The Internet is getting a new boss. And now the finalist for the job has a name.
On Thursday, the Internet Assigned Names Authority and Network Solutions -- which have shared responsibility for minding the Net -- released a final draft proposal for the organization that will govern the Internet of the future.
The new nonprofit body will be known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It was not an easy birth.
The draft for the ICANN was only submitted following often-rancorous sessions and bitter rows among the Internet's many stakeholders. Now they'll have the opportunity to weigh in on the current proposal. Their responses are expected in the "next day or two."
The new draft addresses two key points: First, new language has been added to the ICANN's bylaws ensuring that anyone affected by a pending ICANN decision would be notified in advance of the results.
According to IANA director Jon Postel, the new draft also directs the board to include at-large members -- including representatives of the Internet Engineering Task Force and Internet Architecture Board -- in the group's membership and electoral processes.
Until now, Postel has been the Internet's own Obi-Wan Kenobi, the sage who guided the Net from its sleepy academic genesis to its present form. But Postel is no longer interested in playing politics and wants to concentrate on offering technical assistance to the ICANN. The awesome task he now faces is the divestiture of his virtual kingdom.
Postel began drafting proposals for a new IANA after the Clinton administration asked for the transfer of IANA in a 1997 White Paper.
In the past, Network Solutions of Herndon, Virginia, has managed the Internet domain-name system under a lucrative federal contract, while IANA managed other administrative issues. But the US government no longer wants sole jurisdiction of IANA, preferring to give the international community and commercial interests a greater say in Internet policy decisions.
"The nature of the Internet is very diverse, so a new organization needs to be international, legally binding, democratic in nature, and governed by the stakeholders of the Internet," White House technology adviser Ira Magaziner told Wired News.
"If the technical community wants to keep the US government out of the process, then they must account for minority interests," said Jay Fenello, president of Iperdome, a domain-registration company based in Atlanta.
ICANN will have executive responsibility for the technical aspects of the Internet -- including the management of its infrastructure, or plumbing -- as well as for policy decisions, including technological standards and protocols. Administration of the organization is expected to cost between US$4 million to $5 million annually. The money will come from domain-name registrations.
To be based in Los Angeles, ICANN will work closely with the groups that currently decide technical policy issues, including the Internet Architecture Board, a group founded in 1983 that provides technical advice to the Internet Society and oversees the Internet Engineering Task Force.
The new proposal on ICANN is be presented for comments from interested players worldwide before the final document is delivered to Magaziner on 30 September.
Robert Shaw, adviser on global infrastructure for the International Telecom Union in Geneva, said he would recommend that his organization back the ICANN. "The world is not ready for a true Internet-wide democracy," he said. "Does some 18-year-old with a dial-up modem get the same voting rights as AT&T?"
Many stakeholders objected to previous drafts of the proposal for giving too much power to the new organization's board and making too few provisions to protect commercial interests.
Under the ICANN proposal, Postel and his advisers will nominate an interim board of directors that will be beholden to the Net's many constituents. At issue was whether the the body would become a membership organization with an elected board of directors or a virtual oligarchy with an appointed board of trustees. The proposal suggests a compromise: It will be a membership organization, but the new board will decide the membership process.
Fenello said the proposed bylaws are too broad. "These board members have no restrictions as to what they can do and are not accountable to anybody. They could rip up existing policy if they wanted to."
IANA and Network Solutions have recently been embroiled in negotiations over the administration of top-level domain names. There was an outcry when they cancelled a meeting where the draft proposal was to have been discussed.
"We were concerned that while many of us have been attending meetings all over the world to come up with a working proposal, IANA and NSI went behind closed doors and hammered out their own agreement," said Ellen Rony, co-author of the Domain Name Handbook who sits on the steering committee of the International Forum on the White Paper.
Network Solutions has two main concerns about the policy, said Chris Clough, NSI's director of corporate communications. "Firstly, there needs to be a series of checks and balances of the new organization's power. And, secondly, it should include greater participation from commercial interests."
The latest draft proposal is designed to quell many of those issues, said Magaziner. "Of course it's the Internet," he added, "and there is no way that everybody will be happy."
