Author: Kieren McCarthy (most popular articles)

Kieren McCarthy is an acknowledged authority on the Internet and Internet governance. He has written extensively about both for a wide range of national and international newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times, New Scientist, The Register, PC Week, Techworld, and others.

An engineer by training, Kieren has spent more than 10 years as an IT journalist and has, at some point interviewed, just about everybody in the Internet industry. The official blogger for both the inaugural Internet Governance Forum and an OECD conference on the Participative Web, and author of the book Sex.com, he was also ICANN’s General Manager of Public Participation, tasked with coordinating communication between the organization and Internet users for three years.

He is CEO of .Nxt. Inc, and created both the company and the conference to provide a space for positive information-sharing about the future of the Internet's infrastructure.

Most recent posts | Most popular posts

Story
13 December 2012
Internet humbles UN telecoms agency

ITU forced to face modern realities as WCIT conference implodes

Having turned industries and governments upside down, the Internet has claimed its first organizational scalp, subjecting the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to a humiliating failure at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai earlier today.

No sooner had applause run out after a vote on what to include in the preamble to an updated global telecoms treaty than the United States took the floor and announced it would not sign it.

"It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the U.S. must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form," said Ambassador Terry Kramer. "The Internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years. All without UN regulation. We candidly cannot support an ITU Treaty that is inconsistent with the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance."
Story
27 October 2011
India formally proposes government takeover of Internet

The Indian government has formally proposed a government takeover of the Internet at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement sent yesterday, India argued for the creation of a new body to be called the United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) which would develop Internet policies, oversee all Internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate Internet-related treaties, and act as an arbitrator in Internet-related disputes.

The CIRP would exist under the United Nations, comprise of 50 Member States, be funded by the United Nations, run by staff from the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) arm, and report directly to the UN General Assembly.

Despite the proposal representing an extraordinary shift from the status quo to a single, purely government-run Internet body, India’s spokesman, Mr Dushyant Singh, argued that the proposal “should not be viewed as an attempt by governments to ‘take over’ or ‘regulate and circumscribe’ the Internet.”
Story
10 March 2012
ICANN had no idea IANA rejection was coming

In a worrying turn of events, it appears that ICANN had no idea about the rejection of its bid for long-term running of the IANA contract prior to an announcement being posted on the NTIA's website today.

The organization - which has run the IANA functions for over a decade - is also waiting to hear why the US government feels it has failed to meet the RFP criteria that defined a new, more open approach to the contract.

In a series of sudden and unexpected announcements earlier today, the NTIA first announced it was canceling the entire rebid process for IANA, then that it was canceling it because no one had met its criteria, and then that it was extending ICANN's IANA contract for six months to give it time to re-run the RFP process.

ICANN was aware of the IANA contract extension, having held some discussions in recent days but it appears it was completely unaware that its RFP bid had been rejected - alongside any others that may also have bid - and still has no idea what the reasons are for the rejection.
Story
22 September 2011
Global Internet governance fight looms

The global fight between governments over control of the Internet is heating up amid a flurry of documents, the opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly (GA) and next week’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

On the eve of the opening day of the annual forum of world governments, the Chinese and Russian governments jointly submitted a letter to the General Assembly outlining a “code of conduct for information security” that called for “establishing a multilateral, transparent and democratic international Internet governance mechanism”.

At the same time, a summary of a meeting held earlier this month between India, Brazil and South Africa governments (with a few representatives of civil society) was published calling for Internet governance issues to be pulled into the United Nations.
Story
13 December 2011
ICANN Board awards itself $35,000, developing countries $138,000, and adds to confusion with 'secondary timestamp'

ICANN has posted the minutes of its Board meeting last Thursday, 8 December, and has made a number of significant decisions.

The two most important were flagged up last week at a Senate hearing by senior vice president Kurt Pritz: that those who qualify for "applicant support" in the new gTLD process will pay $47,000 rather than $185,000; and that Board members will be banned from working for any new registries for 12 months, as well as be required to recuse themselves from votes on any applications in which they are connected.

What is new is the announcement of a "batching" process for the new gTLD program in case there are more than the estimated 500 applications (something that most industry observers are now saying is likely).

According to the Board minutes, the process for deciding what group will be evaluated first in the situation where there are more than 500 will be a "secondary timestamp".