[Chapter-delegates] Fadi Chehade/ICANN wants to take charge with solutions for security

[Dave Burstein]

This is an important article from Agency France Presse with a Fadi
interview. If he wasn't badly misquoted, it suggests ICANN with corporate
backing wants to dramatically extend their role.  After Fadi brought in the
"billionaire boys club" of the WEF in topdown manner, he may be wanting to
seriously expand ICANN's role to "solutions."

If this is so, ISOC needs to vigorously jump in and and stop his
institutional expansionism. We gave massive support to ICANN in the last
year with 1Net etc. I don't think we envisioned them implementing
"solutions" for "security."

I hope Fadi is even close to doing what his words suggest.

large corporations concerned about security issues,
​ ... ​
Therefore, they are stepping in with force to figure out how
​to r
educe potential harm to customers and to their businesses.​
​
​...
​
The way we put it in ICANN is getting the free will of the people to
bottom-up coalesce, work together and come up with solutions."


http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-states-and-corporations-grab-for-reins-of-the-internet-2014-10

States and corporations grab for reins of the Internet
[image: AFP] <http://www.afp.com/en/home>

   - GLENN CHAPMAN, AFP <http://www.afp.com/en/home>


   - OCT. 9, 2014, 10:45 PM
   - 175



[image: ICANN President Fadi Chehadé speaks at the Hudson Institute on
April 4, 2014. The group has moved to center stage]© AFP/File Mandel NganICANN
President Fadi Chehadé speaks at the Hudson Institute on April 4, 2014. The
group has moved to center stage

San Francisco (AFP) - As the US steps back from overseeing the group
entrusted to essentially run the Internet, states and corporations are
grabbing for the reins.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has gone
from being behind the scenes tending to the task of managing website
addresses to being center stage in a play for power on the Internet.

"Governments want to exert control over the sweeping trans-national power
of the Internet that is effecting their policies, politics, social fabric
and/or their economic conditions," ICANN chief executive Fadi Chehade told
AFP just days before the group gathers in Los Angeles beginning Sunday to
tackle an array of hot issues.

"The other groups are large corporations concerned about security issues,"
he continued while discussing forces striving for influence over the
organization.

"Therefore, they are stepping in with force to figure out how to reduce
potential harm to customers and to their businesses."

Governance of the Internet will be a high-profile topic at the ICANN 51
meeting that will continue through October 16 in Los Angeles.

The World Economic Forum recently unveiled a project aimed at connecting
governments, businesses, academia, technicians and civil society worldwide
to brainstorm the best ways to govern the Internet.

WEF launched its NETmundial Initiative in a bid to build on the outcome of
a large conference in Brazil in April that called for a transparent,
multi-stakeholder approach to running the Web.

"Anyone who wants to come in and build a coalition of stakeholders and
address issues, more power to them," Chehade said of the crowd-sourcing
move.

"The way we put it in ICANN is getting the free will of the people to
bottom-up coalesce, work together and come up with solutions."

Participants at the conference in Brazil balked at a push by some
countries, including China and Russia, for governments to move into a
leading role in overseeing the Internet, amid fears of the impact this
could have on the unity of the Web and on online dissent and freedom of
expression.

Chehade told AFP that the WEF will be involved in a more action-oriented
initiative to be announced shortly.

"We don't need more dialogue, we need more solutions," Chehade said.



- Solutions 'not forthcoming' -



The ICANN 51 agenda that includes tackling whether identities of those
running websites should be public or whether privacy should be safeguarded
and operators true names revealed only with proper court orders.

ICANN runs a Whois.icann.org service where contact information can be found
regarding registered operators of specific websites but not necessarily
people behind business names.

"It was designed by engineers as a technical tool to contact servers,"
Chehade said of Whois.

"Now, it is becoming a directory of a billion websites; it was not designed
for that."

ICANN has mapped a path to evolve Whois into a true global website
directory, complete with privacy safeguards for website operators,
according to the chief executive.

Chehade felt that ICANN has a good grip on the technical challenges it
faces but "we have some holes" in non-technical issues such as privacy,
cyber security, intellectual property rights, taxation and more.

"All these non-technical issues that occur in the space of the use of the
Internet, rather than the system that runs the Internet, require global
frameworks of cooperation to address," Chehade said.

"In general, these solutions are not yet forthcoming."



- Pushed too far -



ICANN is also being pushed beyond its scope, being asked to tackle cyber
security and bad behavior by website operators.

Essentially, issues beyond protecting and managing the "root" of the domain
name system are outside ICANN's claimed territory.

"It is happening, and we are resisting it," Chehade said.

He compared the situation to a customer being treated horribly by a car
service opting to take their complaint to the department of motor vehicles
that issued the driver a license.

What makes it frustrating turning away people with legitimate complaints
about websites is there tends to be no where to send them for help, he
noted.

"As we move forward, ICANN and others may have roles in an eco-system of
cooperation that may involve multiple parties to address bad behavior,"
Chehade said.

Critics of ICANN have included France, which branded the US-based body
unfit for Internet governance.

The eurozone's second-largest economy has been at war with the body, which
assigns domain names like '.com' and runs crucial internet infrastructure,
over the '.wine' and '.vin' suffixes being rolled out as part of an
unprecedented expansion of domains.

-- 
Editor, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and A Wireless Cloud
Author with Jennie Bourne  DSL (Wiley) and Web Video: Making It Great,
Getting It Noticed (Peachpit)
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