Controlling Internet Infrastructure, Part I

On March 14, 2014, the United States government announced its
intention to end its direct role in overseeing the Internet’s Domain Name
System (DNS). The IANA transition, as it is called, is a moment of critical
importance in the history of the global network and the relationship between
network governance and government control. It is an extraordinarily complex
undertaking, both technically and legally, and there is a great deal at
stake—but only a small handful of people understand the full scope of the
problems involved and can participate intelligently in the public discussion
about what entity or system should replace the U.S. government’s role in DNS
oversight. It is thus an unfortunate combination of circumstances for informed
decision-making and public discussion. This paper seeks to fill at least a part
of that gap.

At its core, the Internet’s DNS is a truly remarkable engineering
achievement, and its effective functioning has been critical to the spectacular
growth of the Internet over the past two decades. In order for the system to
work well and to achieve its goal of universal name consistency, the activities
of literally millions of individual domain operators must somehow be
coordinated. These coordination tasks are conventionally grouped under three
separate headings: coordinating the allocation of IP Addresses (the numbers function), coordinating domain
name allocation (the naming
function), and coordinating protocol
development for both the naming and numbering functions. Beginning in the
mid-1980s, these tasks were performed by a number of individuals, entities, and
institutions—some private, some public, some commercial, some voluntary—under a complicated series of grants and contracts procured and funded by
various arms of the U.S. government.

By the mid-1990s, the system started to crack, as increasing public
awareness of the value of the DNS (and the Internet in general) led to the
emergence of serious questions about a range of DNS policy matters, including
the apparent absence of competition in the domain name market, the practice of
“cyber-squatting,” and the lack of any formal management structure and
accountability mechanisms for an increasingly valuable global resource. In
response to these concerns, in 1998 the U.S. government called for the
formation of a new, not-for-profit corporation to develop and administer policy
for the Internet’s name and address system. Shortly thereafter, the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was born: a California-based
non-profit corporation that, with the U.S. government’s blessing, took over
control of DNS policy-making through a series of agreements, brokered by the
Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA), between the new corporation and the operators of the
various components of the DNS.

The ’98-’99 transition was a success; hardly anyone on the Internet
noticed when it took place. Yet NTIA’s recognition of the newly-formed
corporation was premised on a number of very specific promises that ICANN had
made about the way it would be organized, the tasks it would undertake, and the
manner in which it would undertake them—including commitments about the
structure and selection of the ICANN Board, the implementation of a “Consensus
Policy Development Process,” and assurances that ICANN’s role would be limited
to a specific, narrow set of issues. To maintain some degree of oversight, NTIA
retained control over one vital subset of DNS-related tasks: the so-called
“IANA Functions.” The IANA tasks include (1) maintenance of a series of
“Internet protocol registries,” (2) allocation of Internet numbering (IP
Address) resources, and, (3) maintenance of the authoritative Root Zone File on
the “A” Root server and the processing of any modifications to that file. This arrangement gave NTIA substantial
leverage over ICANN’s post-transition actions and operations, because
re-opening the IANA contract procurement was both a serious and a credible
threat to ICANN’s central role in DNS management. Although it is difficult to
say exactly how this oversight was exercised, or exactly how it influenced
ICANN’s actions, there is little doubt that it served as an effective
“backstop” to keep ICANN in line over the past two decades.

The current IANA transition is the logical culmination of the sequence
initiated in the 1998-’99 transition, and it presents a significant opportunity
for the United States and for the global community of Internet users. Over
time, the justifications for a special role for the U.S. government in managing
the evolution of the Internet and its governance systems have considerably
weakened, as a consequence of both the Internet’s vastly expanding global reach
and of questions about the U.S. government’s ability to claim any kind of
neutral “stewardship” role for itself with respect to Internet affairs.
Particularly in the wake of the 2013 Snowden disclosures, there is considerable
evidence that if NTIA had not voluntarily decided to begin the transition,
other Internet stakeholders—including important elements of the technical
community, foreign governments, and ICANN itself—would have tried to force its
hand.

The IANA transition also has important symbolic significance: it is a
formal recognition by the United States that the Internet, which the United
States government helped usher into existence 30 years ago, is now truly a global public trust. The Internet’s core
infrastructure, rather than being the special purview of any one country’s
exclusive jurisdiction, needs to evolve in ways that benefit all users,
world-wide. And a strong, consensus-based, non-governmental, multi-stakeholder
institution at the policy-making center of the DNS is likely to be the best way
to ensure that the Internet infrastructure remains free from undue governmental
influence. Moreover, getting the transition right has broad implications for the
evolution of the Internet governance system. Its success—or failure—could have
a significant impact on the shifting dynamics of the global debate more
broadly, affecting both the United States’ credibility and the weight of its
support for the multistakeholder model.

Yet the risks the transition poses are also high. The DNS is, by
design, essentially invisible to the vast majority of Internet users, but if it
were to break down, or fragment into multiple competing systems, the impact on
Internet use around the world would be substantial. Furthermore, in the wrong hands control over
the DNS can be leveraged into control over a much broader universe of Internet
activity and communication than that encompassed by the DNS alone. Freed from
U.S. government oversight, what is to prevent ICANN from inserting itself into
global law-enforcement or governance role far removed from its core commitment
to insuring that the DNS runs smoothly and efficiently?

The stakes are high, for everyone who uses the Internet and everyone
who is concerned with its future development as a global communications
platform. Designing a transition plan
that achieves the goal of relinquishing the U.S. government’s oversight over
the DNS while eliminating (or at least minimizing) the risks will be a
difficult task, one that will require considerably more public attention and
debate than it has received up to now. This paper, by explaining the nature of
the challenges and the opportunities presented by the transition, lays some of
the foundation for that debate, as well as for subsequent papers in this
series, in which we will address in greater detail the substance of specific
transition proposals now under development, along with our recommendations
concerning implementation of what we believe to be the key components of a
successful transition process.

Read the full paper here.