The meeting appeared to reach some kind of consensus on the need for governance on matters relating to the use of the internet, but could not agree on where the lines should be drawn between governance and technical coordination.

And the meeting, held over two days in New York last week, highlighted the concerns that so-called developing nations have with what they perceive as an internet governed largely by the US government, western corporations, and other developed nations.

We need to develop inclusive and participatory models of governance. The medium must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world’s people, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said in prepared remarks Thursday.

The meeting, hosted by the UN’s ICT Task Force, was designed to frame the issues of internet governance for a working group that Annan was instructed to assemble by December’s World Summit on the Information Society.

TCP/IP co-inventor Vint Cerf said: If we need to govern, our need should focus more on the use or abuse of the network and less on its operations, except where technical rules of the road dictate adherence to standards to the ensure stability and integrity of the system.

Cerf, who is also chair of the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, brought up a mantra that resonated with many industry participants present: If it isn’t broke, do not fix it. But some said that missed the point.

The issue at stake is not that something is broken and we want to fix it, the main issue at stake has to do with the legitimacy, said Lyndall Shope-Mafole, chair of South Africa’s National Commission on Information Society and Development.

The developing world feels the UN is the legitimate body to represent their interests, she said. We’re not saying people are doing things wrong… but we need to feel we are part of that doing right, she told the assembled delegates.

Maria Luiza Viotti, the delegate from Brazil, which has been one of the most vocal of the developing nations involved, said: Internet governance is such an important matter that it cannot be under control of only one country or one group of stakeholders.

The developing world doesn’t want any US government or any US corporation telling them what they can do, said Paul Kane, chair of Europe-based domain name registry coalition CENTR, who was in attendance, said yesterday.

CENTR’s Kane said he got the impression that governments just want to be involved. He said: They were really just after information, that was one of the startling things about it for me.

Nowhere is the perceived US control of the internet more apparent than with ICANN, which has the ostensibly technical role of managing domain name and IP address allocation, but is directly answerable to the US Department of Commerce.

The talks, and the WSIS meeting last December, were seen by some as an attempt by the UN and the International Telecommunications Union to take over ICANN’s functions. But that was not the case last week, according to ICANN and the UN.

It certainly wasn’t put in any context of the UN versus ICANN or the ITU versus ICANN, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey said yesterday. I didn’t see the meeting as being confrontational. It wasn’t nearly as strident as the meetings leading up to WSIS.

Twomey has been on the defensive lately, however, as he tries to persuade concerned parties that ICANN, which is incorporated in California, is open, transparent and accepts participation from everywhere in the world.

I think a lot of it is lack of information, he said yesterday, pointing out that half of ICANN’s board of directors are from developing nations, and that the organization rotates its meetings through five continents to allow easier travel for all.

He added that in some cases where UN delegates from foreign ministries have been concerned at a lack of participation, their own science, education or equivalent ministries actually do attend ICANN’s regular government advisory committee meetings.

Diplomats, Twomey said, look at the world in terms of geographic boundaries. Telecommunications firms see maps of cables and satellites. But the internet is neither of those. One of the things we’re trying to do is reconcile that culture clash, he said.

Having been denied entry to the government-oriented WSIS meeting in Geneva last December, Twomey told ComputerWire he managed to get some personal face-time with secretary general Annan last week in New York.

As ICANN is a creation of the US government, one issue Twomey said was discussed was the relationship between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce, which mainly takes the form of a memorandum of understanding.

Any major decision ICANN takes regarding the DNS must be approved by the DoC, which is seen by some as an impediment to global inclusiveness. ICANN also faces frequent oversight from the US Congress.

The MoU does envisage the DoC removing itself from the picture after ICANN has completed a series of tasks. The current MoU expires September 2006, almost a year after phase two of WSIS, where the internet governance question may be answered.

WSIS phase two is now scheduled to be held in Tunis, Tunisia, in September next year. The first of an expected series of preparatory meetings, also in Tunis, will be held this June. Annan will create his internet governance working group shortly.

If anything, last week’s meeting gave industry and associated bodies a chance to provide their input after a previously government-heavy set of meetings. I was happy about the multi-stakeholder participation, I think that made a difference, said Twomey.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire