US Decision On Net Neutrality Will Not Impact ICANN’s Work, ICANN CEO Says

Internet is almost an experiment, the CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said today at the Internet Governance Forum. No one has ever built an internet before, he said, adding that between 3.5 and 4 billion people connect to the internet every day successfully, taking the technology for granted. He did not provide any comments on the recent United States decision ending net neutrality in the country, but said it will have no influence on ICANN’s work.

Göran Marby, CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the domain name system technical body, said during a press briefing today on the margin of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) that ICANN has long been a supporter of the forum. The UN-led IGF is taking place from 17-21 December in Geneva.

Marby presented ICANN as the “telephone book of internet,” a system providing a user interface to the internet, by which people are able to surf and send emails, on a safe and secure domain names system.

ICANN, whose oversight was carried out by the United States Commerce Department National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), transitioned in 2016 to a multi-stakeholder type of governance, after the contract between ICANN and NTIA expired.

“No one has done the internet before,” Marby said, the multi-stakeholder model make sure everybody can participate, he said, adding that internet covers “every part of your life,” whether it is gaming, education, love life, or interaction with friends.

The internet is different than it was five years ago, and in the next five years it will be different from now, he said. The internet of today is mainly built around the English language as a concept, this needs to evolve so the internet of the future includes different scripts, languages and culture, he said, noting that the IGF is a good platform to discuss those issues.

He underlined the purely technical dimension of ICANN and said he did not have any opinion on the recent United States decision to loosen the internet regulatory framework and cancel a 2015 Open Internet Order.

According to the US Federal Communications Commission, the 14 December vote to “restore the longstanding, bipartisan light-touch regulatory framework that has fostered rapid Internet growth, openness, and freedom for nearly 20 years,” will “protect consumers at far less cost to investment than the prior rigid and wide-ranging utility rules.” Critics, meanwhile, have said it will open the way to corporate providers creating a divide between people who cannot pay enough having slower internet than those who can.

And while the world is wondering about the global impact of the US vote, said to end “net neutrality”, Marby said the US decision will have no influence, and no impact on ICANN’s work.

Marby said the IGF participates in ICANN meetings, and discussions taking place at the IGF can have an influence on policies through communities and the multi-stakeholder model.

On changes foreseen in 2018 for ICANN, Marby said the California-based corporation is looking at the potential impact of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the ICANN Whois system, which provides the underlying information on who is responsible for a domain name or an IP (internet protocol) address.

In order to include more internet users, given that almost half the world population has no access to internet, Marby said there is no silver bullet but that cooperation is key. It has to be remembered that “what we are doing, no one has done before.”

People sometimes take the internet for granted, but there are many challenges to address so “we have to continue working on it,” he said.

High Participation at the IGF

Chengetai Masango, IGF programme and technology manager, said over 2,000 people are attending the IGF this week, and some 600 additional people are participating remotely. The largest groups of on-site participants are from Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and France.

The largest groups of remote participants come from the United States, Nigeria, India, China, and France, he said.

 

Image Credits: Catherine Saez