WCIT issue index (26 July 12)

A treaty meeting in December is pitching powerful forces against one another. The good news is that with fear comes opportunity.

Click for larger version. Cartoon: Patrick Taylor.

When representatives of the world's governments sit down in Dubai this December to discuss how to update global telecommunication regulations, they will, in one way or another, be deciding the future of the Internet's evolution for the next decade.

That's not something that has been missed by the country that continues to dominate the Internet's development, the United States, nor by the emerging powers of Brazil, India, China and Russia, who will use the WCIT conference as an opportunity to challenge the way the Internet is currently governed.

What is the WCIT?

The World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12) is an international meeting hosted by the ITU. It'll review the ITRs and will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 3 to 14 December 2012.

Ok, that's too many acronyms. From the top: what's the ITU?

The ITU is the UN agency looking after information and communication technologies (ICTs). It's an inter-governmental body with 193 country members and more than 750 private-sector companies, organizations and academic institutions members/associates of its three sectors (Radiocommunication, Telecommunication Standardization, and Telecommunication Development). You can find lists of these member states, sector members and associates here.

The ITU is not to be confused with the ITU Secretariat. The former makes the decisions in a "bottom-up" process, the latter facilitates the process.

Ok great. So what are the ITRs?

The Russian Parliament passed a law that would allow government officials to blacklist domains and so block access to them by its citizens. An earlier version of the law, passed by the Lower House was written so broadly that even bad language could be used to justify blocking a website. Following an outcry led by Wikipedia, Google and Russian search engine Yandex the law was tightened so only websites that deal with child abuse images, drug ads or suicide can be banned, and a court decision or specific approval from specific government departments will be required. Regardless, critics fear the new laws will be used to censor or intimidate journalists, politicians and activists. The law was one of three passed that have raised fears of a crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin after protests earlier this year against his third term. The other laws make slander a criminal offense and required non-government organizations to be audited annually as well as publish a biannual report on their activities.

On 5 July, the ITU announced that it had signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with European Telecommunications Standardization Institute (ETSI), replacing two earlier MoUs they had signed in 2000 (with the ITU-T) and 2002 (with the ITU-R).

The latest MoU will "smooth the way for regional standards, developed by ETSI, to be recognised internationally" and provide "a single framework through which to channel ITU, ETSI collaboration", according to an ITU press release. The release also explains that this latest agreement follows on from an MoU signed in 2011 with four national standards development organizations (SDOs) in Asia.

The following speech was given by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on 8 June 2012 at the 4th International Conference of Cyber Conflict in Tallinn. You can also read it on the Presidential website.

Cyber-security and liberal democracies

For the last three conferences here in Tallinn, I have focused on technological threats from cyberspace. I shan't spend much time on these matters today. Recent events only have confirmed and brought into the public eye what you at this conference have been discussing for years.

A proposal to create a new security standard - among a raft of other certification standards - for companies that wish to sell dot-au domains has been criticized as "onerous". The plan to introduce an Information Security Standard (ISS) as a "world first" was proposed by auDA last month alongside a further 11 measures that would provide a certification standard for registrars. The idea resulted from a security breach last year at registrar distribute.IT that ended up ruining the company after all its customers website files were deleted, including backups. The plan has been broadly welcomed by the industry (which only comprises 40 or so registrars) but CEO of NetRegistry, Larry Bloch, told ITWire that he thought the approach was "overkill" and could result in the loss of 50 percent of the market as they struggled to deal with the extra provisions.

A market report [pdf] from Sedo revealed that dot-co domains are now, on average, the second most valuable domains on the Internet. The average price of a dot-co domain in 2012 so far is $1,826, up from $1,769 last year. That compares to $2,775 for dot-coms, and $1,602 for dot-nets. Over two years, the market for dot-co domains has stood at $1.65 million. The report comes as .CO Internet celebrated two years since the country code was relaunched amid great fanfare. It also put out an infographic to celebrate. The company also announced that it had poached Neustar's director of product management Eric Brown to become its new VP of product and technology.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on Net neutrality, asking both industry and the public for their views and for information on the current ISP market. The consultation is heavily weighted in favor of Net neutrality - where ISPs do not have the right to restrict or limit particular services - and will "focus specifically on transparency, switching and certain aspects of traffic management". Commissioner Neelie Kroes make her views on the issue known in a press release: "Today there is a lack of effective consumer choice when it comes to internet offers. I will use this consultation to help prepare recommendations that will generate more real choices and end the Net neutrality waiting game in Europe." The consultation follows on from three documents published by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) in May. Responses can be sent in until 15 October.

It was a year ago this week that US Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling first started making noises about a meeting of the ITU that was going to happen toward the end of the following year.

"Next November," he warned, "the United States will participate in the ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). This treaty negotiation will conduct a review of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), the general principles which relate to the provision and operation of international telecommunication services.

"We can expect that some states will attempt to rewrite the ITRs in a manner that would establish heavy-handed governmental control of the Internet and cybersecurity. These are the countries that we, including all of us in this room, must reach to promote the multi-stakeholder model, and our work must begin right away."

A reversal in two pieces of legislation in Washington DC led a tech news site to conclude that the impact of the failed SOPA legislation continues to reverberate through social media. Arguing that a new political lobby was being formed online, it pointed to the decision not to move ahead with an "anti-piracy taskforce" - which formed part of the ill-fated SOPA bill - as well as the distinctly less global decision to shelve plans to force innovative cab company Uber to charge five times a union cab rate. Perhaps more significant is the fact that members of Congress have started following social media outlets to gauge public opinion. Whether a new dawn has broken on Internet democracy, or simply a break in the clouds before DC lobbyists start selling comprehensive social media strategies, only time will tell.

Stéphane Van Gelder: Thank you very much. Welcome everyone to this Council call on July the 20, 2012. And we have apologies from Wolf. He will be absent on this call.

Jeff Neuman will only be able to be with us for the first 30 minutes. So and that’s why we’re trying to start as soon as we can.

And Mason Cole will not have Internet access. So Mason if you’re on the line and you need to ask questions please just speak up so that I know that you need to be counted in the queue.

[Roll call]

Stéphane Van Gelder: Thanks Glen. And just for the record I will note that I am also present. And come to any statement of interest updates?

Hearing no updates, any calls to review or amend the agenda please?

Thomas Rickert: Would it make sense to discuss the defensive registration subject and the IOC debate while Jeff is on the call? This is (Thomas) sorry. Jeff would you like that?

Jeff Neuman: This is Jeff. That’s fine. I mean I can listen to the recording but if you guys want to do that that’d be great.