Stealth Threat, Hidden Agenda:
ICANN--The WTO of the Internet

The Globalization of Power over Access and Content on the Internet through the Control over the Domain Name System

Corporate Rule threatens to place a stranglehold over access and content on the internet. Name.Space has taken the struggle against corporate rule head on in the courts, in the halls of Congress and in the media. The political and economic stakes are high and will have a lasting impact over the future of individuals' access, free speech, privacy on the internet.

On the surface the issue seems mundane: adding number and diversity of domain name extensions (i.e. "art." "media." "politics." "sucks.") to the existing "legacy" domain name system (i.e. "com." "net." "org." "uk." "au." "ca."), which aids users in connecting to content and resources over the net. Behind the scenes lies the US Military and Intelligence communities and their corporate partners who have historically reaped the gravy train of "outsourced" activities of the military industrial complex (that many call "corporate welfare"). http://mediafilter.org/caq/internic

The "Domain Name System" (DNS) was developed with public funds under the National Science Foundation who in 1993 outsourced its management to a company called "Network Solutions" a small D.C. based company, which set up its operations in Herndon, Virginia neighboring the internet's birthplace, Reston. In 1995, when the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) was revised to allow commerce on the Internet, which it previously forbid, Network Solutions was bought by private intelligence contractor SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation). Around this time, the Cooperative Agreement between NSF and NSI was amended to allow them to charge fees for the registration of "com." "org." and "net." domain names, which were previously registered for free.

That the US Government Intelligence community was interested in keeping the DNS within its control is no minor issue given that the current topology of the "root-server" network makes Network Solutions the center of the internet--it's single point of control as well as it's single point of failure, as was experienced on July 17, 1997 when errors in the root nameservers at NSI caused a blackout of the "com." domain for several hours, bringing most traffic to a grinding halt and causing millions of email messages to bounce, their destinations not found. The "root" domain is a text file commonly called "root.zone" that serves as the master list of "Top Level Domains" (TLDs) and the various computers around the net that host them. Inclusion or exclusion of a TLD and its attendant nameserver data determines whether or not a TLD is visible to the entire internet by default. Computer scientists call it "the truth" and right now the US National Telecommunications and Infrastructure Agency (NTIA) of the US Department of Commerce decides what the truth is, according to Amendment 11 of its Cooperative Agreement with NSI, written in September, 1998 when the authority over the root was appropriated by the NTIA from its predecessor, the NSF. This was the moment another private contractor was formed, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN, in secret by a concert of net insiders and USG bureaucrats laying out their plan for total economic and corporate control over the internet's root domain specifically in the interests of national security, access control, protection of intellectual property rights and content control.

In a world where globalization threatens the loss of our sovereignty and law, our Constitutional protections are being superseded by corporate contracts, reducing the rule of law and civil society to the service agreements you sign for things like energy and communications, as well as hospitals, transportation, and even prisons. It's where private gated communities replace public space and where the intellectual property rights of corporations rule over the speech rights of individuals, where those with the most money control what is allowed to be said or seen in the media and by whom.

ICANN has its roots in the corporations MCI,ATT, IBM, AOL, and close ties to WIPO, INTA, MPAA and other heavyweights in the intellectual property lobby. In what should be a rather mundane role of keeping track of toplevel domain assignments, and repository for technical data pertaining to the DNS, ICANN has burrowed itself into the role of world government in cyberspace, much in the same sense as the WTO in "corporatespace", regulating access and content under the dictates of corporate rule as set forth by the NSA, WIPO, MPAA, and major corporate interests in networking, telecommunications and media such as NSI, AOL-Time Warner, Disney, MCI Worldcom, IBM, and others who have a vested interest in monopolizing content and publishing over all media. When it comes to freedom of speech and access to media, none of the above will ever receive any awards, and in fact are well known to use lawsuits to suppress criticism, parody, and fair use. In most cases under the ICANN's controversial Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) holders of trademarks are highly successful in what has become known as "reverse hijacking" of domains, often to chill public criticism of corporations through parody, as in the famous "verizonreallysucks.com" case in which Verizon sued 2600 Magazine for violating its trademark.

Before it all got into this mess, perhaps an event that precipitated much of the US Government's action to set up an "antitrust limbo" protection around the root, Name.Space filed an antitrust action against Network Solutions on March 20, 1997 for it's refusal to publish over 300 TLDs that were in operation on Name.Space's global network of severs starting in 1996, mostly suggested by the public through an ongoing survey. At the time, according to the Cooperative Agreement between NSF and NSI, NSI had the discretionary power under the contract to make changes to the address system as it saw fit in the course of operating the root registry and TLD registies for "com." "net." "org." and "edu.". In its refusal to act within its power under the cooperative agreement, and therefore refusal to deal with a competitor by not allowing access to the "essential facility" which is the "root.zone" NSI found itself before the US Federal Court for the Southern District, NY facing violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the Donnelly Act for restraint of trade. Name.Space modeled its case after the successful MCI v. ATT which resulted in the divestiture of ATT into regional companies, and paved the way for competitive direct dialed long distance phone service. The Name.Space v. NSI suit also named "non-party co-conspirators" that consisted of many whom may be affiliated in one way or another with today's ICANN. At the expense of dropping the conspiracy count, Name.Space's then Attorney Michael J. Donovan joined the NSF to the case under First Amendment grounds that domain names are speech, when after a series of letters between NSI, IANA, and NSF during the summer of 1997, which sought to establish a contractual chain of command which at that time had never been articulated, the NSF instructed NSI not to act in adding new TLDs to the root, calling it "destabilizing" and "premature" to do so at that time.

The case ended up in the US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, NY where in January, 2000 the panel of Judges McLaughlin, Jacobs and Katzman found NSI's conduct in this particular case to be immune from antitrust prosecution so that the NTIA could pursue its policy objectives of letting ICANN select TLDs and their operators for inclusion into the root. Clearly a political decision by the court, in the corporate interest. The court also found that the NSF/NTIA did not violate the First Amendment by compelling the use of "com." "net." or "org." in a domain name, and that:

"The existing gTLDs are not protected speech, but only because the current DNS and Amendment No. 11 limit them to three-letter afterthoughts such as .com and .net, which are lacking in expressive content. The district court did not address the possibility that longer and more contentful gTLDs like ".jones_for_president" and ".smith_for_senate" may constitute protected speech, such as political speech or parody". [...]

"There is nothing inherent in the architecture of the Internet that prevents new gTLDs from constituting expressive speech. How broad the permissible bandwidth of expression is in this context depends on the future direction of the DNS.(13) Therefore, "we should be shy about saying the final word today about what will be accepted as reasonable tomorrow," particularly "when we know too little to risk the finality of precision."

Although NSI's antitrust charges were immunized in the Name.Space case, the Court was careful not to extend the antitrust protection into the future and was clear to state that simply having a contract with the government does not by default confer immunity.

"Name.Space is surely correct in arguing that the existence of a government contract does not automatically confer a federal agency's absolute antitrust immunity onto a private contractor.(9) However, the conduct being challenged by Name.Space in this appeal was compelled by the explicit terms of NSI's agreement with a government agency and by the government's policies regarding the proper administration of the DNS". (Amendment 11 of the Cooperative Agreement, NTIA/NSF).

In the case of ICANN, whose present Chief Vint Cerf, VP of MCI and co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, admitted to the US House Commerce Committee on February 7, 2001, that ICANN's November, 2001 selection of 7 TLDs and their operators was "subjective" and that more than the seven companies chosen (which included NSI, CORE, Register.com and other dominant players) were qualified to run TLD registries, antitrust prosecution is not possible at the moment because, while ICANN would be subject to the antitrust laws should they act anticompetitively, their selection of TLDs and their friends as operators is only a RECOMMENDATION that they are contracted to make to the NTIA, who has the ultimate power to accept or reject ICANN's selections. The US Congress, who has oversight over the NTIA has ultimate say over what happens to the root, although it is uncertain whether or how they will act to compensate for the wrongdoings of ICANN. ICANN's nepotism from its inception is boldly obvious and dates back to 1996 to the ill-fated IAHC (International Ad Hoc Committee) charged by Name.Space in its allegations of non-party co-conspirators in its second amended complaint against NSI, and may run to deep within the US Government, or at least the NTIA under the Clinton Administration --ICANN is in part the work product of Ira Magaziner (infamous for the Hillary Clinton Healthcare dabacle) and Becky Burr, an intellectual property lawyer formerly at the NTIA, now with the lawfirm Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, ironically connected with the Aspen Institute and lawyer David Post, a apparent ICANN critic.

Although ICANN has managed to promote itself as the "authority" that makes the decision on which TLDs are added to the root and who operates them, they have no influence over independent efforts to bring about more domains. There are currently several groups ranging from hard core free marketeers and speculators with entities like the ORSC and Pacific Root to non profit or more public interest oriented businesses like OpenNic or Name.Space, to hyper commercial New.Net backed by funding from Idealab (responsible for Etoys.com). While Name.Space has continued to make best efforts to gain access to the legacy root to avoid any fragmentation of the namespace, others including New.Net and ORSC have no regard for creating "balkanization" on the net, often creating conflicting TLDs that had previously been published and in operation by others without regard, creating conflicting registrations by refusing to cross check whois data, or by not allowing or lacking capabilities to provide external access to their whois databases. Better coordination and cooperation between the independents is important to reduce the significance of ICANN lest the net become "regionalized" the way that cable tv is today with some content not available in some areas becuase its DNS is not interoperable.

What can one do to counteract the invisible forces of ICANN and their attempt to become the global corporate ruler over the internet? The possibility for substantial public pressure by independent content producers is great since the refusal to publish expressive TLDs is a form of censorship, and as long as the "root" is still under the control of the US Government, it is subject to the First Amendment. By registering with Name.Space you are establishing cause for seeking relief for the denial of your right to publish under expressive domain names with policies set independly of ICANN and it's WTO-like practices. By switching your DNS you are making a political choice to vote NO against ICANN and their oppressive desires to regulate content and access using the domain name system. By supporting Name.Space with your registration fees you are using your economic power to support policies that respect your rights to access, privacy and free speech, and building a viable alternative to the otherwise devastating blow to our freedoms that we know as the "corporate media".

Put an end to corporate rule over the internet, or route around it! Switch to Name.Space!