The Internet society and its struggle for recognition and influence

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The role of non-state actors in regime formation: Case study on Internet governance.

Many scholars argue that the Internet is a symbol of globalization and avoidance of state control. The Internet governance negotiations, which aims to establish an international regime for the Internet, is conducted through a multi-stakeholder setting associated with extensive involvement of non-state actors. This has been viewed as an indicator for a \u27diminishing state role\u27 in international relations; particularly, formation of international regimes. This study indicates that the role of states does not diminish in regime formation. States, especially great powers, are the main actors that set international principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures. They create regimes in order to regulate international behavior as to global sectors, including the Internet. States deliberately enable certain non-state actors to participate in regime formation and governance of some global sectors, based on conscious perception of the utility and usefulness of such participation

Space Cops and Cyber Cowboys: An Institutional Comparison of the Governance of Space Exploration and the Internet

A growing concern for human society is the question of technology, how they are to be used and how can they best be governed. The very question of whether technology is governable remains for the most part unexplored. This work will seek to examine these important questions. By utilizing a historical institutional perspective, two case studies of the governance of technologies that have emerged in the last century will be explored. Space Exploration technologies and the advanced networking of computers known as the Internet will serve as the case to illuminate the question of governing technology. Deep qualitative functional analysis of both the primary and peripheral institutions will provide insight into how technology is governed in theory and in practice, as well as how institutions are created and change over time. By moving beyond questions of governance for states and societies, this work will attempt to contribute to the literature of political science as the study of governance broadly speaking. This work will contribute to and speak to newer works on the governance of non-explicitly political realms, as opposed to more traditional approaches to the study of governance, perhaps allowing new insight and avenues of research into both the question of technology and governance more broadly. Distinct policy prescriptions will be created to both better govern these particular technologies as well as lay the foundation for effective institutional governance of technologies in the future

Internet Standardization: A Participant Analysis

Tässä diplomityössä tarkastellaan tieto- ja viestintätekniikka-alan (ICT) standardointityötä. Tutkimme erityisesti Internet-standardointia. Aikaisempi tutkimus osoittaa, että standardit luovat perustan teknologioiden yhteentoimivuudelle ja, että ne mahdollistavat sekä tietojen että informaation välittämisen järjestelmien välillä. Standardit toimivat siten edesauttajina ja katalyytteinä, joista on sekä taloudellista että teknistä hyötyä. Aikaisemmat tutkimukset osittavat myös, että usean johtavan toimijan ydinstrategiaan kuuluu nykyään standardien kehitystyöhön osallistuminen. Osallistuminen standardointityöhön saattaa myös olla avain tulevaan kaupalliseen menestykseen. Tässä työssä tutkimme ensisijaisesti mikä Internet-standardoinnin menestyksen mittari ja perustaso on. Vertailemme myös tiettyjen yhtiöiden standardointipanostuksia ja niitten yhteyttä yhtiöiden kaupalliseen menestykseen. Lisäksi tutkimme myös erikseen suomalaisten toimijoiden saavutuksia IETF:ssä. Kirjallisuuskatsauksessa otamme tarkemmin esille, missä, miksi ja miten ICT-alan standardeja kehitetään. Selvitämme myös tutkimus- ja kehitystyön yhteyttä standardointiin sekä määritämme motivaatioita standardointityöhön osallistumiselle. Osana tätä diplomityötä suunnittelemme ja kehitämme ohjelmiston sekä tietokannan joka antaa meille mahdollisuuden tallentaa, käsitellä ja tutkia useita eri Internet Engineering Task Force:n (IETF) työprosesseja ja -dokumentteja. Hyödyntämällä tietokantaamme ja kehitettyä ohjelmistoa voimme mitata ja analysoida useita IETF:n standardointiprosessin näkökulmia ja myös tutkia lähemmin siihen osallistuvia yrityksiä. Tuloksemme osoittavat, että Suomen ICT-klusterin aikaansaannokset IETF:ssä ovat verrattain hyvät. Lisäksi voimme todeta, että Cisco:n saavutukset voidaan pitää menestyksen mittarina lähes kaikkia IETF:n standardointityön osa-alueita tarkasteltaessa. Tulostemme perusteella ehdotamme myös, että osallistujien kaupallisella ja standardointityön menestyksellä on yhteys.This thesis examines standards-setting in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. Special attention is given to Internet standardization. Previous research suggest that standards lay the ground for compatibility, interoperability, and interchange of data in the ICT field. Standards thus function as enablers and accelerators with both economical and technological benefits. Previous research also suggests that participating in standards development and influencing the outcome by contributing to the standardization process have become core strategic choices of many leading players. Participating in the development of a winning standard can be critical to later business success. In this thesis we will therefore aim to clarify what the benchmark for success in Internet standardization is. We also compare selected organizations' standardization activities to figures measuring their success on the marketplace. The standardization achievements of the Finnish ICT cluster are also given extra attention. Our literature study elaborates on how, why, and where ICT standards are developed. The relationship between Research and Development (R&D) and ICT standardization is clarified and we also establish motivations for participating in the standards development process. As a part of this thesis we design and create a database that enables us to retrieve and process all working documents related to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardization process. Using the database and custom tools created for this task allows us to measure and analyze several aspects of the IETF standardization process and the participants active therein. The results suggest the Finnish ICT cluster has performed comparatively well within the IETF, that Cisco's achievements can be considered the benchmark for success regarding virtually all aspects of IETF standardization, and that there is a linkage between participants' success in standardization and their merits on the marketplace

Governing Internet Territory: ICANN, Sovereignty Claims, Property Rights and Country Code Top-level Domains

This paper examines the legal and Internet governance controversies over country code top-level domain names (ccTLDs). In recent litigation (Weinstein v. Islamic Republic of Iran and ICANN), terrorism victims argued that ccTLDs are property and attempted to seize Iran’s .IR domain for compensation. In refusing to uphold this claim, an appeals court ruled that a court-ordered redelegation would impair the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN’s) role in global Internet governance. While the .IR case is recent, the underlying tensions between state sovereignty, the role of ICANN and the rights of organizations that have been awarded ccTLDs have been simmering for two decades. Three governance models are in play: a sovereignty-based model, a property rights/market-based model, and a global public trustee model. The legal and political science literature leaves this Internet governance issue unexplored and unsettled, while court rulings on the property status of domains have been mixed or indecisive. Most legal scholars merely assume that states have sovereignty rights over their ccTLDs and do not critically assess the justification for, or the implications of, a sovereignty-based model. Likewise, many legal scholars, governments and Internet governance institutions have resisted recognizing TLD delegations as a property right, but their arguments are often based on misunderstandings of the economics and technology of the domain name system. Drawing on law, economics and sovereignty theories, this paper shows that top-level domain names have all the essential features of a property right. It argues that a governance regime that recognized them as such would be preferable to a regime based on sovereignty claims or a global public trustee model.

Wrong Turn in Cyberspace: Using ICANN to Route Around the APA and the Constitution

The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the root. Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace. This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U. S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a formally private nonprofit California corporation. DoC then signed contracts with ICANN in order to clothe it with most of the U. S. government\u27s power over the DNS, and convinced other parties to recognize ICANN\u27s authority. ICANN then took regulatory actions that the U. S. Department of Commerce was unable or unwilling to make itself, including the imposition on all registrants of Internet addresses of an idiosyncratic set of arbitration rules and procedures that benefit third-party trademark holders. Professor Froomkin then argues that the use of ICANN to regulate in the stead of an executive agency violates fundamental values and policies designed to ensure democratic control over the use of government power, and sets a precedent that risks being expanded into other regulatory activities. He argues that DoC\u27s use of ICANN to make rules either violates the APA\u27s requirement for notice and comment in rulemaking and judicial review, or it violates the Constitution\u27s nondelegation doctrine. Professor Froomkin reviews possible alternatives to ICANN, and ultimately proposes a decentralized structure in which the namespace of the DNS is spread out over a transnational group of policy partners with DoC