Naming group reminds Ted Cruz that the U.S. doesn’t own the internet.
ICANN has responded to Senator Ted Cruz’ continued questioning by not exactly answering his questions.
Cruz is miffed that the naming policy overseer engages with China, and questioned its former CEO’s agreement to work with China’s World Internet Conference. Cruz demanded answers to specific questions about this involvement.
Instead, ICANN Board of Directors Chair Stephen Crocker sent a four-page letter (pdf) stating that the internet is global. ICANN works with all countries and people of the world, and the U.S. is but one stakeholder in this, he explained.
This is the case today, even though the U.S. government has a special relationship through its contract to run IANA.
Crocker said its discussions with China are not different than those with other stakeholders. It’s also not different from other U.S. companies that do business in China:
ICANN does not endorse the views of any particular stakeholder, regardless of the organization’s engagement efforts, the composition of its advisory committees, and where it holds its meetings. In this sense, ICANN’s engagement with China as a global Internet stakeholder does not suggest any level of support for the nation’s government or its policies. Similarly, no endorsement of such matters could reasonably be inferred from the operations of the United States’ largest technology firms operating in China, including Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Uber. These firms, like ICANN, do not endorse the policies, laws, and regulations of China simply by operating there. As long as the U.S. Government has a policy of engagement with China, U.S. firms operate there without the insinuation that doing so makes them complicit in China’s censorship.
ICANN seeks to have genuine global engagement from all countries and all regions. With nearly 700 million Internet users, stakeholders from China, including its government, have an
understandable desire to participate at ICANN. And they have done so constructively. For example, members of China’s technical community have played an important role in the introduction of
Internationalized Domain Names (“IDNs”), or non-Latin scripts on the Internet. As a result of their efforts and those of many others from countries around the world that do not use Latin scripts, there are now more than 120 delegated IDNs in Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Tamil, and Hebrew scripts, among others.ICANN’s plans for engagement with China will continue in the same way we engage with other countries. ICANN staff facilitates the organization’s ongoing involvement with stakeholders through outreach, communication, capacity building, and education. This engagement is approved by the global community, including U.S. stakeholders, as part of ICANN’s five-year strategy and operation plans.
Nick says
an organization taking in tons of money that does not have to any oversight by a country is bad news. They already did a cash grab.
John says
Ditto
Aaron Strong says
This is an ironic political case and should be bi-partisan. Generally the right wing (conservatives) requests less Government oversight while the left wing (Liberals) requests more. With the ICANN/IANA transition the positions have flipped. One can only wonder whats really behind the curtains.
Andrew Allemann says
That’s a good point. Perhaps the roles are as such because the Obama administration proposed the transition, so it’s natural for the Republicans to be against it.
John says
See what I wrote below Aaron. “Conservatives” are imperfect, too, which is why any suggestion that Net neutrality had to do with more government oversight plus the implications they tried to associate with that in people’s minds with their rhetoric then was total specious nonsense – and indeed the very opposite of the goal of Net neutrality, to keep the Internet free, open and fair.
John says
Aaron, I had a reply “awaiting moderation” last night but it is not longer appearing here today.
Ryan says
ICANN needs to be regulated, I think the US has a stake, since they are largely responsible for the creation.
ICANN is an absolute mess, and nobody will dispute that fact, they need a big brother watching them.
They are like a trust fund baby, out on the town with a 18 year old justin bieber.
6 figures to settle a sandwich supply contract?
John says
Words are easy and cheap, including the silver-tongued kind. I don’t buy their argument and am inclined to consider it more likely disingenuous and specious than not. They are also not “reasonably” compared merely to large technology firms.
• theregister . co . uk/2016/04/05/cruz_slams_dns_overseer_icann_again/:
• “ICANN is notoriously poor at answering questions it doesn’t want to answer, even when they come from powerful figures.
In 2011, it infuriated the general counsels of the world’s largest public international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) including the World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO), World Health Organization (WHO), NATO, the OECD and the United Nations when it continually ignored their requests [PDF] to protect their names under new top-level domains.
The issue escalated to the point where the world’s governments had to intervene and the program itself was nearly derailed.
In 2013, ICANN also simply ignored increasingly angry letters [PDF] from the Article 29 Working Party, which is made up of the European Union’s data protection authorities, over how it was breaking European law with its domain name registration policies.
In both cases, when the pressure became such that ICANN’s policy processes came under threat, the organization’s staff made changes in the background in an effort to appease them.
ICANN has also been heavily criticized for years for failing to provide any useful information to requests sent through its formal “documentary information disclosure policy” (DIDP) – a system set up in 2012 in response to previous complaints about how opaque its systems were.
In one of the most egregious examples, ICANN refused [PDF] to even provide information about how it made the decision to refuse prior requests for information.”
• “Bill Clinton Takes on Obama Over Internet Control”:
newsmax . com/Newsfront/Obama-Bill-Clinton-Internet-The-Wall-Street-Journal/2014/03/31/id/562729/
• domainnamewire . com/2016/04/04/ted-cruz-icann-stonewalling-u-s-congress/#comments
Money and power corrupt. It is simple common sense.
The “liberals” were right about Net neutrality and are wrong about the transition. “Conservatives” were wrong about Net neutrality and are right about the transition, though it seems most of them may have sold their soul on it anyway while Cruz and a few appear to be the only few left even trying to do anything.
The issue is as far above mere politics in importance and potential consequence as what was at stake with Net neutrality. It is not merely that an Obama-agenda is being opposed (don’t forget Bill Clinton’s former opposition), but that the reasons and risks involved for opposing it are real and important. And for those who seek to suggest that it is merely a case of mindless politically or personally motivated obstructionism, why do you not even consider the opposite instead – that the “transition” itself is merely another case of a president trying to weaken, debase, and deflate a country that a part of him actually hates? That one not acceptable on the menu, ay, but only the red-against-blue plate special?
So “ICANN to Ted Cruz: the internet is global, so shove it,” is that it? Has it not occurred to anyone that the Internet is “global” precisely because of the fortuity of having been invented and born in a country like the USA with the kind of policies and priorities the USA has brought to bear, rather than in so many of the other countries that have been seeking so eagerly to wrest all oversight from it? And the world has done quite well with that.
thelegendaryjp says
Perhaps Trump is allowing Cruz to do his dirty work so once President Trump has Mexico build that wall they can use the internet to collect donations.
btw women love me, I mean really some of the best women of the world love me, top notch, world class.
Meyer says
” “Bill Clinton Takes on Obama Over Internet Control””
I can not get over the blatant irony regarding Clinton’s present position. It was President Clinton who opened the door for Icann total independence of U.S. control.
John says
Good observation, and it strikes at the heart of some people’s thinking now.
Who is playing “politics”? The Cruz/conservative-bashers say it is Cruz and friends.
What is the truth?
The truth is that when Clinton originally “agreed” to that, that is what was political “pc” to say and do then, while it was still a long way off if even ever. And Obama trying to really do it now is the ultimate in world scale “pc.” But what happens when a person has had time to reflect honestly and sober-mindedly on actual truth about the realities of our day, and they may even really care about the issues and feel they have nothing “political” to lose by being honest? Then a guy like Clinton comes out with an honest view and position like that. And it is not Cruz and company who are playing “politics” now, because the concerns are real and nothing less than life, the world, freedom and commerce as you have known and taken such things for granted are at stake with the Internet and the “transition.” The side who is engaging in “politics” in trying to ram the “transition” down the throats of the country and appease the international players clamoring for removal of all US oversight is the Obama/liberal side, not the other.
Adam says
I agree with Cruz and believe we should not hand over control. I like he is questioning them. The way ICANN operates is horrendous.