The Board - sound familiar?

[Steve]

Internet Governance Board Confronts a Hostile Public

Jeri Clausing
NY Times 11/16/98


CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Eight people found themselves at                
a crossroads in history Saturday, visibly uncomfortable with their
task of creating the first real government for an online world and
intimidated by the level of distrust -- sometimes outright animosity
-- they encountered when facing their constituents for the first
time. 

At a reception on Friday evening, the members of the ad hoc board
that will establish a private system of Internet governance huddled
with one another, unsure how to reach out to the many factions that
have been battling for years over who will rule cyberspace. 

They had reason to be intimidated. Many of these factions have been
quarreling for years. As the panel's chairwoman, Esther Dyson,
pointed out, a key goal of this first public meeting was to earn
their trust. 

But as the nearly 200 people who traveled from as far away as
Malaysia lined up at microphones to introduce themselves Saturday
morning, a single message to the new board came across loud and
clear: We don't trust you. 

The dialogue did turn much more constructive as the day wore on, and
most of the group, despite their criticism, expressed a willingness
to work with the board and offer specific suggestions for insuring
that the new nonprofit group -- the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers -- is not taken over by corporate and
other special interests. Still, many said the new board members had
done little to put their minds at ease. 

"There is no feedback from the board," said Tony Rutkowski, an
Internet consultant from California. "Esther is the only one who has
asked any questions." 

Ms. Dyson, chairwoman of Edventure Holding, an information
technology company in New York, acknowledged that the board seemed
intimidated by its first meeting with its public -- which included
critics of the process that led to their selection. Indeed, Hans
Kraaijenbrink, a board member from the Netherlands, indicated he had
never seen such passion at a public meeting. 

But the purpose of the meeting, Ms. Dyson said, was to listen and
get input, to begin the process of building a consensus with the wary
factions that have yet to endorse the corporation plan. 

The U.S. Department of Commerce has tentatively selected the
corporation to take over the administrative functions of the
Internet, which are currently handled under government contracts. 

Crucial issues the new corporation will decide include how to
introduce competition into the lucrative business of registering Web
site names in the popular top-level domains of ".com," ".net" and
".org." 

Network Solutions Inc., the government's contractor, currently has a
monopoly on the business. 

The skepticism about the corporation stems, in part, from continuing
questions about how its interim board was picked. Critics contend
the nonprofit corporation was created secretly and not in the open
consensus-building fashion that the Clinton administration called
for when it proposed getting the government out of the Internet
business.

One person in the audience referred to the creation of the board as
a "virgin birth." 

Eight of the 10 board members made it to the first meeting, and they
tried to explain how they got there. Kraaijenbrink, the chairman of
the executive board of the European Telecommunications Network
Operators, said he was called by the European Union. 

"I said, 'I know nothing about the Internet.' They said, 'That's
good.' 

"I said, 'I know nothing about the discussions that are going on.'
They said, 'That's good,"' he told the audience. 

Others explained how they were approached, directly or indirectly,
by Joe Sims, the lawyer for Jonathan B. Postel, an Internet founder
who drafted the corporation plan just before he died last month. But
the explanations seemed too simple for much of the audience, who
seemed convinced the board was selected to carry out a secret agenda
for unknown special interests. 

Sensing that the audience was not satisfied with the explanations,
Sims jumped to the microphone and explained that Postel chose the
interim board himself, with input from around the world. The goal,
he said, was to find people who had no history or stake in the
years-long international debates over how to move Internet
governance from the public to the private sector. 

Sims said Postel made the selections only after ruling out an
election because there was no clear electorate. 

The interim board now faces the same problem as it tries to finalize
the process for establishing a membership and supporting
organization. Gregory Crew, a board member and the chairman of the
Australian Communications Industry Forum Ltd., said the corporation
would appoint an advisory panel to make recommendations on how a
board-electing membership should be structured to insure sufficient
accountability. 

"There needs to be a mechanism where people who come up with an idea
in their garage can be heard," one participant said. 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 




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