Why ICANN failed

Milton Mueller

Associate Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies

Internet Governance

• Governance definition: – the exploitation of technical bottlenecks or access to

technical resources to regulate socio-economic conduct.– E.g., broadcasting

• ICANN is in the business of governance, not technical coordination– dispute resolution policy and famous marks– imposing a business model on domain name registration– WG discussions– Sovereignty claims to TLDs

ICANN’s Pre-history

• Internet Architecture Board (IAB) 1990; Internet Society (ISOC), 1992

• IANA’s attempt to privatize itself, 1995-6– 150 new gTLDs, $2000 + 2% of revenues

• The IAHC and the gTLD-MoU– ISOC-IANA, WIPO, ITU, new registrars

– shared registry model

– cartel-ized top-level domain space

– links domain name assignment to trademark protection

The White Paper and ICANN

• White Paper abdicates direct government action• Behind-the-scenes agreement with US Govt,

Europeans, IBM, WIPO, and ISOC-IANA on governance agenda – essentially the same as gTLD-MoU

• Initial Board gives complete control of ICANN to gTLD-MoU faction

Conclusions

The rhetoric of “industry self-regulation” was a mask that allowed a specific coalition of actors, led by the Internet Society, IBM, and a small number of European allies, to take over the administration of the Internet.

Administration concentrated exclusively on e-commerce and ignored implications of handing governance power to an unaccountable private entity

Conclusions

ICANN’s initial board was controlled by a single faction with a specific governance agenda that did not command consensus.

The determination of that faction to implement its agenda as quickly as possible fatally undermined the new corporation’s ability to: function as a vehicle for consensual “self-regulation” develop durable, trusted processes

Difficult questions for the future

• Can ICANN be fixed or should we start over?• How much globalization is appropriate?