New York Diary

Whose internet?

Recently, the UN has been debating the issue of internet control. The question, of course, is why the United States has it and other governments do not (though Slate's Adam Penenberg righly points out, "the idea that the United States 'controls the Internet'—or could control the Internet—through ICANN is a canard" because the internet is very much an independent, disaggregated, and uncontrollable entity). Penenberg is certainly right, which might render the whole debate rather moot in the long run.

Still, for the sake of argument and perhaps also because I find something compelling in the idea, I'm going to take sides in this one. And, perhaps much to the surprise of those who know me as an ardent internationalist, I'm siding with the United States.

It is of course arguable--quite compellingly arguable--that the internet is primarily a social good. As such, it seems, the UN might indeed be the natural administrator and governor of the net. Moreover, the internet is a rather strange entity, unlike other commodities in that monopoly makes it work not more sluggishly, but better. If we had 15 different competing, unconnected worldwide computer networks, we'd each have access to far less information, and the whole thing would be less useful. This is a ridiculous idea anyway; the nature of the net is such that a single person's computer could serve to link two separate networks--and it seems near impossible that this wouldn't happen given a parallel network of any size. The upshot? There is one internet, for all practical purposes, and it's not like the UN could construct (or purchase) a different one for the non-Americans on this earth who don't want to be bound by ICANN's internet laws.

But here's the thing. ICANN doesn't really make internet laws--at least, not in the way that the UN is thinking. ICANN is a technical body. Its systems let us type in domain names instead of number strings in our internet search bars, and its rules organize different websites into the .gov, .edu, .ca, .org, and .uk varieties. They don't do a darned thing about the content of sites posted at these names, though. And while its true that no government or organization is likely to be able to control the internet's content, bad governance COULD undermine the net so as to make it practically useless. The main problem, after all, is neither hostile governments nor pretensions to content control; it is rather the more mundane problem of bad convention-building.

Here's what I mean. What makes the internet such a valuable tool is its relative order alongside its popular accessibility. Wikipedia might be seen as a microcosm of the internet itself (and as such it will, I hope, serve as a valuable example); there are commonly agreed upon rules and standards which govern the writing of Wikipedia articles, and which make the site searchable, predictable, and useful--but anybody can update the articles and add their knowledge, which makes it a wonderful and, indeed, useful repository of facts, fiction, and stories. What we need--and largely what we have--is a balance between order and information. The problem with government regulation (whether that means regulation by a heavy-handed US government or regulation by a UN body) is that politicians and diplomats may have a lot to say about the implications of internet control, but very little to say about practical code-writing, domain-name organization, or suggested internet standards that keep the whole thing from degenerating into an unusable bit-filled chaos.

I would see nothing wrong with handing internet control, such as it is, over to a government that truly wanted to control and improve the organization and structure of the internet (though they'd have to realize that much of this control takes the form of practical suggestions that make the internet easier to navigate, and not actual legally-binding rules). But others can already do that (though why they'd want to remains a question); you could build a parallel number reader that would take an IP address and show "Gobbledegook On The Net" instead of "www.google.com"--and this would be wholly legal (with absolutely no question if you happened to be located outside of the United States--and, within, doesn't the US have legal power domestically?). You could create an organization to list and label all the addresses already listed and labelled by ICANN, assigned with the new names. You could therefore use today's information to create whole new styles of web browsers and whole new organizational schemes. The point isn't that it can't be done, then, but that the UN doesn't feel like starting from scratch. And for good reason: ICANN's system works. Well, fine, so let's do it ICANN's way. But that gives the international community no right to take it over.

For what it's worth, I will say that ICANN is already a highly internationalist institution, employing people from all over to help make routing and domain name control reasonably intuitive for and compatible with systems owned by people the whole world over. Disbanding it, or simply moving it under UN auspices, at best won't have much effect; at worst it may lead to a much less usable internet. And besides, ICANN (or some similar body) has to be located somewhere in the physical world, and the truth is that it seems obviously better that that somewhere be here in a rich and stable United States than in Tunisia or China or someplace where actual internet bullying may take place or where, perhaps more frighteningly, ICANN servers could fail (which would halt domain name assignment). Perhaps we could nominally declare ICANN offices to be on UN property, but there doesn't seem to be much substance in the change. In short, if the UN wants to be in charge of the internet while making few or no changes in the practical work of ICANN, then I don't see the point and I fear possible future consequences of meddlesome governance. And if the idea is instead to make real changes while disbanding ICANN's current organization in the process, then I confess that I am worried.

But the real truth is, I don't think UN member states are actually concerned about the technical and organizational state of the internet. (In fact, neither is the US government, which is a very good thing.) The biggest problem seems simply to be that ICANN is a public-private not-for-profit nominally acting under the auspices of the US government. Well, so why don't we just set it free? Get rid of that annoying public-private partnership status and let ICANN float alone like an NGO or an unafilliated company. It can remain a not-for-profit, but let's get rid of the governmental ties. Perhaps that would soothe the restless minds, without turning the internet into a big mess. Moreover, it would allow ICANN free motion; if in fact the US government started passing problematic or restrictive laws, ICANN could relocate to another place. (Note that this is a far harder thing for an overcontrolled UN institution to do; UNESCO can't just pick up and move to Zurich or Mexico City and declare itself free of UN rules, after all.)

So this is a joint call, I guess: to the UN, to not mess too much with the wonderfully democratic and populist thing that is the internet; and to the US government, to stop laying a claim to ICANN and just to let it live peaceably within our borders and subject to US law.

(Just out of curiosity, I know I have regular readers in Canada, the UK, and Malaysia. Comments?)

posted by Skay @ 5:17 PM