How does the process of Internet governance work?

"One of the odd things about debate by mailing list is that anyone can have a voice. And all of the people involved have been very inclusive and encourage anyone who wants to participate to make comments. And there is no kind way of putting this but this is a procedure that while very inclusive and democratic is incredibly inclusive of total crazies..."

How has this process evolved?

Where are we now in the process of setting up a board to govern domain name allocation?

"..Were it stands now is people are trying again. Eventually, I believe there will be a non-profit board that oversees this. And the most important part of the process that's going on now is the determination of how board members will be selected in the future. There is a lot of controversy over that. My personal take is that it should include industry representatives, government representatives and public interest representatives. The latter is the real sticking point because there is no international tribunal of public interest groups and they're not exactly on the same wavelength."

Are there any real deadlines for resolving these issues?

"...It's entirely possible that this will drag on for decades...But there are some pragmatic factors that make it ever more desirable to have a solution. Right now we have this silly solution where almost everything is under .com. There's no reason for that, but it's there so all of the most desirable names under .com are gone."

What are the consequences of the debate over domain names?

"I have a slightly ideosyncratic view here. For all the storm and fury over domain name resolution, I don't think there is actually that much negative consequence of dragging it out. I think this is something that could be resolved relatively straightforwardly if you could just find a group of people that everyone agreed was reasonably neutral. But it's not going to done that informally for a very important reason, which is this battle is setting the precedent for how the Internet should be governed in general and that's the real reason why the average person should be concerned about what's happening here...It's going to set the pattern for how the Internet is governed globally and that will entail a lot of more important issues than the domain system. Questions of freedom of speech, questions of libel, questions of how commerce is conducted, questions of political subversion, of the ability to use the Internet in one country to participate in the politics of a more closed country. Ultimately, some kind of international body will set some rules around the Internet because there is enough of a global consensus that say kiddie snuff films for example are bad that the nations of the world will want to agree on stamping that out if it shows up on the Internet. So there is going to be some sort of enforcement body. This is the first case in which the international community is trying to figure out how to rule the Internet. And if history is any guide, it will set huge precedents for how more important issues, like free speech, are determined later. And that is the real reason for people to care, because the same people who decide whether or not you get foo.com may someday be deciding whether it's legal for you to say whether or not you like the president of Spain."

Could this resolved as a technical issue or is it necessarily a political issue as well?

"That's honestly a matter of opinion...Frankly anything as 'simple' as the administration of domain names is going to have some free speech issues. I mentioned a domain name called .xxx or one called .islamsucks. Either one of will have some pretty serious opposition. And I wouldn't care to be the person advocating either one of them particularly, but I do worry a lot about the notion that somebody will decide what phrases are legitimate to put in a top level domain name...Basically what you're talking about is speech encoded as a technical address and it's very important who rules that. And I think larger issues on the Internet will tend to follow that pattern if it works at all."

Is there an analogy that would be helpful for understanding this process?

"One of the most frequent and I think mistaken analogies is electromagnetic spectrum for radio. There are a couple of problems with this analogy. First of all spectrum is a limited resource...That's not true of domain names. Basically, anything you can think of to put into English you can put into a domain name...The analogy I prefer to use is an analogy to the ecosystem. The global Internet is something we all share, even though we all own pieces of it."

What would you do if you were named Internet Czar?

"The first thing I would do is some technical experiments. There is one aspect of this debate that there is still some technical contention about, which is can the current infrastructure handle an unlimited number of top level domains. But there are a few people who believe the other way. So I'd want to make sure my belief was correct before I based policy on it. Beyond that I would try to put together a board that was as multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-sectoral as possible. A sort of congress of domain name interest groups. And rather than the kind of small boards that most people are envisioning, 5 or 10 people making these decisions, I'd be more included to the parlimentary model prehaps we have 400 people who set up their own electronic discussion list so that you as a global citizen are likely to have representation that you can get at one way or another to have your voice heard..."

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