IANA Provision in Funding Bill Ignites Debate Over U.S. Role in Internet Governance

The fault lines of ongoing Internet governance debates were exposed Tuesday with Congress’ release of a bicameral funding measure that would temporarily prohibit NTIA from using its funds for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition. The omnibus bill would deny NTIA funds for the transition through Sept. 30, the same date NTIA expected its IANA contract with ICANN to expire. Milton Mueller, a professor of information studies at Syracuse University, slammed what he perceived as the hypocritical approach some Republicans bring to Internet governance issues. Other ICANN stakeholders applauded the measure, saying more time is necessary to achieve viable IANA transition and ICANN accountability proposals.

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., supports the IANA provision in the funding bill, which he expects to pass, said a spokesman. Shimkus is the sponsor of the Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters (DOTCOM) Act (HR-4342), which would delay the transition for up to one year until a GAO study on the proposal (see 1406020071). “Congress and the American people deserve a thorough review of what’s at stake in the IANA transition,” said the spokesman. He said Shimkus will reintroduce DOTCOM in the next Congress.

The IANA transition is being used as a “political football by a small number of partisan Republicans who, in their rush to embrace the thesis that everything the Obama administration does is wrong, have forgotten that they are supposed to be the anti-big government party,” said Mueller, an IANA Coordination Group Generic Supporting Names Organization member.

“The message is that the Democratic Senate and the Republican House share concerns about the transition and want answers prior to its occurrence,” said Phil Corwin, founding principal of e-commerce and intellectual property law consultancy Virtualaw. The funding measure provides “reasonable breathing room to the ICANN community to complete its work on the IANA transition and accompanying enhanced ICANN accountability measures,” he emailed. But the bill isn’t a “reversal” of the transition itself, said Corwin. “The NTIA and ICANN have always stated that September 2015 was a goal and not a deadline.”

It’s important to remember that this is an action of Congress, not a federal agency, said John Laprise, an Internet governance scholar and consultant. The former is made up of “a lot of people who barely understand the internet let alone IANA or ICANN or root zone file,” he said. “The sophisticated international community understands this is the ugly sausage making of democracy.”

The funding bill isn’t an “attempt to stop the transition, as far as I can tell,” said NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco. “It seems designed to prod NTIA to do a short extension of its current IANA contract, since it allows NTIA to resume using funds to plan the transition after September.” The funding measure appears to imply that the U.S. “wants to hold on to IANA -- even if they aren’t sure why,” said Michele Neylon, managing director of Blacknight Solutions, an Ireland-based domain registrar. “It’s not a very positive message to send other governments and might cause even more friction with Brazil, France, Germany, China and Russia.”

“Any transition [proposal] will need signoff from a broad array of stakeholders,” said Daniel Castro, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation senior analyst. The “takeaway” for those involved in the transition’s proposal process is that “Congress is paying attention,” he said. “They need to come up with a plan that can pass muster with those who have concerns,” Castro emailed.

Timeline Shift?

Mueller said he didn’t think the bill, if passed, would delay the transition. The “bulk” of the transition’s planning is being done by the ICANN community and doesn’t rely on funding from Congress, he said. Mueller said he didn’t think the bill would pass, but even if it did, NTIA would “just costlessly let the contract expire and allow the community to implement the new plan.” At "worst, it just delays the expenditures until October,” he said.

The funding bill shouldn’t “alarm global stakeholders or the ICANN working groups already planning the IANA transition,” said DelBianco. “We have lots of work to do and aren’t depending on NTIA funds to help us.” The "aggressive timelines" for the transition’s corresponding accountability proposal process may require the “extra time an IANA extension would allow,” he said. “Most of the work on the proposed transition is being done by those outside of government, so that work will continue,” said Castro.

Whether the measure would delay the transition is “unclear” and depends on whether NTIA or the Commerce Department needs the funding to complete the transition, Laprise said. If Commerce can “allocate or reallocate preexisting funding” for the transition, then “talk of delay is premature,” he said. Delay wouldn’t likely be a “significant problem,” he said. NTIA’s review of the transition was “always going to take time and is likely to be the subject of multiple external reviews,” said Laprise.

“A modest extension of the timeline will assist the ICANN community to have sufficient time to fully develop, stress test, and implement enhanced ICANN accountability measures,” said Corwin. The September deadline was “probably insufficient time to complete that work and that some extension of the current contract would be required,” he said: The funding bill “just acknowledges that reality.”

U.S. Role

Certain conservatives have “revealed their hypocrisy on the issue of governmental involvement in Internet governance,” said Mueller, citing Wall Street Journal columnist Gordon Crovitz. Such conservatives aren't “now, and probably have never been, supporters of open markets and cyberspace self-governance; they just want to keep their government in a superior position over other governments,” he said. Mueller said he couldn’t “convey how thoroughly damaging that message is to the greater cause of Internet freedom.”

U.S. “control” over IANA is “modest and benefits all stakeholders and governments by putting teeth in the Affirmation of Commitments,” said Corwin. “The issue is not whether the U.S. will relinquish control but whether it will do so in the context of a fully considered and well-developed transition plan and accountability enhancements.”

The funding measure “strengthens the case” to get governments out of Internet governance, said Laprise. Many in Congress are making an “ill-informed decision” about Internet policies, he said. “By extension, this rules out governments across the board.” The U.S. government has been the “referee ensuring that everyone plays by the rules,” said Castro. That’s another way of saying governments should “stay on the sidelines,” he said. “Critics are concerned about what will happen without a referee,” but they don’t want the U.S. government to “expand its role,” he said.