Ten years ago, the most effective branding exercise the internet registry market has ever seen began. And to celebrate the anniversary, its owner is going to strangle it.

At the ICANN meeting in Montreal this month, the Government of Colombia booked a meeting room, prepared a Powerpoint presentation and invited representatives of the world’s largest registry operators to attend. Once there, they were offered a rare and valuable opportunity: to take over running of the .co registry.  

A representative from the ministry of technology and communication ran through a 14-page slide deck to a room of people who have tried and failed, repeatedly, to emulate the success of the .co registry: an internet space that went from invisible to Superbowl ad in less than a year.

If attendees had hoped the presentation would provide some insights, however, they were disappointed: the presentation could have described any one of hundreds of registries. Likewise the list of characteristics the government was seeking in a new contract provider was no more than a simple checkbox of technical requirements that assumes the only function of a registry operator is to provide a “dumb backend” technical service.

Which brought it to the all-important evaluation criteria, comprising four factors: economic proposal, technical proposal, national industry score and handicap workers score. Each was given a weighted score of 70, 19, 10 and 1 respectively. And with that it became very clear that Colombia is about to make a colossal mistake with its .co internet space. 

It may have overall control of the country-code top-level domain but Colombia hasn’t a clue how its internet namespace went from 28,000 addresses to 2.3 million, or how it has become one of the most trusted registries on the internet, or how it built a business around specific groups that keep it thriving. 

Colombia has the keys to a Ferrari and thinks it’s selling a pick-up truck.

Bad data

And nowhere is that more clear than a graphic in its presentation showing the growth of the registry over time – the blueprint that defines the character of a registry; its past, present and future. 

The line chart provided by the Colombian government shows a steady gradual increase in domain names to a point where, in late 2016, it finally hit one million domains. That milestone appears to spur faster growth up to the present day and the registry’s 2.3 million domains.

There’s only one problem. It is wrong. As in completely, entirely 100 percent wrong. The .co registry didn’t hit one million domains in 2016. It hit it in 2011, just over a year after a small but highly focused .CO Internet company took over operation of the registry. 

We know that because the company proudly announced the milestone on June 2, 2011. Coming off the back of a Superbowl ad from GoDaddy and high-profile sales of some of its premium domain names to Google (g.co) and Amazon (a.co, k.co and z.co), the registry was flying.

So how come the stats from the Colombian government said the one million mark was hit five years later? Its graph shows a classic upwards curve that threatens to turn exponential. A footnote in the presentation explains that the data that has informed its view of its own registry comes from Domain Name Stat; a useful service but not one renowned for its accuracy.

Why not just ask the company running the actual .co back-end, Neustar, for the real stats? After all, the Colombian government is in overall charge of its contract; it’s not going to say no. But it clearly hasn’t, so we did. And Neustar sent the stats. 

And the reality is that the actual .co registry growth is a mirror-image of what was pitched to registry operators in Montreal. Rather than a slow start with growth picking up over time, the .co registry was an explosion of growth followed by a gradual slowing – something that is a recurrent trend in mature registries.

This is critical because it drives – or should drive – every other decision made about the registry. In its presentation, the Colombian Government placed a huge 70 per cent weighting on a bidder’s “economic proposal” which, if you strip away complicated looking formulas, amounts to no more than a lowest-cost model. The cheaper the bid to run the 2.3 million domains, the better the score. 

That weighting makes sense if a registry is growing according to the upwards curve that Colombia believes it is. It is the low-margin, high-volume model that the internet industry has long promoted and which in some senses it has become addicted to. But it is also the very model that the .co registry managed to explode — and precisely what makes the .co registry unique.

Colombia has fundamentally misunderstood its own success story. And the space between the two lines – the real stats and the stats that the government appears to believe? As any economist will tell you, that’s where the profit lies. 

How .co became a go-to 

There are over 1,500 top-level domains on the internet but fewer than ten have ever achieved mainstream recognition: .co is one. What’s more, it did it while bucking the market. It still charges more than double the market rate and has more than two million domains, putting it in the top 25 of registries by volume.

That was no mean feat, especially given the market dominance of .com and the fact that the companies .co was competing against had been around for at least a decade: .org was the home of non-profits, country-code names like .uk for the United Kingdom and .de for German were the online focal points for those countries’ advanced economies. Colombia’s economy was ten times smaller and its internet registry thousands of times smaller.

It seems a little redundant to describe the .CO Internet marketing model that made it such a success – it has been the focus of lengthy and detailed analyses over the years – one of which I wrote back in 2012.  In essence it did two key things.

First, it identified groups of people open to the idea of stepping outside the .com default that wanted new internet addresses. The primary target was, and remains, entrepreneurs and start-ups worldwide. Fast-moving firms that want an online presence and a good name. 

And second, the registry eschewed the traditional model of exclusively trying to reach people through the companies that sell internet domains, domain registrars, and decided instead to brand itself, putting significant energy and effort into making a .co a consumer good. 

It took out billboards in New York’s Times Square and in San Francisco and started attending and sponsoring events outside the internet industry to find its new customers. It ran pitch competitions with prize money, launched a “membership program” offering perks to registrants, and partnered with industry leading coworking spaces, incubators and startup communities, consistently pushing the idea of a .co domain as something more than just an internet address. 

It required a lot of resources and effort but it worked. In fact it worked so well that the world’s largest registrar, GoDaddy, came to it, eager to have something new and exciting to sell to its customers. The result was the first of three multi-million dollar Superbowl ads that ran in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and introduced .co to a global stage. 

All of that is demonstrated in the enormous leap in .co registrations that literally hundreds of other companies have tried to emulate ever since, with limited success. 

Maturity

In recent years, as .co has matured, it has scaled back its Super Bowl scale promotional efforts to focus on making the registry a safe, trusted namespace, particularly as the explosion in new top-level domains has put more than a thousand new internet extensions online.

That explosion has seen everything from free domains to those costing hundreds of dollars as new registries try to find a niche in the market. In response to that fundamental shift, a number of new measures of a registry trustworthiness have cropped up. One – Cisco’s Umbrella – attempts to measure the traffic to certain registries i.e. where millions of people are really going when they travel around the internet. Unsurprisingly, .com came in first; but somewhat surprisingly – Colombia’s .co ccTLD came in fifth — even though it is 24th in terms of size. There are a range of others, and in each .co has ranked highly. 

All of which is to say that .co may fit in the mid-tier of top-level domains, with between two and four million domains, but it continues to outperform the market and that is a direct result of the determined community-building and marketing effort the .co registry has consistently put in over the past 10 years.

As incredible as it may seem, the overseer of .co – the Colombian government – has seen that success but failed to understand it. Taken at face value, the rebidding approach outlined this month is focused on extracting as much money as possible from the current situation. A lower cost contract typically means higher overall profits.

Except that approach undermines the very value that .co has built up by consciously not acting as a lowest-cost operator, but rather investing in itself by building and growing an online brand that consumers have been prepared to pay more than double the market rate to register and renew on an annual basis.

Today is the last day the Colombian Government is accepting comments that they say they will consider when finalizing the final evaluation criteria for the bidding process. Here is my comment: The evaluation criteria for the .co registry operator needs a fifth component: marketing and community building. And it should take half the weighting from the economic proposal – 35 per cent of the overall evaluation score – pushing future registry operators toward supporting the high value .co brand as its own separate space — rather than simply treating it as a database of available names. 

Colombia is about to make a huge mistake with its .co registry. I hope that someone is listening and fixes it before it’s too late.

Jo was passionate, determined and funny. She had a habit of saying “Right!” right before she set off to achieve something – something she still did 20 years later. Together we decided to get as much out of university as possible, which, at its most productive comprised learning about all sorts of new things – from art nouveau to the Tibetan Book of the Dead – and at its least productive, comprised lots of alcohol and dancing.

In the second year, we moved in together – with three others of course; we were still poor students – off campus and into number 14 Sherwin Grove. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

Jo and I are both fiercely independent – we had separate rooms even though we both effectively lived in mine, the larger one – and we liked that in one another. A few posters, a mattress on the floor, a good meal, a semi-adopted cat that loved Miles Davis, and a ton of spare time. It was bliss.

Somehow down the line it all went awry, as every relationship did sooner or later at university. But we talked it through with honesty and an open heart and the pain of breaking up became more of a hurdle to overcome than a wound to heal from.

It was only years later, having assumed that it was always going to possible to stay close friends with ex-girlfriends, that I realized how rare and valuable that was. Ever since I have had a hard time jumping that hurdle with others; Jo I think managed it with almost every ex – something that speaks volumes about who she was.

Soon after I found out Jo had died – suddenly, unexpectedly, a nasty cold that was actually something far, far worse but didn’t have the decency to give anyone time to realise – my brain started feeding me flashes of her. Mental pictures I didn’t realise I had taken over the past 23 years.

Every place

Every picture was a different place and I quickly came to realise I had probably stayed in every house that Jo has ever lived. From her childhood home in Parkstone to the multiple houses in Nottingham to the cluster of homes of North London.

She would always expound on the qualities of North London, even when living in a tiny two-bed flat at the top of an enormous flight of stairs.

I would argue the value of grittier South London – and then later Cornwall, Paris, Oxford, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was always looking; she had found where she wanted to be. She only ever conceded San Francisco over her beloved North London, and even then she had reasons why it was only better in certain ways.

One painful picture my mind flashed up was in one house in Nottingham that she shared with Lisa Blount, Ginny Hooker and Oliver Sexton. As unlikely as it would have seemed back then, she would later marry Oliver and have three adorable boys with him.

In this case my picture comes in two parts on the same evening: us drinking red wine – good stuff that didn’t stain your teeth – and listening to a brand new copy of Radiohead’s new single – Paranoid Android – on vinyl that Lisa had just arrived home with.

The second picture is of us all holding and hugging Jo after she found out on the phone her mum had just died. Her father, Rodger, arrived soon after to take her home.

The next day, I called and Jo asked me to come down to Poole for support. Then, over the course of a week, I saw where her incredible emotional strength came from. Rodger pushed through his pain, talking openly and honestly about his memories and feelings and he encouraged Jo to do the same. It was agony and it was beautiful. We cooked and laughed and wept.

At night, Jo would fall asleep sobbing. She asked me to lay beside her and hold her. I told myself I might be able to take away some of the pain if I held her tight enough.

But as awful and painful as it was, it became a life-affirming experience. We dealt with death by focusing on life. There was another thing: blue butterflies. One morning Rodger came down to the kitchen to find a blue butterfly happily flying around; no windows or doors were open and it wasn’t butterfly season. He told us he had found its presence oddly calming. Jo was dumbstruck: a blue butterfly was one of her mum’s favourite things.

We laughed at ourselves; people in the depth of grief trying to attach meaning to small things. But it didn’t go away. Blue butterflies kept appearing despite no one but Jo seemingly knowing about Shona’s love for them. On cards. On people’s broaches. It was a sign that she was still there, that she was making her presence known, looking out for her family in the only way she could.

We didn’t really talk about the butterflies after the funeral. And as time brought down the spiritual shutters, the idea seemed almost hokey. But Jo and myself and Rodger were there and we knew it, and we know it, to be true.

Journalism

It’s probably worth mentioning that I wouldn’t be a journalist if it wasn’t for Jo.

I’ve spent almost my entire adult life as a journalist and it was Jo that first opened that door. Jo persuaded me to go with her to the offices of Impact – the University of Nottingham newspaper – to see if there were any jobs available.

I ended up writing film reviews. She worked on features. It was wonderful. I got to see films early and for free. Soon I started covering gigs and met and interviewed many of my favourite bands. But the newspaper itself was lacklustre (although we preferred the term “dull as shit”). The journalism was soft – too soft. It covered the little groups of (self) important people on campus – hall presidents and the like – as if they were the future leaders of our country rather than what they really were: jumped-up future city councilors or rich kids with a grating sense of entitlement.

When the paper accidentally hit on a big news story, it failed. And it failed badly. A senior lecturer killed himself and sent a copy of his suicide note explaining it was a “Roman suicide” intended to highlight problems and abuses of university management. The news team and editor did the right thing and wrote a front page story on it, but the university got an injunction which it took to the printers and forced them not to roll the presses.

Jo and I saw this as a test of press freedom. We were ready to man the barriers. But instead the editorial team folded. The university threatened to cut their funding. They brought in some big-talking lawyers. And in response, the newspaper team simply handed the letter over and said no more about it.

We couldn’t believe it. So when the editor left later that year (she had finished her degree), we disrupted what was supposed to be a clean handover to the chosen successor – a personal friend of hers who was frankly no good at the job. We asked for a vote.

It resulted in all sorts of maneuvering as the incumbents tried to fix the result. Finally, an early morning weekend meeting was called (who gets up early at the weekend at university?) which we were informed about, I recall, the day before. The vote was supposed to be only people that had worked on Impact but when the numbers didn’t look good enough, suddenly it was open to everyone in the room – and there just happened to be some friends of the editor and wannabe editor there.

I wanted the editor job but it quickly became clear that my bolshy attitude was never going to bring in enough votes. So I told Jo she had to stand. She secretly wanted the job anyway; she just didn’t like the politics. But we still didn’t have the votes and Jo was ready to concede. I suggested some alternative routes and she angrily told me not to do anything dodgy; if she lost, she lost.

I’m not sure I ever told her how she won. I wonder now whether she knew or didn’t know or decided not to ask. None of us had mobile phones so there was no opportunity to rally people. So instead we delayed the vote by asking the candidates to give a quick speech explaining what their vision was. And while this was going on, I went outside and persuaded a group of students leaving some club – I think it was the chess club – to come in and listen. Then I went around the room and made some promises to existing Impact people – mostly about how the same editors would not be automatically put back in the same posts – and I bad-mouthed the opposition to anyone that I thought was sitting on the fence.

In her speech, Jo was full of fire and passion about what Impact could become. A drab newspaper turned into a cutting-edge magazine. We’d give the students what they wanted – the first thing she would do is carry out a survey asking them. No more dull-as-shit stories about the hall presidents; we would hold the university to account. We would reach outside campus and find out what was going on in Nottingham – and across the Midlands. We’d be as good as any newspaper from any other university.

By contrast, the wannabe editor was hopeless. She basically said she’d just do the same thing with the same people. And so, Jo won easily. We didn’t even need the chess club members.

Would Jo have won solely on the basis of her speech? I would love to think so, but even back then I was surprised by how much people are driven by personal advancement. But who cares? The end result was that Jo got in and we got rid of a lot of dead wood at the same time. It was a victory and a heady exercise in taking on the establishment and winning.

Jo later rewarded my enterprise by firing me. I missed a big deadline. It was the main spread: a night out with Blur and the launch of their new album. I was supposed to do the event and write it up that night to catch the latest edition the next morning. Instead, I woke up with a powerful hangover in a hotel room in Liverpool with a terrific story but not the ability to write it. I decided to head back to Nottingham and hope I would recover enough to write it in the office. I finally arrived as the deadline closed and there was Jo pacing about, demanding I hand over a piece that I hadn’t even started. She was not impressed and fired me.

And the funny thing is, she still got angry about this years later. I like to think it’s because she realized she’d made a mistake and didn’t want to admit it. There was still time. There’s the deadline and then there’s the print deadline. My belief might even be true. But regardless I didn’t stay fired for long – at the start of the next year I sat down with Jo, who remained editor thanks to some behind the scenes lobbying, and explained why I should become film editor. We had the buzz and the know-how and we had started raising other people’s games. It was a close-knit team and we were going our own direction. It was exciting.

The powers that be

The establishment however hated us. We were punished for stealing the editorship away from the important people. Our “temporary” offices in the bowels of the admin building while the second floor was being renovated became permanent. I believe the union president decided to move himself into the massive room set aside for Impact rather than give it to us. We thought that was alternatively appalling and hilarious. Our room in the basement was so small it was comical – you have to let someone out before someone else could get in. And there were no windows. It became a source of pride for us. Nowadays I would have embarrassed the president with his petty power grab but back then we decided we would simply ignore them.

When we didn’t heed the advice from on high that we might want to lay off the criticism and cover more of the student president’s speeches, we had our funding cut. Jo responded as a true editor: she advertised for people interested in sales and reached out to local businesses to pay for ad space.

By the end of it, Impact was a proper magazine with growing readership, free of control from the petty bureaucrats, and I recall we got shortlisted for university magazine of the year. We were beaten out by Sheffield (?) who really did knock out an amazing magazine but had something like ten times our budget.

This whole experience was so exhilarating that when I finished my masters in Mechanical Engineering and received three offers of employment from various engineering firms, I didn’t respond to any of them because I realized I wanted to be a journalist. And so, of course, did Jo. Over the course of her career she has worked at the BBC and The Guardian and just recently she decided to go freelance and start up her own business covering the topic of working from home – Panaroma Road – so she could spend more time with her kids.

Shit. Fuck. Shittity fuck. I can’t believe I’m writing this. This has become an obituary for my friend: my lovely, charming, fiery Jo. Barely 40. With three young boys who will now never fully know their mother. And she was a great one.

Stateside

I’ve been living in the United States for nearly a decade. But it’s never felt like I was out of touch with Jo. Every time I came to the UK, once or twice a year, we’d make a point of meeting up. When each of the boys was born, me and sometimes my family would turn up to celebrate. In between, we’d grab a coffee or a glass of wine and catch up. Every time it was a pleasure. Within minutes, sometimes seconds, we’d be back to where we were, updating each other, laughing at the ludicrousness of life and adding another layer to our friendship.

I saw Jo for the last time less than two weeks ago in a short but lovely afternoon by the Southbank in London. Jo was with two of her boys – Ned had chickenpox and was home with Oliver – and, wonderfully, Lisa and Ginny were there too. My girls were with me as was my wife Sapna. All the kids ran around chasing pigeons by the London Eye. It was a typical grizzly London January day. Jo and I didn’t have time for a full catch-up but it didn’t matter. Next time.

I told Jo we were thinking about moving back to the UK in the next few years. Her response was every bit her. “Why would you want to leave California and come back here? It’s shit.” Then a pause. “But you should do it. I would love to spend more time with you.”

I didn’t tell her one of the attractions of moving back would be that I could see her more often and we and our kids could all grow a little older together. But she knew that.

When we said our goodbyes to catch a tube back to Ealing, Jo caught me off guard by giving me a much bigger hug than I was expecting. I immediately gave her a huge hug back. It might be a year before I saw her again. As it turns out, it’s going to be much longer than that.

I don’t know how I am going to handle only having you, Jo, as a voice in my head. I already miss the conversations we’re never going to have. I wanted you to become an influence in my girls’ lives and I still can’t quite believe that you aren’t with us. I want to be angry but I can’t do it. I’m grieving. I’m miserable.

The only answer I have right now is to think back to what you and your dad taught me all those years when your mum left so quickly and left such a chasm. I will talk and laugh and cry. And cook.

Lisa tells me she’s already started sharing Witt stories. I’ve put a few of mine down here. I have many more, but then you know that. Goodbye Jo, I love you. I will always love you. Thank you. I’m so sorry you weren’t with us longer.

Before the Federal Communications Bar Association April 1, 2014

Internet Governance and Freedom

Let me begin by thanking the Federal Communications Bar Association—the FCBA—its President, Joe DiScipio, its President-elect, David Gross, and its Executive Director, Stan Zenor, for the privilege to speak before you this afternoon. It is a great honor that you would take a few moments of your day to listen to a minority Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission with only five months under his belt.

I look around the room and see so many people with whom I have worked in one capacity or another over the years. Your smiling faces do not hide the underlying burning question: How the heck did THAT GUY ever get to be a Commissioner? Fair point, fair point. The question I am asking myself is: Who leaves a powerful staff position in the U.S. Senate for the FCC when his party is on the rise? I read the stories about how senior Republican Senate staffers are being courted to join the lucrative lobbying community and ask myself: WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING? But seriously, I have very much enjoyed my time so far at the FCC. And I am humbled by the opportunity.

Today being April Fools’ Day, I will not insult your intelligence by suggesting that outlandish things are somehow now true. This crowd cannot be fooled into thinking that I am renouncing my party affiliation in order to unite with Chairman Wheeler to push his net neutrality agenda forward. You are not gullible enough to accept that Commissioner Rosenworcel and I meet every afternoon at 4:00 pm for high tea. And, you would never believe that former President Bill Clinton and I share common views on a certain communications policy. Actually, on that one, you should.

This brings me to the topic I will discuss today: Internet governance. Before the eye rolling begins, I believe this issue is extremely important to the entire communications industry. And let me give you the key take away: We should all maintain a deep skepticism about the U.S. Government’s recent announcement that it plans to transition away next year from its oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)¹ A recent Bloomberg article on the ICANN 49 meeting held last week probably summed it up best, and I quote: “A group of nerds and wonks [has been] having some hideously boring meetings this week in Singapore. You should care: What they produce could change the nature of the Internet.”²

Those who have raised concerns about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) announcement have been labeled as Republican partisans,³ but even former President Bill Clinton is concerned about NTIA’s plan. He recently stated that he thinks the U.S. has “done a … good job of keeping the Internet open and free.”⁴ While a multi-stakeholder process would be nice in theory, he adds, and I quote: “I just know that a lot of these so-called multi-stakeholders are really governments that want to gag people and restrict access to the internet.”⁵

Before I delve into the policy details about ICANN, Internet governance, and NTIA’s announcement, I need to provide a bit of technical background for some of you. In order for the global Internet to work smoothly, some key parts need to be coordinated.⁶

To access the mesh of computers that makes up the Internet, numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are assigned to locate a computer that contains content.⁷ To make it easier for us to browse the Internet and locate certain sites, the Domain Name System (DNS) converts the IP numbers into the web 2 addresses that we use every day, such as www.fcc.gov.⁸ Actually, let’s use transition.fcc.gov instead. I understand there is some frustration throughout this crowd with the new FCC website.

ICANN establishes the so-called top-level domain names, such as .edu, .travel and,⁹ potentially, as Senator Rockefeller has complained about, .sucks.¹⁰ And, pursuant to a contract with NTIA, it performs the administration of the DNS root zone file, the database that contains the authoritative list of root name servers.¹¹ To put this into layman’s terms, NTIA has a contract with ICANN to coordinate IP addresses and maintain and make changes to the master database of domain names. Without this database or addressing system, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to navigate the global Internet.

Now turning to the announcement, just a little over two weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon at 5:30 p.m., NTIA publicly announced its “intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multi-stakeholder community.”¹² We’ve all been in Washington, D.C. long enough to know the significance of this timing. As U.S. Senator Tim Scott aptly observed when responding to a question, and I quote: “[I]t seems that the tradition has been that [when] you want [something] to go unnoticed, you put [it] out on the last day of the week.”¹³ Maybe it didn’t work in this case.

Although the announcement did not provide a lot of detail, ICANN was directed to convene global stakeholders to solicit proposals that would potentially transition the current oversight role played by NTIA.¹⁴ Any entity that would replace NTIA has to meet four aspirational principles that are meant to maintain a free, secure and reliable Internet.¹⁵ However, the most attention—or controversy—came from NTIA’s follow-on declaration that it will not accept a proposal where its role is replaced by a “government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.”¹⁶

While NTIA’s proposal may sound like a good idea, when you dig deeper, transitioning the domain name functions to a new, global multi-stakeholder community raises some serious concerns that must be addressed prior to moving forward. The ability to control domain names may provide the ability to control Internet content and access, so the stakes are extremely high. This announcement raises three issues that I’d like to cover with you:

First, and foremost, the fatal flaw in NTIA’s announcement is the potential involvement of foreign governments or quasi-governmental bodies in Internet governance. Although many have interpreted NTIA’s announcement as a prohibition on accepting any proposals that would involve foreign governments, last Thursday, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling openly admitted that this prohibition only applied to government-led organizations.¹⁷ This means that there is room for NTIA to consider foreign governments as part of any new multi-stakeholder community that will be involved in the future oversight of ICANN. I fundamentally disagree with this position, because I worry that foreign government involvement could grow into undue influence or power over the functions of the Internet. In an ideal world, if we are going to move away from the current structure, it should be toward a system in which no governments are involved.

But let’s assume for a minute that NTIA comes to my way of thinking and refuses to allow foreign government or quasi-governmental organization involvement in the new oversight body. Even if ICANN can create a proposal that meets this goal and the transition occurs, the threat to Internet freedom may, in fact, increase. My concern is, once the United States gives up its oversight, how can it prevent any new multi-stakeholder model from ever being usurped by a foreign government or quasi-governmental entity in the future? What happens if governmental or quasi-governmental entities are eventually given board seats, leadership positions, or more? Who will demand continued compliance with NTIA’s principles and who will step in and correct any undue influence should problems arise?

There is no guarantee that there will be a policing ability to ensure that governments cannot take control of ICANN or the domain name functions. United Nations (U.N.) officials have made very clear that they would like to be involved in such a governance body. When asked if the U.N. expects to take over NTIA’s duties, the response was “[w]e cannot foresee how the transition will unfold.”¹⁸ That is reassuring.

If this proposal is to go forward, it must be with verifiable, crystal clear, airtight guarantees that there cannot be a role for foreign governments or quasi-governmental entities in Internet governance now or in the future. NTIA should explicitly put this question on the table. But, I don’t see how contract law or any other mechanism could provide some type of reclamation or reversion authority to the U.S. should something go wrong with this multi-stakeholder body. And without it, all we would have is our hopes that the new organization would be able to resist totalitarian regimes. That is too great a risk to take given the importance of the Internet.

Second, from the point of view of maintaining the stability of the Internet, even with ICANN’s flaws, the current oversight structure by NTIA has been an incredible success. It is not clear that a new structure—even one that is free of government involvement—would be better than the current U.S. stewardship. The U.S. government’s hands-off, but watchful eye approach has provided the right system of checks and balances to enable ICANN to function rather independently while still protecting certain basic rights and principles of Internet users. For instance, ICANN has not stretched its authority in policymaking in a way that would put it at odds with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While this principle is beloved by so many Americans, it is not universally shared throughout the world. I recall a congressional hearing a number of years back involving a Canadian official who highlighted how Canada doesn’t have that “pesky First Amendment thing.” Let’s be honest: I don’t suspect Canada will be our problem. But going forward, I worry how a new egalitarian, multi-stakeholder oversight body combined with the existing ICANN, in which neither is tethered to America, can be trusted to safeguard the fundamental protections enjoyed on the Internet today. And, the bottom line is there is no imminent need to change the status quo. Perhaps, as the old saying goes, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

Third, past history and current events show us that numerous foreign governments are more than willing to meddle with the Internet and its use by their citizens. This should factor heavily into our decision-making when it comes to Internet governance. As I mentioned earlier, Former President Bill Clinton agrees that we must be skeptical about the U.S. giving up all oversight of Internet domain names and IP addresses.¹⁹ Specifically, he stated opponents of U.S. oversight are doing so “for the sole purpose of cracking down on Internet freedom and limiting it and having governments protect their backsides instead of empowering their people.”²⁰

Foreign governments and inter-governmental bodies, such as the U.N. or the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), have a history of attempting to gain control of the Internet.²¹ In December 2012, during the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), a select group of countries tried to make ITU control of the Internet a reality.²² Countries, including China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, pushed proposals that would have provided the ITU with authority over not only domain names, but also the ability to affect the operations, content and economics of the Internet.²³

Additionally, it is clear that a number of foreign nations have a far different view of what should be permitted on the Internet. For instance, a little over a week ago, the Turkish Prime Minister attempted to block access to Twitter, ignoring international outcry, including objections by the White House and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.²⁴ Then last Thursday, Turkey’s telecommunications authority blocked YouTube, just days before their local elections.²⁵

Not to be outdone, Russia has been blocking websites and blogs, including those of Ukrainian opposition leaders and those critical of President Putin’s policies.²⁶ The reason for the shutdowns? They promote, and I quote: “illegal activities and participation in public events held in violation of the established order.”²⁷ A new Russian law allows authorities to order ISPs to block access to websites with “‘extremist’ content or call[ing] for unauthorized public gatherings.”²⁸ Other websites are preemptively removing their content to avoid the Russian government’s crackdown.²⁹

Oppressive regimes routinely try to quell dissent by blocking access to the Internet. China censors websites critical of the Communist Party and Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are inaccessible in that country.³⁰ Iran blocks access to social media to prevent antigovernment protests.³¹ The Egyptian government blocked social media services during the Arab Spring in an attempt to stop the protesters.³² And, the Assad-led government in Syria shut down web access entirely when opposition groups gained ground in its civil war.³³

While it is clear that foreign governments will not hesitate to interfere with Internet services and applications when doing so suits their national needs, they also will not hesitate to point out the hypocrisy if and when the United States adopts its own controls over the Internet.

This is an added reason why I am concerned that the FCC will press forward with new network neutrality regulations.³⁴ At this pivotal moment for Internet freedom, the FCC’s network neutrality proceeding could severely contradict and undermine the U.S. government’s international position. FCC action sends the wrong message: that it is acceptable for nations to impose the strong arm of the government on the Internet. In addition to our domestic concerns, we must also consider the influence of our decisions on other countries, given the strength of our voice worldwide.

Some may try to argue that the situation in the U.S. is different—that any FCC network neutrality rules would prevent blocking and discrimination by service providers, not the government. But that nuance will likely be lost on others, if not ignored outright. The bottom line is that we cannot argue for an unregulated Internet internationally while we try to regulate the Internet at home.

Internet governance issues cannot be viewed in a vacuum. There are much larger substantive and political issues at play, in which Internet governance is just one small cog. It is impossible to separate these issues from the larger foreign policy debates, such as the one raging over NSA surveillance and the various military altercations occurring elsewhere in the world. In light of these issues, the Administration may be tempted to look at ICANN oversight as low hanging fruit; something they can give away to mitigate international criticism. Was the Administration’s announcement part of a larger diplomatic effort? We should keep this possibility in mind, and analyze NTIA’s decision accordingly.

In conclusion, I urge all of you to follow closely, with a critical eye, NTIA’s and ICANN’s proposals as they develop. The United States created the Internet and shared it with the world. Now we have an obligation to safeguard it from harm. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the hard work and leadership of the many government officials who have been doing just that on the international stage. This includes my predecessor at the FCC, Robert McDowell, Ambassador David Gross, Ambassador Phil Verveer—who we are incredibly fortunate to have with us at the Commission—and the current Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, who I consider a dear friend.

For some of you out there who appeared to be slightly less than focused during my speech, perhaps even using the Internet at times, there may have been a bit of April Fools’ trickery involved after all, as I just made you spend about 20 minutes listening to a speech about ICANN.

Thank you very much for hosting me at this luncheon. I have enjoyed my time at the numerous FCBA events and I look forward to working with your organization on this and many other issues in the months and years ahead.

¹ National Telecommunications & Internet Association, U.S. Department of Commerce, NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions, Mar. 14, 2014 (NTIA Announcement).

² Editorial, Who Should Oversee the Internet, BLOOMBERG VIEW, Mar. 4, 2014, .

³ See, e.g., Jessica Meyers & Erin Mershon, Defenders of Net transition: GOP off base, POLITICO, Mar. 17, 2014.

⁴ Amy Schatz, Bill Clinton Would Prefer U.S. Oversight of the Internet, RE/CODE, Mar. 23, 2014.

⁵ Id.

⁶ Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, Introducing IANA (last visited Mar. 31, 2014) (stating that “[t]he Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a department of ICANN responsible for coordinating some of the key elements that keep the Internet running smoothly. Whilst the Internet is renowned for being a worldwide network free from central coordination, there is a technical need for some key parts of the Internet to be globally coordinated, and this coordination role is undertaken by IANA.”); International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, About Us (last visited Mar. 31, 2014).

⁷ Information Systems & Technology, IP Addresses, Host Names, and Domain Names, MASS. INST. OF TECH, (last visited Mar. 31, 2014).

⁸ James Ball, Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security, THE GUARDIAN, Feb. 28, 2014.

⁹ A Quick Look at ICANN (last visited Mar. 31, 2014).

¹⁰ Brian Feldman, Senator Jay Rockefeller Opposes the ‘.sucks’ Domain, THEWIRE, Mar. 13, 2014.

¹¹ ICANN, supra note 6; Cyrus Farivar, In sudden announcement, US to give up control of DNS root zone, ARSTECHNICA, Mar. 14, 2014.

¹² NTIA Announcement, supra note 1.

¹³ Charles C.W. Cooke, Tim Scott, Free-Speech Savior?, NAT’L REV. ONLINE, Mar. 28, 2014.

¹⁴ NTIA Announcement, supra note 1.

¹⁵ Id., stating that the transition proposal has to address four principles: Support and enhance the multi-stakeholder model; Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS; Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services; and, Maintain the openness of the Internet.

¹⁶ Id. (emphasis added).

¹⁷ Kieren McCarthy, What the Government Said About IANA in Singapore, CIRCLEID, Mar. 26, 2014.

¹⁸ Benny Avni, Obama Wants a Global Community to Run the Internet, but It Could End Up in the Hands of China. Or Putin, NEWSWEEK, Mar. 25, 2014.

¹⁹ Schatz, supra note 4.

²⁰ Id.

²¹ David A. Gross, Walking the talk: The Role of U.S. Leadership in the Wake of WCIT, BLOOMBERG L., (last visited Mar. 23, 2014).

²² See Fighting for Internet Freedom: Dubai and Beyond Before the Subcomm. on Comm. and Tech. of the H. Comm. on Energy and Com. and the Subcomm. on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade of the H. Comm. on Foreign Aff., and the Subcomm. on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and Int’l Org. of the H. Comm. on Foreign Aff., 112th Cong. (2013) (statement of Robert M. McDowell, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission), available at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-318727A1.doc.

²³ Gross, supra note 21; McDowell, supra note 22.

²⁴ Rebecca Shabad, Clinton to Turkey: Restore access to Twitter, THE HILL, Mar. 22, 2014, .

²⁵ Joe Parkinson & Emre Peker, Turkey Muzzles YouTube, Media Ahead of Elections, WALL ST. J., Mar. 27, 2014.

²⁶ Ellen Barry, Russian Blocks Web Content Amid Tension over Ukraine, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 13, 2014; Steven Wilson, The Logic of Russian Internet Censorship, WASH. POST, Mar. 16, 2014.

²⁷ Barry, supra note 26.

²⁸ Id.

²⁹ Id.

³⁰ Lulu Yilun Chen, Chinese Internet Outage May Be Result of Censorship Changes, BLOOMBERG, Jan. 13, 2014.

³¹ Thomas Erdbrink, Iran Bars Social Media Again After a Day, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 17, 2013.

³² Juan Carlos Perez, Egypt’s Internet block aims at social media, COMPUTERWORLD, Jan. 28, 2011.

³³ Martin Chulov, Syria shuts off internet access across the country, THE GUARDIAN, Nov. 29, 2012, ; Andrea Peterson, Syria hit with a near nationwide Internet outage for seven plus hours, WASH. POST, Mar. 20, 2014.

³⁴ See Statement by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on the FCC’s Open Internet Rules (Feb. 19, 2014), (outlining a proposal for new network neutrality rules). The FCC also opened a new docket to consider how it should proceed in light of the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in Verizon v. FCC, 740 F.3d 623 (D.C. Cir. 2014), in which the court vacated and remanded parts of the FCC’s network neutrality rules. See New Docket Established to Address Open Internet Remand, GN Docket No. 14-28, Public Notice, DA 14-211 (rel. Feb. 19, 2014); see also Preserving the Open Internet, GN 7 Docket No. 09-191, WC Docket No. 07-52, Report and Order, 25 FCC Rcd 17905 (2010) (Open Internet Order), aff’d in part, vacated and remanded in part sub nom. Verizon, 740 F.3d at 623.

This week, ICANN started that process at its meeting in Singapore. And on the ground were the two key US government officials behind the decision – Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Strickling and NTIA Associate Administrator Fiona Alexander – to explain exactly what it meant, what the process would be, and answer questions from the Internet community.

This is what they had to say.

The summary below covers only what Strickling and Alexander said in person at five different sessions during the week of the conference:

• A one-day pre-conference event on Internet governance run by ICANN’s Non Commercial User Constituency (NCUC)
• A session of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC)
• A session of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO)
• A session of the Non Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC)
• A session of the Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG)

Full details and resources for each session are provided at the end.

Except for the pre-conference event (where Strickling gave a keynote speech and Alexander was on a panel), each session saw Strickling give a rundown of the decision to transition IANA in which he highlighted the same key messages. He then took questions from the floor.

This summary breaks down the approximately three-and-a-half hours of information and discussion into three parts:

• Key messages from the US government
• Responses to questions asked
• Interesting asides (for light relief)

Key messages

The US government’s role in IANA is purely clerical

Both Strickling and Alexander repeatedly used the word “clerical” to describe the role that the US government plays in the IANA contract.

“Our role today is fairly clerical,” said Strickling. Alexander reiterated the message: “What’s on the table is the US government’s role. That role is clerically administering the contract.”

In a later session: “There is a template that has been agreed. We just verify that the process has been followed… our role is just clerical.” And later still: “Our actual role is quite administrative or clerical in the sense that root zone change requests come through us, we look at them, verify them and pass them on to Verisign who actually implements and updates and maintains the root zone.”

The word was even used to refer to the impact that the transition will have on the agreement the US government has with Verisign over making the actual changes to the root zone. If the community decides on a transition process, the change in that contract should be merely “clerical”, Strickling told government representatives.

A definition of ‘clerical’ by the Oxford English Dictionary: “Concerned with or relating to work in an office, especially routine documentation and administrative tasks.”

Other terms used to describe the US government’s role included “narrow scope”, “symbolic” and “quite limited”.

There are four key principles – and that’s it

Strickling reiterated the four “principles” that accompanied the announcement of the transition in each session, noting every time that they were “not controversial” and that he had “heard no disagreement” with them.

The four were referred to as the “principles”, “conditions” even “corners” of the transition process. Strickling repeatedly stressed that they are the only constraints on the process and the only items by which the transition will be judged and approved (except one significant exception – see the next point).

Those principles are:

• Support and enhance the multistakeholder model
• Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS
• Meet the needs and expectation of the global customers and partners of the IANA services, and
• Maintain the openness of the Internet

Asked repeatedly for further details, constraints, pre-conditions, preferences or any other details that would define the process, Strickling insisted there were none.

Examples of quotes: “I don’t wish to pre-judge anything”; “I don’t have a sketch for how this looks and even if I did, it wouldn’t be fair to submit as more than one stakeholder’s view”; “you can’t have anything at the front end saying you can’t consider this or you can’t go that direction – particularly from us as the final arbiter – that would not be true to the spirit of the multistakeholder process”; “the criteria communicated are the only criteria”.

Governments are only one stakeholder and cannot be in charge

The one explicit constraint included in the transition announcement was that “NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution”.

In the announcement, this was preceded with the explanation that the US Congress had passed resolutions that made it clear that the “multistakeholder model” was the only model that was acceptable for Internet governance issues (those resolutions were largely in response to the ITU-run World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in December 2012).

With respect to the “no government-led solution” sentence, Strickling repeatedly stressed the same point: that it may have been misinterpreted to say that governments had no role to play in a future IANA contract whereas the position of the US government was that governments were just one stakeholder in the multistakeholder model and should not be given a pre-eminent position.

He told the pre-conference on Internet governance: “One issue is crystal clear – we will not acceptable a proposal where a government-led or inter-governmental organization is put into the role we play.”

Later: “It is not the case that governments should not play any role. I fully expect and welcome the role of governments.” Also: “We’re not saying governments don’t play a role – clearly they need to be part of a discussion – but we don’t want to replace a single government solution with a multi-government solution.” Later still, and directly to government representatives: “Some of you may not like this but… we are saying very clearly that any solution should not be government led.”

The answer to the transition lies in IANA’s ‘customers’

The phrase “customers” appears in the official announcement and was used repeatedly to describe not only who the IANA functions were aimed at but also how transition solutions should be framed.

The different aspects of the IANA contract (protocols, names and numbers) were identified as having a different set of “customers” each.

“There are three primary functions and three different customers,” explained Alexander. She later noted that the transition was a process of evolution and highlighted that the US government is “not the customers of those services”.

Strickling argued that future discussions should “keep a focus on customers” and when asked about a specific possible change, replied: “It’s a question that I again hope that the customers of IANA functions on the naming side are should have a lot of input into.”

When asked about how the process should go move ahead, Strickling was careful not to “pre-judge” but noted that he felt it may be useful for there to be very clear explanations for what how the different aspects of the IANA functions actually work and that their “customers” may be in the best position to explain that.

US domestic politics are a factor

Strickling was characteristically blunt in his assessment of the political situation in Washington DC. Noting that there were already two Congressional hearings on the issue planned for next week, he warned that United States politics would play an important role in the IANA transition.

“We are already starting to see other issues emerge out of all this – people need to be understanding of all that,” he told the pre-conference meeting. “Not that they should be modifying their viewpoints, but already people are suggesting that the US is abandoning the Internet or this decision will inevitability lead to a loss of freedom of expression on Internet.”

He outlined the impact on his own department: “We are being pushed by some political elements to keep emphasizing how conditional our offer was – of the transition – that conditions have to be satisfied.”

In several different sessions, he noted that there were two key audiences to the Internet community’s actions: developing countries and Washington policymakers. “The community has to step up to reassure policymakers in Washington, or those that simply want to comment to win political points, that you have a sense of responsibility and will ensure very important values such as free expression.”

Free expression was identified repeatedly as a touchstone in Washington politics: “I’m extremely puzzled and troubled by the idea that’s emerged that somehow this evolution is going to threaten free expression on the internet. I think they are trying to score political points. But it’s an issue that certainly resonates with people in the United States when they hear these statements being made. They take it personally and they view that as a threat. And so it’s something we need to nip in the bud because it’s wrong and because it’ll cause constant friction.”

“Don’t let this become a political football,” he urged, noting that the community can help by arriving at a “well thought through plan”. He also urged that “this community come together quickly and be able to approach the goal of reaching consensus as quickly as possible”.

Warning that the “chaotic” multistakeholder model will come under scrutiny, Strickling repeatedly warned that the “world is watching”. He added: “It’s important for the community to act with a real sense of purpose – engaged with this process and absolutely dedicated to arriving at a consensus outcome in a responsible, realistic and hopefully creative way. We can’t let extraneous issues get in the way. There is too much at stake.”

The bigger picture is developing countries and the multistakeholder process

Repeatedly playing down the importance of the US government’s role over IANA (see its ‘clerical’ role above), Strickling repeatedly emphasized the more important Internet governance issues regarded developing nations and the multistakeholder model.

“My greatest concern is that by taking this action [announcing the IANA transition] it would suck all the oxygen out of the longer discussion – how to engage the developing world and build the multistakeholder model,” he said, arguing that this should be the topic of the upcoming NetMundial conference in Brazil.

His “deepest hope” is that the IANA announcement will serve as a “booster shot” to these other issues. The needs of developing countries was “reflected in Dubai” (at the WCIT conference): “They have a series of unmet needs and are looking for help and need a way to get that help.”

Later: “The developing world is still not certain that the multistakeholder model will meet their needs. We’ve been talking about the benefits and value of this for years and years. Now’s the chance [to prove it].”

ICANN accountability is something for the community to figure out

While arguing that the US government’s role in IANA was purely clerical, Strickling noted repeatedly that there was a “symbolism” and “comfort” for some in the US government sitting “in the middle” of changes to the root zone. He also noted that this was also a cause of “irritation” for many others.

But asked frequently how the transition of IANA impacted the US government’s ability to keep ICANN in check, he persistently pushed the issue back to the community. “In no way is the US government handing the keys to ICANN and walking away from it. We’re asking community to step up and say what is it that you want to have: how do you replace the sense of confidence that somehow we are sitting in the middle? This is an important discussion for this community to have.”

Later: “Because people see the US contract as providing an overall sense of confidence about the system – which has also been a source of irritation – I fully expect community will want to start talking about that. Is there a vacuum of this larger question of accountability? We encourage that discussion – we haven’t put it in play but we’re not surprised community wants to talk about that and think that’s good.”

The “Affirmation of Commitments” (AoC) between the US government and ICANN remains untouched, Strickling noted many times. “We haven’t done anything to say the AoC need to be changed or modified – it remains in place throughout this process.”

But that “doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it – I expect [the IANA conversation] will segway into larger questions of accountability and transparency and how well the existing AoC operates.” But to be “crystal clear”, the IANA transition doesn’t mean that the AoC is “out of touch or past due. It can work and should still work. If you want to improve – go to it.”

Questions

The same questions repeatedly cropped up at the different sessions, eliciting the same broad responses…

What if the Internet community can’t reach agreement by September 2015 (when the IANA contract is due to expire)?

The NTIA has the existing option of two, two-year extensions to the existing contract and is happy to use them if the community hasn’t reached agreement. The priority will always be the “security and stability of the Internet”.

Strickling repeatedly stressed however that there needs to be movement and he sidestepped a question about the impact of possible political changes in the president elections of 2016.

Should there be a structural separation of ICANN and IANA?

Both US government representatives were at pains to avoid giving a view one way or another but did note that after community input in 2012, that the current IANA contract requires separation of policy and administration of the IANA contract.

Strickling did ask aloud whether the economic argument for a structural separation of ICANN and IANA existed – was the benefit from separation worth the inefficiency it would create? But he noted this was a debate for the community to have.

Concerns that ICANN will push its own IANA proposal

There were repeated questions over what the US government would accept (and not accept) as a transition plan, often laced with the fear that ICANN would push its own preferred model.

In every case, Strickling stressed that any solution would have to be done in as transparent a way as possible, with the full inclusion of all in the Internet community and that the US government would only accept a proposal that was a proper consensus document.

“Everybody has a stake in that from ICANN management down to every organization or person who is part of this ecosystem. And so I think it behooves everyone to make sure that that’s happening every step of the way. And we won’t hesitate to give our view that we don’t see that happening.”

It was the community’s responsibility to make a lot of noise if it felt it wasn’t be listened to, Strickling said, noting that the US government will “continue to monitor” the process.

The creation of a new organization

There were a number of questions about whether a new organization would need to be created in order to take over the current US government role. Strickling wouldn’t be drawn on the issue (if that it is the consensus plan, then so be it), but he did note that he could easily foresee a doing-away with the role altogether and a “machine-to-machine” automated process being introduced instead, removing altogether the role the US government has played for more than a decade.

Interesting asides

Whenever you are grilled on all sides of a topic for several hours, it hard not to let the occasional interesting aside creep in. These are the most interesting from four days of IANA transition discussions:

Sarah Palin

A perennial figure of fun for Democrats in the United States, former vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin is renowned for making fervent political statements based on the slimmest of information.

Strickling couldn’t resist but point to a Facebook post by Palin as an example of the kind of misinformed domestic politics he faces back home.

“It’s absolutely an emerging item in the political debate in Washington. I mean just go look – Sarah Palin has made a Facebook post on this. Now I’m sure Sarah Palin is very well acquainted with the IANA functions. And I’m sure that, you know, if she wants to show up at an ICANN meeting or at Net Mundial to participate I’m sure she would be welcomed.

“But she’s expressing a viewpoint that is very troubling in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish here. And it’s all being done not because at the end of the day she cares one bit about the IANA functions or ICANN. I doubt that she could tell you what any of the letters in the acronym stand for. It’s all being done for political gain in the domestic politics in the US.”

Russia and Crimea

Asked about the controversy at the WCIT conference in December 2012, an effort by some nations – particularly Russia – to pull the Internet under the auspices of the United Nations, and noting that the US government’s clearly stated position that IANA would not be given to an inter-governmental organization may not be popular, Strickling used a current diplomatic crisis to make his point.

“I can’t say for certain that some nation won’t attempt to bring it back… but there’s one that, you know, has got some issues in Crimea right now and maybe people won’t be too disposed to listen to them this time.”

The ITU option

Having been pressed repeatedly over what the US government would or would not accept as a transition plan, and having refused repeatedly to be drawn into giving any opinion, he was finally asked if there was any plan that the community could provide as a consensus document that he would not accept.

“Yeah – if you throw in the towel and say ‘let’s give it to the ITU’.”

Sessions and resources

Friday, 21 March

• ICANN & Global Internet Governance: The Road to São Paulo & Beyond
  • Audio
  • Video: Roadmap for Ecosystem Evolution
  • Video: Fiona Alexander (4hrs 20mins in, ends at 5hrs 46mins)
  • Video: Larry Strickling (7hrs 31mins in, ends at 7hrs 51mins)

Sunday, 23 March

• GAC Plenary
  • Audio: starts at 13mins 32 secs.

Tuesday, 25 March

• ccNSO session
  • Audio: starts at 29mins 43 secs
• Non Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC)
  • Transcript: pages 48-76
• Commercial Stakeholder Group (CSG)
  • Audio: starts at 25mins 30 secs

The Internet Society has hired Washington insider Kathryn Brown as its new CEO.

Brown is Verizon’s public policy expert and has worked for the company for more than a decade. While not well known within the Internet community, she is highly respected within DC and telecoms policy circles.

Prior to Verizon, Kathy worked for telecoms law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, now Wilmer and Hale. And before that she worked for two US government departments: the FCC and NTIA.

In the past year, she has built a public profile on Internet governance issues, appearing on a number of panels at global conferences. She has also served on the advisory council of the Public Interest Registry – the company created by ISOC to run the .org Internet top-level domain.

While no one will doubt Brown’s talents, the choice of someone so intricately associated with the US government and telecoms industry goes against the prevailing mood in Internet circles where the Snowden/NSA revelations have led to calls for Internet organizations to move away from Washington and US influence.

A statement signed by many of the groups that oversee Internet infrastructure earlier this year, including the Internet Society (ISOC), expressed “strong concern over the undermining of the trust and confidence of Internet users globally due to recent revelations of pervasive monitoring and surveillance” and made repeated mentions of the need to adopt a global outlook. That statement was widely seen as an effort by Internet organizations to distance themselves from the US government.

In that light, the decision by ISOC’s Board to hire a Washington insider will be seen by many as a lost opportunity to move the organization beyond the Beltway (ISOC is headquartered in Virginia and is chartered as a Washington DC non-profit).

The position of CEO at the $35 million-a-year organization, which is dedicated to promoting an open Internet, was opened up in July when current head Lynn St Amour said she was stepping down in February 2014 after 13 years in the job.

Read the formal announcement on hiring Brown as CEO.

The new CEO of the Internet Society will be decided at the end of the week at a meeting of the ISOC Board.

Although the Internet community is prone to over-emphasizing its importance, in this case the decision for who will take over could be critical to the future of Internet governance.

The field has been boiled down to three candidates by a search committee of the Board, and the final decision will be made by the whole Board at the tail-end of the ICANN meeting currently taking place in Buenos Aires.

ISOC is being tight-lipped about who those final three are but the Internet world is not a big one and so I’ll tell you who I think they are and why.

The decision will be critical. ISOC desperately needs fresh blood at the top and the appointment coincides with seismic shifts in the Internet governance field, thanks in large part to relevations by Edward Snowden of US government abuse of the Internet.

No, no, no Chehade. Yes, yes, yes Chehade.

Fadi Chehade caused some controversy when he met ith Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and legitimized a new Internet governance meeting.

Chehade then held a public meeting with the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and announced there would be a conference on Internet governance in Brazil early next year. That announcement came just before the annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Bali – which is supposed to be where everyone agrees they will talk about the topic – and so created a storm.

The problem is not so much that Chehade said it – a lot of people have been saying the same thing in private for years – but that it was ICANN’s CEO. By all rights, it should have been ISOC’s CEO but then Lynn St Amour – who has been in the role since 2001 – didn’t want to.

Why? Partly because Lynn is naturally risk-adverse but largely because her advisor Markus Kummer was opposed to the idea because he fears it will undermine the IGF, an organization that he was mostly responsible for building in his former job at the UN.

However, St Amour and Kummer are wrong and Chehade is right, making it all the more important that the new ISOC CEO takes the ball and runs with it. That ball is the new “1Net” initiative which has been the focus of much excitement and jostling in the past week when formally unveiled at the ICANN meeting.

This 1Net idea is the right one so long as the Internet community doesn’t screw it up by turning it into yet another opportunity for navel-gazing. And ISOC is the best centre for the initiative but it needs a CEO that can take on the difficult task of driving it while resisting the urge to give themselves too much say (and profile).

Bigger picture

ISOC has become too enveloped around the personality of its long-term CEO. When it should have been engaging the broader world and leading in topics such as the SOPA legislation, or online privacy, or most recently the NSA revelations, ISOC instead stayed too close to its tech roots and lived inside its own head rather than trying to serve the Internet society as a whole.

People tend to think because of the name “Internet society” that it was formed for the benefit of everyone online. But in reality it was created to act as a lobbying arm of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It should have grown past that role many years ago but the drive and mindset never existed at the top.

The situation has been changing in recent years – ISOC, for example, has finally started taking its worldwide chapters seriously and affording them real respect. But now it needs a new CEO that will take that and amplify it 100 times.

Which leads me to the candidates.

Update, Wed 20 Nov: I have it on good authority from a number of different sources since this post was published that my line-up of final candidates is off the mark. Only one of the four listed below is still in the field, although all were apparently carefully considered for the role. As to the other two, people remain very tight-lipped.

A lot of names have been bandied around – almost all of them current leaders in the Internet governance field. In that sense it is a repeat of the relatively recent ICANN CEO search. ISOC is even using the same search firm, Odgers Berndtson.

As far as I can make out though, here are the four most likely to be in the final three (if that makes sense):

Lesley Cowley

As CEO of UK Internet operator Nominet and recently chair of ICANN’s ccNSO, Lesley knows everyone in the Internet governance field and has some allies within ISOC and immediately surrounding it. She was unsuccessful in the ICANN CEO job, but the criteria for that job were very different.

Lesley may be a controversial choice however. Nominet’s Board continues to be engaged in a fight with some of its members and unflattering details about how she dealt with accountability issues as well as complaints over the organization’s actions are in the public arena.

Raúl Echeberría

Raúl is a big name in both Internet governance and ISOC circles. He comes from an engineering background (as opposed to government or business) and has been involved with just about every important Internet governance situation since then. He was a member of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), chair of the NRO, CEO of LACNIC and, crucially, chair of the Internet Society (ISOC) for many years.

Raúl is also highly respected, especially in engineer circles and in Latin America. So if people have started looking to Latin America for the future of Internet governance, he would be a good bet. His plus for the job is also his minus: a huge amount of knowledge and experience within ISOC.

Janis Karklins

Janis is currently an Assistant Director General at UNESCO but has remained closely linked with the Internet governance world following his tenure as chair of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN and his key role in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). He has also been a regular face and speaker at the IGF.

Janis’ big advantage is that he is enormously capable, gets the job done and yet no one has a bad word to say about him. I should include myself in that – and I have badgered Janis more times than I can recall. He would lend ISOC weight and experience and international respect.

Walda Roseman

Walda is pretty much everyone’s favorite Internet governance person. Which is unusual for someone who has worked at the FCC, the White House and National Public Radio. She’s also worked closely with the ITU, and sci-fi geeks love the fact that she is on the Board of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

More importantly for the ISOC job, she has been the organization’s COO for a number of years and been behind its transformation from an insular and often quite weird organization into an expansive and outward-looking one. Unusually for the Internet governance world, Walda is also happy to have a low profile so long as she can get on with the job. That means the ego-clashes that have been behind much of the Internet Society’s larger problems can finally be dispensed with.

So that’s my take on where we are with ISOC CEO job. We’ll find out soon what the result is.

The right person could make ISOC a real force in defense of the Internet and Internet users. The wrong person would become a big fish in a small pond but risk maintaining the organization’s impotence in the wider world.

While updating my personal website I came across some old articles. One sparked a memory of a document I wrote a few months after starting my job at ICANN way back in February 2007.

It was a five-point gameplan, written after some thought and a moment of strategic clarity. It was just for my own use, as a document I could refer myself back to every now and again and it listed what I was going to focus on and what I would try to get done in my role as general manager of public participation.

The original plan was a one-pointer: gather information, write it a simple and accessible way and push it out to people. Gradually I’d build a system to make this occur naturally, embed it into the corporate culture and then leave. I suppose I saw myself almost as an outside consultant than a staff member.

Literally within days, that one-point plan fell apart. To my surprise, staff was actively hostile to the idea of providing information to those outside their immediate team. Clear and concise writing – something I had assumed everyone would naturally embrace – was almost universally disdained as being inaccurate, even dangerous. And as for getting the information out there: there was no functional outlet to people beyond those that already knew the details. In short, the situation was much, much worse than I could have imagined.

So after some time thinking about how to tackle this bigger issue, I came up with a list of five targets with some brief notes. This was my five-point plan, and it was:

1. Public comment – Currently one-way, passive, often ignored altogether, bureaucratic. Have to update and allow for conversation and interaction.
2. Website – Modernize. Total new design. Automate and make interactive. Give staff editing rights. Customize to people’s needs (logins).
3. Information – Get off people’s hard drive and onto the website. Write in plain English. Put most important information up front.
4. Meetings – More interaction. Get people into smaller rooms, off PA systems and get rid of huge stages. Do much more with information that comes out. Make remote participation fundamental aspect.
5. Translation – Make this happen. Dominance of English a big problem – have a few years to sort out but have to start right now.

I spent virtually all my time at ICANN – just under three years – working on one or other of these issues. It’s now seven years later, and it is with some sadness that I note only 1 out of the 5 has been realized (translation). Two were scaled back within months of my leaving, and the rest remain in keen need of improvement.

With an older and wiser head, I now realize I make a classic error of enthusiastic but inexperienced management: I tried to do five things simultaneously. What I should have done is picked two or three from this list and focused all my attention on them. A case of less is more.

So I spent an hour or so this Sunday morning contemplating what I should have done different. And then I figured I’d write it down for posterity. Maybe I’ll read it next time I am redoing my website.

Here’s what happened and what I should have done.

— Put almost all my focus on the website.

The website is the face, the meeting place and the storage space for the whole organization – not just staff but community and public too. Get that right and much more will follow.

The website was unbelievably bad when I started. Literally made of individual HTML pages that were downloaded, manually edited and uploaded by a single person who was completely overwhelmed but also fiercely protective of his ownership.

At the end of three years of effort, in real terms I’d achieved very little. The site was moving to a content management system, but painfully slowly. The site looked awful, even after I won the fight to allow pictures and different colors on it (no, honestly – you should have the fuss when the first video appeared). The site had extremely limited functionality and retained an extraordinary bottleneck in the webmaster. Even now, the site is well below standard.

We hired an outside consultant to fix things but he ended up making things worse. I should have kept a closer tab on progress. We hired a web design company to look at the site and they did a great job – but the plans were left to gather dust when I left and a new comms director appeared on the scene.

[Update: I’ve just noticed all the details of the website redesign have been expunged. See the blog post “Update on website revamp” and note the missing images and broken links to PDFs. I would love to say this is pure coincidence but none of the other posts from that year have suffered the same unusual loss of images and documents. Who knows what to make of that.]

On reflection, what I should have done is created an entirely new site on an entirely new domain with an entirely new team and then pulled information across from the old site. By offering what people want, it would have pulled the rest of the company and the community toward it.

Sometimes you have to work within the system; sometimes you have to step outside it. I made the wrong call and the organization still looks amateurish because of it. (Fortunately the new guy in charge – Chris Gift – has realized that he needs to create tools on the outside that pull in information from inside.)

What could have been. One of the final website redesign images. Sadly, all the plans were left to gather dust after I left and there was no one to keep pushing for change.

— Public comment

This should have been the second focus of my attention. It required focused and persistent effort but that effort paid off each time.

I did make a lot of good changes. For instance, at the start, all public comments periods – open and closed – were listed on a huge, long single webpage and were nothing more than a link to a mailing list. No context, no surrounding information, no links to documents. It had been put in place very early on and no one had ever updated it.

I managed to get comment periods broken out into: new, upcoming, recently closed and closed. Each comment period “box” was given a summary, an explanation, a named staff member, and a clear deadline. And after a year of effort, staff finally started writing summaries of comment periods once they were closed. It started becoming possible for people to see what ICANN was working on.

Even so, the whole process still has huge room for improvement and much more could have been done with greater time and persistence. The software was handwritten code and horribly out of date. While trying to move to commercially produced software, I was forced into a compromise of running a trial of different types of potential replacements. And that made it the IT department’s territory; inter-departmental politics reared its ugly head soon after.

In fact, I had already found the best replacement but was pulled into including two others for comparison. One was prohibitively expensive for an organization that opens its comment periods to anyone on the Web and I didn’t recommend it but the large price tag was used as a way to undermine the whole project. The IT department wanted control of the website and played dirty politics to try to get it. It ended up killing a path forward and the organization still suffers with the old system.

A before-and-after shot of the public comment pages. It became much easier to make sense of what was going on but an effort to properly update the system itself died when it became an issue of internal power politics.

— Information and meetings

I spent way too much time trying to make changes to information and meetings.

I had limited-to-no-control over either of them. Requests for additional budget or public participation staff were continually turned down so I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to persuade people to try different things, and then an inordinate amount of time explaining why that was better.

Other departments felt threatened by the effort to take “their” information and make it more accessible. They put up an enormous fight. I had expected resistance and suspicion, but nothing prepared me for being treated like an enemy within. It was out of control and should have been stamped on by senior management. But for many varied reasons, senior management ended up complicit in creating silos – reflecting and strengthening the same approach in the larger ICANN community.

As happened externally, all information was subjected to an overly complicated approval process and so it was very easy to keep sticking wrenches in the gears. And very time consuming to keep pulling them out.

Eventually, after years of trying and failing to get ICANN past its mental block of sharing clearly written material, I took the issue to the Board level. After about a year of effort, an entire policy was approved by the Board – the Document Publication Operational Policy.

It mandated that documents would be provided a decent time before a meeting and each document include a simple summary on the front. Jargon will be minimized and plain language used wherever possible. Now there was something that could be pointed to in making arguments for clearer and timely information.

Except the communications department was the only one truly pushing the effort (for obvious reasons). When we all either left or were fired when the new CEO turned up, the drive behind the policy was lost and the rest of the organization simply ignored it. And continues to ignore it.

It has become just one more document that people have forgotten about. I won the battle and lost the war. If only all that time and energy had been spent elsewhere…

Crossing egos at meetings

And the same is true of meetings. With an overly complex approval process for making any changes, all it takes is one person to say they don’t like something and things return to the status quo. Even when that status quo comprises of 20 people in a room talking to one another from 50 feet away over a booming sound system.

ICANN’s public forum was the one big meeting that I was nominally in charge of. It remains the most poorly designed meeting structure I have ever witnessed and I tried desperately hard to improve it only to see new ideas bent into horrible compromises over a single person’s comment.

What I had wrongly assumed was that people would connect how changes to size, style and format of a meeting contributed to an overall improvement. Except of course, people aren’t there to look at each session as a whole – they each form a personal perspective based solely on their individual experience.

If a format change means that those with the loudest voices, or the most influence, end up quieter – which is exactly what the public forum should achieve – well then, you very quickly find out about it.

As the big set-piece of the entire conference, the public forum plays a huge role in people’s heads and so on their egos. I tried to create the best session for the organization and all the participants. The two approaches were not compatible. It is no surprise then that ICANN continues to suffer the same format and every meeting tries to improve it, and fails.

The key to fixing the public forum is to recognize its importance to people to be seen and heard at a meeting of 1,500 people. Provide that and you can start rearranging the other aspects to actually get something valuable for the hours wasted every Thursday.

Meetings have improved remarkably – most thanks to Nick Tomasso and the team he brought in. Although I did have a significant hand in improving remote participation. That improvement even continued for a while after I left.

A typical line at the public forum. The worst meeting design I have ever witnessed but one that has proven impossible to change.

— Translation

So translation and interpretation is the one thing I did manage to achieve. And boy was it difficult. The fact that the entire staff was English speaking (and often only English speaking) meant that any effort to have other languages included was like pushing a rock up a hill.

I firmly believed that the organization’s entire future rested on its ability to break out from the strongly American culture and let other voices in – particularly non-English speakers.

That drive helped get through seemingly endless efforts to kill translation off – everything from crazy approval processes to budget pressures to plain misinformation. It was surreal at times. Every aspect of translation and interpretation was attacked – from the headsets to space in the room, to the quality of translation, to procurement of services. The saving grace was finding and hiring Christina Rodriguez, who worked all the hours god sent and lived in Argentina – thousands of miles away from the politics and backbiting. It was not an accident.

But what was more important ultimately – and a valuable lesson for anyone that is hoping to make significant change within an organization – was that a huge chunk of my efforts went to giving other people credit for their work, letting others work within a broad framework, and putting others in the position to make decisions. The more people that bought into the effort, the harder it became to unravel. When I left, much of what I had introduced was not maintained or resourced but translation had enough people fighting its corner to continue.

Translation and interpretation is still very far from perfect at ICANN. But it has become a part of the organization and so should continue to improve.

Overall

So, what are my conclusions of reflecting on three years of hard work?

Less is more. Make your ideas, others’. Change what you can and be smart enough to know what you can’t. Know when to work within the system and when not. Never mess with people’s egos. And come out fighting only when you need to protect something; let the rest be a spectator sport.

If I’d have known all that then, I’d have managed 2 out of 3 instead of 1 out of 5.

This project’s aim is to recreate, if not the California poppy, then a beautiful flower opening its petals as a ceiling fan.

Ceiling fans comes in all shapes and sizes, many of them not attractive. But there is an element of style and design in many fans and when you have something so prominent in a room, people will frequently go to some length to find a style they are happy with. My person favorite is probably the classic Hunter fan (see below). It’s beautiful in an industrial, functional way.

But fans can be much more. And while trying to figure out what size of fan would look best in our lounge, the idea of a fan-as-flower occurred to me.

Story behind the idea

We have been thinking about installing a fan in our lounge for some time. Because we have exposed ceiling beams, we do not have an attic and as a result when it is sunny, a LOT of heat builds up in the ceiling of our lounge in particular. A fan would move the air and cool the house. And look good to.

So we looked and found a style we liked. Given the size of the room, a 68-inch was probably the best bet in terms of ability to move large volumes of air. But would it look too big? To answer this question, I mocked up a cardboard version of the fan, supported by some strips of wood and pinned it at about the right height and the wife and I took a step back. It was WAY too big. So I cut the cardboard fins done to the next size – 54 inches. It looked better. We had our fan size.

After dinner, I was in the lounge reading a book with the sun setting and light shone in through the windows and across the ceiling. The cardboard fan was already in bad shape: the fins had started folding over and dropping down. But considering this was a clump of duct-taped collapsing cardboard, it looked peculiarly beautiful, as if it were a large flower bud that had gently gone to sleep for the night.

So that was the germ of the idea: why not have a ceiling fan whose fins fold down when not in use. When in use, the centrifugal forces cause them to lift and rise up. That could be really beautiful – a flower that blossoms.

Not an entirely original thought

Of course a small amount of research later and it becomes clear that I am not the only one to have thought of this. There are a number – although not that many – of fans to mimic exactly this action. Some even have videos (see one below).

But from what I’ve seen, not of them are particularly beautiful. They are quirky or a novel style but none of them have that wow factor. Some look downright cheap. I sense a real opportunity here to make a truly beautiful fan. And to use nature i.e. real flowers as the inspiration behind a new design. There is an example of a beautiful flower opening in a video below.

So the next step is to find some suitable flowers whose shape and petals would suit a fan’s mechanical function (a fan, after all, still has to move air or it is worthless). Then research materials that can help capture the beauty of petals. A key element will then be the mechanics that create an unfurl that makes you want to keep turning the fan on and off just to experience it – like the first time you tried a hydraulic CD cover, or moved your finger across an iPhone.

I can easily see a high-end market for a fan that captures that level of beauty, especially if you build in some gentle lighting (one big downside of many fans is the ugly appendage that is a light fitting).

That’s when it occurred to me. Telephones over the years have had alot of styling applied to them. Some – particularly in the 60s when new plastic where making new shapes possible – are extremely stylish and cool. What’s more their comparatively huge size compared to modern mobile phones means that you could introduce really high quality features and audio features.

So the idea was born: digital phones in old designs. With some modern engineering you should be able to connect these phones to other services – your cell or Skype. But have a real wonderful experience in terms of quality and have a really nice piece of art on the wall.

This is my supposition: the parking app provides fantastically useful information for parking attendants – whose compensation is based on the number of tickets they hand out. By using the app I was unwittingly increasing the changes of getting a ticket. And I am willing to bet that the parking police have started targeting people that use apps.

Which leads to the article idea: what apps are actual NOT good to use? Which phone apps make life harder, not easier? Which should we avoid?