Core Internet Institutions Abandon the US Government

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Core Internet Institutions Abandon the US Government

By CircleID Reporter
October 14, 2013, 12:58 pm PDT Views: 12,527 Comments: 1

Milton Mueller from Internet Governance Project writes: “In Montevideo, Uruguay [last week], the Directors of all the major Internet organizations—ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Society, all five of the regional Internet address registries—turned their back on the US government. With striking unanimity, the organizations that actually develop and administer Internet standards and resources initiated a break with 3 decades of U.S. dominance of Internet governance. A statement released by this group called for ‘accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.’ That part of the statement constituted an explicit rejection of the US Commerce Department’s unilateral oversight of ICANN through the IANA contract. It also indirectly attacks the US unilateral approach to the Affirmation of Commitments, the pact between the US and ICANN which provides for periodic reviews of its activities by the GAC [Governmental Advisory Committee] and other members of the ICANN community.”

By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
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Back to the Future Anthony Rutkowski – Oct 16, 2013 4:55 PM

Let’s see. It is getting close to the seventeen year anniversary of the famous 1997 IAHC MoU. It was a formal agreement to move the functions of all these organizations dealing with names and numbers under an ITU aegis. The U.S. government intervened to create a regime and ICANN to stop the ITU initiative.

Most ITU Nation States, including Brazil, never particularly liked that result, and have been trying to pull things back under the ITU. The first step was the Dubai International Telecommunication Regulations treaty last year where Brazil and 88 other countries partially pulled it back in. With the ITU’s mega treaty conference - the Plenipotentiary - just about a year away, the other pieces of the strategy are falling into place. With a likely new ITU Secretary-General from China (which was also a Dubai Treaty signatory), the self-described “core Internet institutions” can - like Marty McFly in Back to the Future - set their time-clocks back to 1997 and enjoy a life under the ITU they never had the opportunity to experience!

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