DALLAS, TX: As ICANN commences its fifty-first international meeting today, the Obama administration must recognize threats amid the increasing international pressure to have a United Nations-type organization take control of Internet governance, which would fundamentally change ICANN into an international governmental regulatory agency subjected to political mischief from repressive regimes.
While Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker says the U.S. will not allow the global Internet to be controlled by individual governments, Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) resident scholar of tax and innovation policy Bartlett D. Cleland warns that “some governments want to undermine the permissionless, free-speech Internet built under U.S. oversight, and there is every reason to believe that the core ICANN functions, which the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union is already coveting and which many countries are already lobbying to be turned over to U.N. control, will eventually be consumed.”
“We express deep concerns that, while it is true that relinquishing control of the remaining root functions of the Internet to a multistakeholder organization imagined by the Obama administration would not mean those functions were subject to political or U.N. control, it is probably inevitable that such an organization would eventually succumb to pressure, and then be subject to political mischief because they are part of the UN system,” said IPI president Tom Giovanetti.
Independent multistakeholder organizations set up to do technical functions of interest to the global community have a habit of getting absorbed into the U.N. system, said Giovanetti, citing examples such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) itself.
“So, while what is currently planned and underway is not transferring control of the Internet to the UN, there is every reason to believe that will be the eventual result. And there is every reason to be very, very concerned about that result,” said Giovanetti.
Cleland said the U.S. will need to hang tough, stay committed to its fundamental principles, recognize real threats instead of ignoring them, and work to convince the members of the international Internet community that they must stand steadfast against a block of repressive regimes. “Another option is to sacrifice the open Internet, our freedoms, and the Internet industry,” he said. “A third option may prove to be the only way if the U.S. fails —disconnecting from the global Internet.”
The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is an independent, nonprofit public policy organization based in Dallas, Texas. Experts are available for interview by contacting Erin Humiston at (972) 874-5139, or erin@ipi.org. For more information, please visit www.IPI.org.
--###--