DOTCOM Act Response to Multistakeholder Confusion, Shimkus Says
Congressional skepticism about the IANA transition is partly attributable to ICANN’s inability to clearly define the “multistakeholder community,” House Commerce Committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill., said in an interview Monday. Shimkus last week reintroduced his Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act (DOTCOM) (HR-805), which calls for a GAO study of the final transition proposal for up to one year before approval by NTIA (see 1502060057). The Senate also passed a resolution last week to raise awareness about Internet governance, just before ICANN 52 kicked off in Singapore.
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We’re “trying to get a handle on who this multistakeholder group is,” Shimkus said. The international community and ICANN have failed to answer that question, he said. Shimkus said his experience with democracy movements in Eastern Europe has led to a healthy fear of “totalitarian regimes.” Why would you turn over U.S. oversight to a “international consortium" that potentially would have "non-free states represented?” he asked. The “public record” has been “clear” in showing the “desire” by some totalitarian states to make the “Internet less free,” Shimkus said.
NTIA and ICANN repeatedly have said the multistakeholder community is open to anyone who wants to participate, which includes the private sector, academics and government officials. One of NTIA’s four criteria for the transition is the promised rejection of any proposal that would extend control of the IANA functions to a government-led organization. ICANN’s leadership has resolutely supported that stipulation.
That ICANN and NTIA have been so “adamant about moving forward without any questions being asked by the U.S. government causes frustration and concern” among some on Capitol Hill, Shimkus said: “Speed’s scary, especially with unelected, unaccountable international organizations.” ICANN "needs to accept the language of the DOTCOM Act to assuage” some of those “fears,” and it needs to “clearly define” the multistakeholder approach, he said. He said some in the tech community and international governments believe they have exclusive rights to the multistakeholder community, which has created confusion. Shimkus said he supports the purpose of the transition, but said it has to be accompanied by U.S. oversight: “Once the transition happens, it’s gone forever.”
Shimkus said he expects that if the Senate takes up DOTCOM, it would be as an amendment to a larger bill. The Senate “doesn’t have time” for stand-alone bills, he said. Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., would likely support DOTCOM’s method of oversight, rather than oppose the transition outright, Shimkus said, saying he hasn’t spoken to Thune about the issue. Thune didn’t comment.
Ira Magaziner, a former aide to President Bill Clinton who played a key role in the creation of ICANN, championed the success of the multistakeholder model at ICANN 52 Monday. "The fact of the matter is the Internet has worked and the growth has been phenomenal and the growth to WiFi, and the growth to mobile, and now the growth to the Internet of Things and it has all worked," Magaziner said in an ICANN news release. "You see tremendous success coming from this model."
Magaziner said the Clinton administration believed the IANA transition would happen “much faster” than it did, and affirmed the transition’s underlying goal: “The Internet should belong to a global community, not just to one country's control,” he said, according to a transcript from ICANN 52. The “vision” of the transition is now possible, Magaziner said. He applauded the Obama administration’s criteria for the transition, telling the Singapore audience, “It puts a lot of responsibility on all of you because you need to now come up with something that can preserve the stability and security of the Internet, preserve its predictability, preserve its innovativeness, make sure that it's not captured by any particular commercial interests.” It’s critical to ensure that “while governments have an important stake and say, they don't take control so that political geo-politics distorts the Internet,” Magaziner said.
"Singapore supports the shift to a multistakeholder model," Minster of Communication and Information Yaacob bin Ibrahim said. "We have consistently articulated our belief that no one person, organization, or even country, has a monopoly on the expertise and wisdom needed to meet the challenges that we are facing on the Internet on a day-to-day basis." Governments "are important members of the global multistakeholder community and should continue to play an important role alongside other stakeholders,” Ibrahim said. “They should implement policies to ensure high availability to a safe and secure Internet and create a business-friendly environment for service providers and operators to provide innovative services and cutting-edge infrastructure,” he said. “This is precisely what we have sought to achieve in Singapore.”