Topic - Privacy

In May 2012, the Whois Review Team delivered its final report to the ICANN board with a real sense of achievement.

As the system for providing details about who is in charge of any given Internet domain name, the Whois is critical to the proper functioning the domain name system. As such, it is one of four issues highlighted for independent review under ICANN’s deal with the US Government, the Affirmation of Commitments.

Every three years, a cross-community team has to look at the extent to which ICANN’s Whois policy and implementation are effective, meet the legitimate needs of law enforcement and promote consumer trust.

Despite being an apparently inoffensive directory of contact details, Whois has proved one of the most intractable and divisive issues within the ICANN community for more than a decade. The reason why is due to the different interests rolled up within Whois, and how these interact with ICANN’s power dynamics.

Raising further questions about its accountability, ICANN's Board bypassed the second of four independent reviews and this month gave its new CEO carte blanche to try a new approach to the decade-long policy problem of Whois data. The Whois review team is reportedly furious that its has been dismissed with little or no public discussion and following a number of unexplained delays since the report was delivered late last year. The actions mirror those of the Board last year when it attempted to bypass a critical independent report in its accountability and transparency. Only fierce lobbying on the part of key community members and the US government caused that report's recommendations to be accepted and even though only after unexplained delays of over a year. ICANN is obliged to carry out four independent reviews into different aspects of its work under an agreement it has with the US government.

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?

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.

US Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling gave a broad-ranging speech covering everything from the current privacy debate to the IANA contract, WCIT meeting in December and ICANN's new gTLD process and general accountability.

There were no bombshells but Strickling made it clear that he rejecting some calls to make discussions around a privacy code of conduct a closed-doors discussion. He also gently chided ICANN and warned that he was still watching the organization closely on its promises to improve accountability as well deals with policy and compliance problems.

He finished his speech but warning against about the potential dangers of the WCIT meeting to be held in Dubai in December.

Keynote Speech by Lawrence E. Strickling Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information U.S. Chamber of Commerce Telecommunications and E-Commerce Committee

Read it on the NTIA website.

Washington, D.C.

June 15, 2012

I am pleased to be invited to address today’s meeting of the Telecommunications and E-Commerce Committee at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Today is a particularly timely opportunity to address the multistakeholder process of policymaking for the Internet as it has been a busy spring for developments in this area.

Facebook was ordered to reveal the identities of those who has unfairly targeted a UK woman online, creating a potential legal precedent. Nicola Brookes was granted a high court order after she was at the end of "vicious and depraved" abuse on the social networking site having done no more than voice support for a game show contestant.

Facebook has been ordered to reveal the names, email and IP addresses of those behind a torrent of abusive messages. The case is being hailed as a fightback against anonymous online bullies - reflecting a recent YouTube hit where a comedienne puts some of the more abusive messages she has received online to music (warning: strong language).

After receiving heavy criticism from a number of determined users, Facebook agreed that it would put changes to its privacy policies to a vote from its users. Changes include the ability to keep user date for more than 180 days, as well as use that data to provide ads on third-party websites. Austrian law student Max Schrems claimed credit for Facebook's decision. Votes have gone against the proposed changes but the exercise will be largely academic: Facebook said that any change would need a 30 percent turnout of active users to be binding, equating to roughly 270 million users. With over 150,000 votes so far, there is still two days for the remaining 269.85 million people to turn up.