In an article for the Financial Times, Mr Hannigan -- the chief of the British spy agency GCHQ said: "I understand why they [US technology companies] have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics." "But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism."... more
As you might imagine, I've been following the ITU's Plenipotentiary Conference very closely. It was built up to be the great showdown of our time -- the pro-'free and open' Internet in one corner (comprised for the most part of developed and democratic nations), in the other corner a contingent of totalitarian regimes bent on a fractured, censored Internet -- a near battle royale for control of one of the greatest communications tool the world has ever seen. more
The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference wraps up at the end of the week. The more than 2000 people present in Busan Korea from 171 countries -- overwhelmingly government bureaucrats -- have been busily polishing nearly a hundred resolutions on everything that ails them. The good news is that some sanity seems to have prevailed and most of the really extreme provisions apparently disappeared during the ensuing dialogue. One of the reasons for the change of heart is the realization that the ITU emperor's budget for clothes is disappearing. more
Europe is at the forefront of the global debate about data protection and privacy. Unfortunately that debate is characterised more by hyberbole and scaremongering than real discussion. Europeans deserve better -- and so does the world, who rightly see Europe as a leader on this subject. The new Commission has a chance to truly lead in partnership with governments, like Brazil, that agree with us. more
During the last Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, a day was devoted to Net Neutrality with three panels devoted to the subject. The first was exactly about Zero-Rating: Net Neutrality, Zero-Rating & Development: What's the Data? the second was Network Neutrality: a Roadmap for Infrastructure Enhancement and last, the main session Network Neutrality: Towards a Common Understanding of a Complex Issue and Zero-rating was discussed on all three panels. more
China's high-profile "World Internet Conference" will be held next month where more than 1,000 representatives from tech firms and regulators are expected to attend. The event will be held from Nov. 19-21 in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province. The conference is planned to cover topics including global Internet governance, mobile Internet, cross-border e-commerce, cyber security and terrorism. more
I attended the 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing, China, and made a statementat on the panel "Internet Governance -- The Global Agenda", questioning the limits of the multistakeholder model, or more precisely the "bottom" of the bottom-up concept. My expectation was enormous, just at the time when two important meetings on governance and information society are in evidence: the WCIT and WSIS +10. more
The ongoing ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan South Korea is the quadrennial gathering where its Nation State Members gather to elect new leadership of its four permanent secretariats and populate a few other of its assorted bodies. The next two weeks are spent in endless sessions where several regional blocs of Members still enamored with pre-liberalization telecom models complain about the new world of telecommunications that they did not invent -- while engaging in copious use of their new smart phones and online services. more
Hon' Prime Minister, Why would India table Proposal 98 for the work of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference? Contribution 98 wants the ITU to develop an IP address plan; wants it to be a contiguous IP address platform so as to enable the Governments to map and locate every Internet user; suggests that the ITU may coordinate the distribution of IP addresses accordingly; instructs the ITU Secretary General to develop policies for... naming, numbering and addressing which are [already] systematic, equitable... more
If you are, like me, not in Busan, South Korea, for the 2014 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference but are curious about what is going on there, my Internet Society colleagues on our public policy team have been posting regular updates to the Internet Society's blog and to the @ISOCPolicy Twitter account... Given that I work in the technology side of Internet Society's work and don't have the cycles to keep up-to-date with everything going on there in Busan, I've found these updates very helpful in understanding some of the major events happening at the ITU Plenipot 2014. more
InterConnect announces a second date for its "Master Class on Internet Governance" starting 17 – 21 November 2014. InterConnect provides the following information regarding the course. more
Nancy Scola reporting in the Washington Post: "The latest battle over who should run the Internet will be waged in the South Korean port city of Busan over the next three weeks. For U.S. officials headed to the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union's Plenipotentiary Conference, the goal is simple: prevent a vote. In short, the State Department's approach is this: Convince the representatives of the other 192 member countries attending the conference that the 150-year-old U.N. technical body is the wrong forum for existential questions about how the Internet should work." more
This month, we are seeing a very busy global ecosystem with the ICANN 51, UN General Assembly meeting to discuss ICT for Development in New York and now the 19th ITU Plenipotentiary in Busan. Pinktober, Oktoberfest has also become saturated with ICTober so it makes me more reflective. First I would like to make a massive shout out to all those battling cancer, survivors and families who wage war against cancer. May you all walk on and walk strong! more
As we arrived in Hollywood -- the land of happy endings -- ICANN had just given us cause to hope that the ICANN accountability process might get its own Hollywood ending, despite a fitful start. As one who's been critical of ICANN management's heavy-handed attempts to control the accountability process, it's only appropriate to give credit where credit is due. In accepting the community's strenuous -- and nearly unanimous -- calls for a cross-community working group to lead the process of improving ICANN's accountability mechanisms, ICANN management says it's now prepared to follow the community's lead, rather than dictating and constraining it. more
As the Chair of the 2014 Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Review Working Party, I have the privilege of working with 19 dedicated and passionate individuals who represent the diversity of the GNSO community. We've held numerous meetings and provided extensive input and feedback on key aspects of the GNSO Review in the short time that our group has been assembled to act as a liaison between the GNSO, the Independent Examiner (Westlake Governance Limited), and the ICANN Board Structural Improvements Committee. more
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