‘Internet governance’ means different things to different people, and indeed the term has evolved over time. In the early days of the internet, the job was to establish the basic rules of the road to allow the internet to function effectively: just making sure everything worked together and behaved itself was often a challenge! We needed common standards, a robust addressing scheme, and of course the Domain Name System. Almost all internet policy was made by pioneers to whom we who owe so much and ‘internet governance version 1’ was about debate largely conducted within and between technical experts. Legend has it, back in 1996, when the founders of Nominet went to brief the Department of Trade & Industry about the creation of the .uk registry, there was very little interest in domain name or even internet issues - back then, policy was industry-led, which allowed some far-reaching decisions to be taken and implemented fairly rapidly.
As the internet grew in economic and social importance, there was pressure within the UK for policy processes to be more open and transparent and for all stakeholders to be able to take part. Just as the web has grown from a largely static network to a collaborative space; so too the governance of the internet has adapted to allow many more voices input.
Hence, the development of the ‘multi-stakeholder model’ – what I’m calling ‘internet governance version 2’, which is where we are today. Version 2 built upon the early and very effective collaborative ethos of the internet pioneers, but sought to involve and develop consensus amongst a much broader constituency of stakeholders. It is, I feel, a very successful model, operating effectively through ICANN and the IGF at a global level, and Nominet’s own policy development processes in the UK – although there is room for improvement in these processes as well.
My belief is that we now need an ‘internet governance version 3’ and in the same way that the migration from version 1 to 2 built on the key success factors already in place, I favour an evolutionary rather than revolutionary approach.
But what is driving the need for change?
Well, as the importance of the internet to economies and social fabrics increases, calls are coming from governments. At the e-G8 earlier this year, President Sarkozy called for change, warning the industry:
“The universe that you represent is not a parallel universe, which is free of rules of law or ethics - or of any of the fundamental principles that must govern and do govern the social lives of our democratic states.”
This comment provoked much criticism, but what many missed was that Sarkozy was expressing a view held by many governments. In effect, they now expect to be able to shape and influence responses to the harmful aspects of the internet.
So some governments are trying to reach out and control through an inter-governmental model for internet governance. Here, decisions would be taken by bureaucrats according to the traditional rules of diplomacy. Other countries do not hold that view, they see the benefits of the collaborative multi-stakeholder model. At the same time though, they believe that governmental voices should be heard more clearly, and given more weight, in the future shaping of the internet.
In this climate, it is inevitable that there will be very close scrutiny of current internet governance systems to ensure they are ‘fit for purpose’, but we should be alert that this debate could play into the hands of those who would prefer a more authoritarian model of supervision.
I believe that, rather than build different structures for debating internet governance, a more effective remedy to the issues would be to firstly build greater international co-operation on enforcement – that is a dialogue for governments & law enforcement, which can run in parallel with the industry suggesting practical and proportionate ways for the industry to assist in the detection and deterrence of harmful behaviour and cyber-crime.
So rather than a radical re-think, the starting point for internet governance version 3 should be to engage in that discussion, and one about how best we can evolve and build upon the existing success of the multi-stakeholder model to develop more robust, inclusive, accountable and transparent internet governance. We should recognise the current strengths of the model, be prepared to change the less effective aspects and perhaps throw out a few sacred cows as we go.
The related issue of whether we have the right legislative framework in place in the UK to underpin our work could come back onto the agenda in future, perhaps as part of a new Communications Bill. We recognise that public and political concern about the harms that may take place via the internet are not going to go away. We stand ready to explore all realistic options for future co-operation in relation to issues such as harmful content and intellectual property theft.
We have, however, sought to inject one note of caution into the legislative review process, in the UK and beyond. In our view, extending licence-based regulation to internet companies carries a considerable risk of over-regulation and mission-creep, and could harm economic growth – the starting point for the review. As McKinsey and others have pointed out, the internet is already making a massive contribution to the UK economy. One thing that could jeopardise that would be ill-thought out over-regulation of a sector which has thrived so far under conditions of light touch supervision.
In conclusion, it is clear that the debate about internet governance has come a long way since those early days back in the 1990s. The centrality of the internet to our lives and livelihoods makes it inevitable that the debate will continue, and the pressures for good answers to how the internet can operate in the public interest will not diminish.
Nominet stands ready to play our part in that discussion, both on the global stage and right here in the UK, to develop and refine ‘internet governance version 3’.