Yesterday the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) plenipotentiary conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota got down to the thorny issue of internet governance and e-commerce, a subject that many in the internet community think it should stay out of, but in which it has had a hand for many years now. The ITU is comprised of representatives from either nationalized telephone companies or, where the market has been privatized, the relevant government body that oversees the country’s telecoms carriers. Votes are taken on a one-vote-per-country basis, which helps explain why it is not very popular with many in the US telecoms and internet industries, because they feel they should have a larger proportion of the votes being the largest telecoms market in the world. The ITU has been expected to bring together some policy positions about so-called internet governance and now it appears to be happening, led by delegates from Europe and Asia-Pacific. However, the ITU recognizes that the future of internet administration will lie with the private sector, as per the guidelines set out by the US government, which currently provides oversight and funding for the tasks that keep the internet running, most importantly the domain name and numbering systems, which are the focus of the current political wrangles in the internet community. Delegates from Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, France, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland co-sponsored a draft resolution at the meeting this week that instructs the secretary-general to get actively involved in the various discussions about internet domain and numbering issues and report back each year to the ITU. In particular it urges the ITU to get its act together so it can participate in the government advisory committee that is likely to advise the new non-profit corporation to run the domain name and numbering systems. That measure got widespread support from delegates from all over the world and a small working group was established under the leadership of Germany to report back to the ITU on how it might best go about this. It is expected to report back to the plenipotentiary by Tuesday or Wednesday next week. The Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT), which has 73 members from 30 members states, 4 associate members and 39 affiliates reckons the internet has evolved from a network monopolized by a limited number of nations to a worldwide basic telecommunication infrastructure, and as such it filed a draft to instruct the secretary-general to form and manage a study group to produce a report on how the ITU should deal with these changes. That did not look like getting much support as many felt that a lot of other study groups within the ITU already dealt with similar issues, but it was agreed that the German-led working group could cover that as well. Meanwhile, Roberto Blois of Brazil has been elected as the deputy secretary-general, edging out rivals from the UK, Italy and Austria.
