ICANN distances itself from radical governance plan it funde • The Register

ICANN has defended its choice to fund a bunch that proposed a radical new governance mannequin that may give states a task in regulating the web, and distanced itself from the group’s proposal.

The governance mannequin is named the Council of African Web Governance Authorities (CAIGA) framework, and is the work of Good Africa, an entity that represents 42 African nations that work to speed up adoption of digital expertise throughout the continent. Member nations’ heads of state sit on Good Africa’s board.

The CAIGA framework suggests making a physique to symbolize Africa at web international web governance our bodies, and for that physique to supersede a number of the policy-making capabilities of present governance organizations such because the African Community Data Centre (AFRINIC), Africa’s sometimes dysfunctional and controversial regional web registry.

Good Africa has not responded to a number of requests from The Register for an interview to debate CAIGA, however in displays like this session at October’s ICANN84 convention, described CAIGA’s function a being to “outline Africa’s strategic targets inside international Web governance our bodies (ICANN, ITU, IGF) and guarantee its voice is mirrored in discussions on Web assets and digital laws.”

CAIGA has alarmed some within the African web group.

Nigeria-based community engineer and web governance activist Amin Dayekh labelled CAIGA a “quiet coup” as a result of he feels it might imply AFRINIC members might lose decision-making energy.

Alice Munyua, a Kenyan who has held senior positions on the Web Society and ICANN, riffed on Dayekh’s put up, suggesting that CAIGA “represents a brand new layer of governmental and regulatory authority positioned above AFRINIC’s elected board.”

Such a layer can be extraordinary, as AFRINIC and the world’s 4 different regional web registries (RIRs) have for many years used a bottom-up decision-making course of by which members and different stakeholders devise, debate, and vote on insurance policies. A brand new layer of web governance for AFRINIC would additionally problem the function of the Web Company for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees AFRINIC by its function because the policy-setting physique for domains, the area title system, and IP addresses.

Milton Mueller, founding father of the Web Governance Challenge on the Georgia Institute of Expertise, has criticized the CAIGA framework for missing essential particulars.

“The ‘Council’ can be an as-yet unformed, completely untested group chosen by a board dominated by African heads of state, with unclear powers over registry operations,” he wrote.

Mueller additionally factors out that in 2024 ICANN and Good Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding [PDF] to co-operate on many issues, plus a Challenge Settlement that requires Good Africa to develop a long-term imaginative and prescient and roadmap for Web governance in Africa. ICANN dedicated $40,000 to that venture.

Becoming a member of the dots

Good Africa endorsed a slate of candidates at AFRINIC’s latest board election. Seven of the eight elected administrators had been on Good Africa’s record. After the election, Good Africa issued a statement linking the election consequence to development of the CAIGA improvement course of.

ICANN’s involvement with Good Africa, Good Africa’s endorsement of AFRINIC board members, and CAIGA’s suggestion of latest governance preparations, led some to conclude that ICANN was successfully endorsing a brand new web governance framework that utilized new guidelines solely to African and AFRINIC.

As Milton Mueller put it: “ICANN, which positions itself as the final word manifestation of bottom-up governance by nonstate actors, and which fought for years to rid itself of political oversight by the U.S. authorities, is supporting Good Africa, a company that promotes digital sovereignty, has a board composed of heads of state, and points rhetoric that requires political oversight of its Regional Web Registry.”

On-line debate about CAIGA grew to become louder, and extra distinguished.

On November 18, ICANN president Kurt Lindquist revealed a post by which he mentioned the group doesn’t endorse CAIGA and that its Challenge Settlement with Good Africa didn’t ask it “to cowl AFRINIC governance, modify AFRINIC, or envision a unique RIR construction to serve the area.”

Lindquist additionally distanced ICANN from CAIGA, saying monetary help for Good Africa “doesn’t equate to possession or accountability for the content material, just like how researchers may get hold of a grant or different monetary help with out attributing the outcomes of that analysis to the funder.”

The ICANN president additionally mentioned no change might be made to African web governance except it’s in keeping with present coverage and permitted by AFRINIC members.

Lindquist’s put up didn’t go down nicely inside ICANN itself, as the subsequent day the org’s personal Non-Business Stakeholder Group (NCSG), a physique that represents non-commercial web customers and organizations in ICANN policy-making boards, despatched a letter calling for Lindquist and the ICANN Board to make clear its relationship to Good Africa and to the event of CAIGA.

The NCSG’s letter describes CAIGA, and ICANN’s function in its improvement, as probably representing “a precedent that undermines group belief and the integrity of ICANN’s governance framework.”

Lindquist responded on Tuesday, writing that he understands “it may be tough to separate the problems of authorship and endorsement from funding.”

He added that ICANN didn’t intend for its relationship with Good Africa to supply a brand new web governance mannequin, didn’t ask Good Africa to develop such a mannequin, and “didn’t preevaluate the ensuing CAIGA proposal.” Lindquist mentioned criticism of ICANN for not revealing its function within the improvement of CAIGA is due to this fact unfounded, and once more mentioned ICANN is not going to settle for any reform to AFRINIC that its members don’t help.

Lindquist additionally famous, as The Register has reported, that ICANN is at the moment debating revisions to the “ICP-2” coverage that governs RIRs. Session on the second draft of a revised ICP-2 closed on November 7 and debate on its remaining kind continues.

“If the RIR communities want to have the power for an RIR to be ruled in the best way that CAIGA proposes for AFRINIC, to permit direct governmental involvement in RIR governance … now’s the time for these proposals to be raised and evaluated within the ICP-2 dialog,” Lindquist’s letter states.

On his LinkedIn account, Amin Dayekh labelled Lindquist’s clarification of ICANN’s involvement with CAIGA as “disgrace wrapped in bureaucratic language, bureaucratic evasion disguised as multistakeholder respect.”

Dayekh additionally questioned: “Is ICANN opening the conceptual door for governments to reshape RIR governance by capturing the ICP-2 course of?”

The Register thinks that’s unlikely, as in our latest protection of web governance our bodies we’ve got seen them fiercely resist exterior affect, albeit on the gradual tempo at which such organizations transfer as they work by their bottom-up, consensus-driven decision-making processes.

Nevertheless, our contacts within the web governance group additionally inform us that occasions of latest years are virtually unprecedentedly contentious and an unwelcome change from the standard technically centered issues mentioned at ICANN and RIR conferences. ®