InternetPolicy.net

ICANN's "democratic" failure?

Two papers released this week focus on the apparent failure of public participation in ICANN's decision-making. Since they are related to each other but reach different conclusions, their conflict is highly illuminating.

On 8 December, John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, released "The End of the Experiment: How ICANN's Foray into Global Internet Democracy Failed." This 61-page PDF file can be downloaded here.

A day later, Andrew McLaughlin responded to an earlier version of Palfrey's paper, with "The Virtues of Deliberative Policymaking: A Response to 'Public Participation in ICANN'". McLaughlin's anger can be felt even in his introduction: "[Palfrey's] study's value is diminished by two rather fundamental shortcomings: (1) its misapprehension of both the theory and the practice of ICANN's policy-development process, and (2) the sizeable gap between the broad scope of the study's conclusions and the very narrow -- indeed, myopic -- focus of the analysis from which they are derived. Simply put, the study scrutinizes a small and misleading corner of ICANN (namely, its online public comment forums) and leaps to a sweeping (and, in my view, unwarranted) conclusion."

McLaughlin was ICANN's Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Chief Financial Officer during 1999-2002. That doesn't make him a blind supporter so much as someone familiar with ICANN's inner workings.

North Korea's "secure" email

Our colleague in Belarus, Mikhail Doroshevich, forwarded an interesting story from CNET Asia last week that we overlooked while moving into a new computer: "North Korea has launched an email service that 'guarantees the privacy of correspondence'... The report from the official North Korean news agency, Korean Central News Agency, which is itself run from a Japanese-domain Web site, was sparse on details... The system is operating from North Korea's International Communications Center and works over local dial-up with a user name and password, and is free of charge. How many Internet users, or even how many computer users there are in North Korea, remains unknown, although an Associated Press wire agency report on the email service said that few are believed to have any access. Leader Kim Jong II is known to be online, and has repeatedly mentioned the importance of computer technology. Foreign visitors can connect their computers through international phone lines at a few North Korean hotels and an Internet cafe reportedly recently opened in Pyongyang. Rumours of North Korea training hackers to attack South Korea have been circulating... It remains illegal for any South Koreans to email their northern neighbors without government permission."

FCC chairman against VoIP regulation

Christopher Stern wrote in yesterday's Washington Post that "FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell opposes the regulation of telephone calls traveling over the Internet, arguing that regulation could stifle the development of this evolving technology. 'No regulator, either federal or state, should tread into this area without an absolutely compelling justification for doing so,' says Powell...."

Regulators tell WSIS: competition can close digital divide

Telecom regulators from around the world, meeting in Geneva during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), have issued a statement calling for more competition in telecommunications and Internet access as the best way to close the "digital divide." A press release from the ITU's Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR), dated 9 December, announced the publication of the GSR Universal Access Best Practice Guidelines. These guidelines are premised on the idea that ICTs should be treated as tools for development rather than as sources of government revenue. "We cannot stress enough the need for the proper enabling environment, which includes the establishment of an independent regulator," said Ms. Muna Nijem, chairperson of GSR 2003 and head of Jordan's telecom regulatory body. "Our goal is that this enabling environment will allow the private sector to exploit new profitable opportunities to offer services that expand Universal Service/Access in ways that eliminate the need for government subsidies."

Microsoft patent for applications written in HTML

Patent number 6,662,341 was awarded to Microsoft last Tuesday for a way to write Windows applications in HTML, bypassing browser security settings and omitting the navigation buttons and other hallmarks of browser design. This could be part of their effort to integrate the web browser and operating system, and may have implications for Google's recently announced desktop search function. It certainly ties in with their strategy of taking open standards and binding them into proprietary products.

BBC phone-in on the Information Society

What do you think should be done to bridge the digital divide? How have computers, the internet and mobile phones changed your life? Should information technology be available to all? Are there downsides as well as upsides to this technology? Who should decide how the internet is run?

"Talking Point," the BBC's global phone-in program, will discuss these and other questions on Sunday, 14 December. The topic is "The Information Society" and the show's guests will be Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf and India's Information Minister, Arun Shourie. To participate, click here and tell the BBC your phone number so they can call you back on Sunday. Your personal details will not be revealed.

Critique of CoE Cybercrime Convention for activists

The good folks at Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) have released An Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations concerning the Council of Europe's Cyber-crime Convention. This 62-page PDF file "provides a policy analysis of the Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its first additional protocol from a human rights perspective... Compatibility problems with the European Convention on Human Rights and implications for freedom of expression, privacy of communications and data protection [are] the main focus of this critical analysis..."

ISP royalties for music? Canadian court to decide

Last Wednesday, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada asked Canada's Supreme Court to require Internet Service Providers around the world to pay a blanket royalty fee to SOCAN's 70,000 members because "everyone is downloading music," says Associated Press reporter Colin McClelland. "The case could change how artists are compensated, how far a country can go to extract payment, what gets put on the Internet and how recording companies serve buyers... Richard Owens, executive director of the Center for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto, questions whether such a model would work on the Internet. 'I'm not sure people using the Internet for perfectly legal reasons should have to pay for problems in the music industry,' he said... The Supreme Court heard arguments from both sides and is expected to rule in six to 12 months. John Perry Barlow, a Harvard Law School fellow and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, told The Associated Press that SOCAN would be in a 'unique, absurd and untenable' position if it won. 'I can't imagine SOCAN effectively policing every Web site on the planet,' he said. 'Nor can I imagine a Web site in Singapore paying much attention to what the Supreme Court of Canada says.'"

ITU recommends WSIS side-events

Richard Swetenham's always-useful QuickLinks points to an ITU NewsLog item that lists interesting side-events at the upcoming WSIS, with hyperlinks to more info about their time, place and content.

EU pushes for e-privacy and telecom reform

Conflict over economic obligations and the European constitution threaten the EU's survival but that isn't stopping them from pushing their members to protect online privacy and enable telecom competition. According to Reuters, "The European Commission says it has started legal action against nine European Union states for failing to write into national law new rules to boost electronic privacy in the 15-nation bloc. The EU executive said on Friday it had acted against Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Luxembourg and Finland as they all missed an October 31 deadline for implementation of the rules, known as the e-privacy directive. The directive introduces stricter protection of personal data on the Internet and contains provisions to fight spam... The EU executive is also set to issue on December 16 an ultimatum to seven EU states for failing to implement wide-ranging rules to boost competition for the electronic communications sector..."