No current international activity deserves more attention than that within the ITU and its Working Group on International Internet-related Public Policy Issues. The ITU is a UN treaty organization originally formed to promote and regulate international radio communications and telecommunications. Upgraded from a Dedicated Group to a Working Group two years ago, the Working Group has taken on significance as the drafting group for policies that would have the ITU establish a top-down regulatory agency for the Internet, removing control from the multi-stakeholder groups that now govern its development.
That discussion will be taking place at the ITU World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), held December 3-14, 2012, in Dubai. The agenda of the conference is to discuss the current International Telecomunication Regulations (ITRs), the treaty framework that establishes general principles to guide the governance and operation of international telecommunication.
Dramatic changes to the treaty framework, however, are being considered. Russia and China are the primary drivers, but are successfully appealing to governments that would benefit through more control of the Internet.
To date, Internet development has largely been left in the hands of private organizations, namely ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the Internet Society. All of this could change, however, rather quickly, removing control of the Internet from these organizations and placing them in the hands of the ITU, where a top-down regulatory agency would take over, driving new policies for the governance and regulation of the Internet.
The outcome would likely be fractious and damaging to the Internet as it is today. An article by Robert M. McDowell in the Wall Street Journal in February of this year summarized the discussions that were being teed up for this month’s meeting:
- Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control.
- Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for “international” Internet traffic, perhaps even on a “per-click” basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries.
- Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as “peering.”
- Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world.
- Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work.
- Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.
The politics of moving to a regulatory agency for the Internet will be of benefit to non-Western governments. Western governments do not feel threatened by an open Internet, instead benefiting from the commercial growth that it has lead to. But the governments of less wealthy countries in the world aren’t so thrilled about the way that the Internet can impact their ability to control, regulate, and tax information. Nothing prevents a government from taking control of communications within its borders. But the impacts being felt have to do with communications across borders, which is where the ITU comes in.
Little things we take for granted today could change radically. Clicking on a web site could incur a fee, based on the country where it is hosted. Holding a conversation across borders over a VOIP service could be charged international calling rates. The Internet’s growth has largely been driven by the unfettered access to information that it brings to the vast population of the world. But this could change. While the ideas now being discussed may seem like a giant step backwards to those in Western nations, they can be appealing to governments in less wealthy countries.
The Internet has been built on open collaboration, but stunningly, the governments that benefited most from this effort have been asleep at the wheel. Proponents for establishing a top-down UN treaty regulatory agency for the Internet have put substantial time into building supportive coalitions, giving them a strong base. Of the 193 countries that will participate in this conference, only a simple majority is needed to modify the treaty and bring the Internet into international governmental control.
Let’s hope for good news in December.