The Credible Threat by Michael Geist
Michael Geist writes “If you have been following the debate over Internet governance over the past few years, you know that while ICANN supporters (U.S., Canadian, Australian governments; business lobby) and critics (developing world and occasionally Europe) argue over the optimal approach, particularly with respect to government involvement in the domain name system, the reality has been that possession is all. The U.S. government retains ultimate control over the system and thus the debate is somewhat academic. In assessing the outcome at WSIS last fall, I argued that: “the U.S. simply had a very strong hand and played it well. Changes to the governance structure ultimately requires U.S. agreement since possession is even more than the proverbial 9/10th of the law. The U.S. had loudly indicated that it was not prepared to make concessions. During the negotiations at the PrepCom it adopted a very hard line – even raising the prospect of pulling back on ccTLD sovereignty or turning over the Internet Governance Forum to a private sector group like ISOC. Without a credible threat (the threat being the creation of alternate root), the U.S. was able to maintain its position and ultimately force everyone else to deal.””
http://www.circleid.com/posts/the_credible_threat/
The Credible Threat by Michael Geist
Michael Geist writes “If you have been following the debate over Internet governance over the past few years, you know that while ICANN supporters (U.S., Canadian, Australian governments; business lobby) and critics (developing world and occasionally Europe) argue over the optimal approach, particularly with respect to government involvement in the domain name system, the reality has been that possession is all. The U.S. government retains ultimate control over the system and thus the debate is somewhat academic. In assessing the outcome at WSIS last fall, I argued that: “the U.S. simply had a very strong hand and played it well. Changes to the governance structure ultimately requires U.S. agreement since possession is even more than the proverbial 9/10th of the law. The U.S. had loudly indicated that it was not prepared to make concessions. During the negotiations at the PrepCom it adopted a very hard line – even raising the prospect of pulling back on ccTLD sovereignty or turning over the Internet Governance Forum to a private sector group like ISOC. Without a credible threat (the threat being the creation of alternate root), the U.S. was able to maintain its position and ultimately force everyone else to deal.””