame that you didn’t read them before unleashing a thoroughly unprofessional and uninformed tirade. In the future, I’d suggest that, if you’re going to bandy your doctorate about, you live up to the title.]