Strickling interview part 2: global policies and unilateral contracts

US Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling is one of the world's most influential figures in Internet policy and governance, and rarely gives interviews.

He talked to .Nxt about the complex and rapidly changing environment for making decisions on the Internet's future. [See Part One here]

.Nxt: You mentioned recent effort to tackle online privacy. You have been leading a new approach to arriving at policy to deal with the Internet issues – the Internet Policy Task Force. And you’ve got four topic areas you’re working on: privacy, cybersecurity, the free flow of information, and online copyright protection. What has been interesting in the privacy discussion is how the US government has put itself into the role of convener rather that developer or decider. Is that a role that you see governments increasing playing?

Strickling: In an area where we want to have flexibility and speed, yes, I would say we will take more of a facilitator and convener role, rather than a dictator role. But there are three parts to the privacy platform that we’ve laid out, and at the front end is legislation to create a baseline set of protections. Specifically, we are recommending a consumer bill of rights and that’s literally what I have in mind: short statements of principles that will not have a lot of definition and regulation around them.

Second, we will then convene all the stakeholders to put the meat on the bones. We could even have sector-specific codes of conducts, where individual sets of industries come together with privacy experts from the non-profit community and academics to craft these codes. And – then third - very importantly – those codes will then be enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission.

So, in the development of the codes - where you want to have maximum flexibility and responsiveness – these are going to be largely developed by multi-stakeholder groups.

But this is not a hands-off scheme, it is not self-regulation – we recommend legislative principles at the front-end, and a government enforcement agency at the back-end.

How do you see this US-based process working at a global level? Isn’t that vital for a global Internet?

Yes, absolutely. With the global Internet, we need to have privacy policies that work around the world and that are interoperable with one another. They don’t have to be the same, but a corporation doing business in 50 different countries should be able to develop a privacy policy that will satisfy the various demands of the different countries in which it operates. I think our model will help get us there.

We have also been talking to other countries – particularly the EU - to share our thinking and hear what they are doing so that we end up with regimes that, while not identical, can live with each other.

Do you foresee lots of country-based processes, or will we see the creation of overlapping or global processes in future?

It depends on the issue. ICANN is a multi-stakeholder process. The IETF is a multi-stakeholder process. Certainly, we think the principle is a universal one that works for individual governments as well as works across governments. How it will actually emerge and on which particular issues – that remains to be seen.

What about the scenario where countries object to a particular Internet extension which is not offensive in the US but where inaction would effectively approve a GAC consensus against it (and so the expectation would be that the ICANN Board reject it)?

I won’t speculate on any specific application but I will say that we are committed to preserving the single Internet. So we would be influenced – I can’t say it would be dispositive – if a large number of countries have a problem with a particular string, even if it was one that might not be objectionable to the United States government.

And that is out of interest of protecting the Internet’s root from widespread blocking at the top-level by lots of governments. That, in and of itself, is a problem. And I think it’s a potential threat to the security and stability of the Internet. So it would definitely be a consideration in our decision on what position to take.

Were you happy with the result of the recent OECD conference (where a range of Internet policy making principles were approved), and what do you see as the next steps in making multi-stakeholder processes more acceptable and widely used?

The OECD agreement is a major achievement that will support the continued innovation and growth of the global Internet economy. The policymaking principles are concrete enough to inform policy in a meaningful way yet broad enough to apply to the new and emerging technologies upon which our economies rely.

Perhaps most importantly, these principles reflect a growing global consensus on the value of the multi-stakeholder approach towards addressing Internet challenges and represent perhaps the clearest statement yet that the United States and like-minded nations oppose treaty-binding regulation of the Internet.

You referred to "policy martyrs" at the OECD - a reference to the refusal of civil society groups to sign the OECD Declaration - what do you make of their stance, and do you accept that this is 'just a part of being in the multi-stakeholder model'?

I was not referring to any specific set of stakeholders with that remark, but just pointing out one of the concerns about how one group or another could attempt to prevent the multi-stakeholder process from succeeding. The multi-stakeholder process is about creating a process that allows for the constructive exchange of viewpoints not one party’s will over the other.

Everyone at the OECD supported the plank encouraging multi-stakeholder cooperation in policy development processes. From our perspective, the communiqué reflects a growing global consensus on the value of the multistakeholder approach towards addressing Internet challenges.

With respect to the civil society advisory committee at OECD, I will note that it has publicly commended the OECD member states for engaging it in good faith, and we hope that the High Level Meeting will mark the beginning of sustained cooperation between all relevant Internet stakeholders.

Will ICANN get the IANA contract?

We have now extended the contract so the new one will be awarded in March. There has been no decision made as to who is going to get the contract and beyond that, I won’t speculate.

Do you realistically expect to retain clause C.2.2.1.3.2 which requires the IANA contractor to have "received consensus support from relevant stakeholders" and well as be "supported by the global public interest" before adding a new string to the root?

The draft Statement of Work and Further Notice of Inquiry reflect the input we received in stakeholder’s comments. We incorporated input from the comments we received and now are again looking for feedback to see if we captured stakeholders concerns and reflected them in a meaningful way in this Statement of Work.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Read Part One of the interview.