Internet
governance
As a globally distributed network of voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks, the
Internet operates without a central governing body. It has no centralized
governance for either technology or policies, and each constituent network
chooses what technologies and protocols it will deploy from the voluntary
technical standards that are developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF).[54]
However, throughout its entire history, the Internet system has had an
"Internet Assigned Numbers Authority" (IANA) for the allocation and
assignment of various technical identifiers needed for the operation of the
Internet.[55]
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) provides oversight and
coordination for two principal name spaces
in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System.
NIC,
InterNIC, IANA and ICANN
The IANA function was originally
performed by USC Information Sciences Institute, and it delegated portions of
this responsibility with respect to numeric network and autonomous system
identifiers to the Network
Information Center (NIC) at Stanford
Research Institute (SRI International) in Menlo Park, California. In addition to his role as the RFC Editor, Jon Postel
worked as the manager of IANA until his death in 1998.
As the early ARPANET grew, hosts
were referred to by names, and a HOSTS.TXT file would be distributed from SRI International to each host on the network. As the network grew, this
became cumbersome. A technical solution came in the form of the Domain Name System, created by Paul Mockapetris. The Defense Data Network—Network Information Center
(DDN-NIC) at SRI handled all registration services, including the top-level domains (TLDs) of .mil, .gov, .edu, .org, .net, .com and .us, root nameserver
administration and Internet number assignments under a United States Department of Defense contract.[55]
In 1991, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded the
administration and maintenance of DDN-NIC (managed by SRI up until this point)
to Government Systems, Inc., who subcontracted it to the small private-sector Network Solutions, Inc.[56][57]
The increasing cultural diversity of
the Internet also posed administrative challenges for centralized management of
the IP addresses. In October 1992, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
published RFC 1366,[58]
which described the "growth of the Internet and its increasing
globalization" and set out the basis for an evolution of the IP registry
process, based on a regionally distributed registry model. This document
stressed the need for a single Internet number registry to exist in each
geographical region of the world (which would be of "continental
dimensions"). Registries would be "unbiased and widely recognized by
network providers and subscribers" within their region. The RIPE Network
Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) was established as the first RIR in May 1992.
The second RIR, the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), was
established in Tokyo in 1993, as a pilot project of the Asia Pacific Networking
Group.[59]
Since at this point in history most
of the growth on the Internet was coming from non-military sources, it was
decided that the Department of Defense
would no longer fund registration services outside of the .mil TLD. In 1993 the
U.S. National
Science Foundation, after a competitive bidding
process in 1992, created the InterNIC
to manage the allocations of addresses and management of the address databases,
and awarded the contract to three organizations. Registration Services would be
provided by Network Solutions; Directory and Database Services would be provided by AT&T;
and Information Services would be provided by General Atomics.[60]
Over time, after consultation with the
IANA, the IETF,
RIPE NCC,
APNIC,
and the Federal
Networking Council (FNC), the decision was made to
separate the management of domain names from the management of IP numbers.[59]
Following the examples of RIPE NCC and APNIC, it was recommended that
management of IP address space then administered by the InterNIC should be
under the control of those that use it, specifically the ISPs, end-user
organizations, corporate entities, universities, and individuals. As a result,
the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) was established as in December 1997, as an
independent, not-for-profit corporation by direction of the National
Science Foundation and became the third Regional
Internet Registry.[61]
In 1998, both the IANA and remaining
DNS-related InterNIC functions were reorganized under the control of ICANN, a California non-profit corporation contracted by the United States Department of Commerce to manage a number of Internet-related tasks. As these
tasks involved technical coordination for two principal Internet name spaces
(DNS names and IP addresses) created by the IETF, ICANN also signed a
memorandum of understanding with the IAB to define the technical work to be
carried out by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.[62]
The management of Internet address space remained with the regional Internet
registries, which collectively were defined as a supporting organization within
the ICANN structure.[63]
ICANN provides central coordination for the DNS system, including policy
coordination for the split registry / registrar system, with competition among
registry service providers to serve each top-level-domain and multiple
competing registrars offering DNS services to end-users.
Internet
Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF) is the largest and most visible of several loosely related ad-hoc groups
that provide technical direction for the Internet, including the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and the Internet
Research Task Force (IRTF).
The IETF is a loosely self-organized
group of international volunteers who contribute to the engineering and evolution
of Internet technologies. It is the principal body engaged in the development
of new Internet standard specifications. Much of the IETF's work is done in
Working Groups. It does not "run the Internet", despite what some
people might mistakenly say. The IETF does make voluntary standards that are
often adopted by Internet users, but it does not control, or even patrol, the
Internet.[64][65]
The IETF started in January 1986 as
a quarterly meeting of U.S. government funded researchers. Non-government
representatives were invited starting with the fourth IETF meeting in October 1986.
The concept of Working Groups was introduced at the fifth IETF meeting in
February 1987. The seventh IETF meeting in July 1987 was the first meeting with
more than 100 attendees. In 1992, the Internet Society, a professional membership society, was formed and IETF
began to operate under it as an independent international standards body. The
first IETF meeting outside of the United States was held in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, in July 1993. Today the IETF meets three times a year and
attendnce is often about 1,300 people, but has been as high as 2,000 upon
occasion. Typically one in three IETF meetings are held in Europe or Asia. The
number of non-US attendees is roughly 50%, even at meetings held in the United
States.[64]
The IETF is unusual in that it
exists as a collection of happenings, but is not a corporation and has no board
of directors, no members, and no dues. The closest thing there is to being an
IETF member is being on the IETF or a Working Group mailing list. IETF
volunteers come from all over the world and from many different parts of the
Internet community. The IETF works closely with and under the supervision of
the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)[66]
and the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB).[67]
The Internet
Research Task Force (IRTF) and the Internet Research Steering Group
(IRSG), peer activities to the IETF and IESG under the general supervision of
the IAB, focus on longer term research issues.[64][68]
Request
for Comments
Request for Comments (RFCs) are the
main documentation for the work of the IAB, IESG, IETF, and IRTF. RFC 1, "Host Software", was
written by Steve Crocker at UCLA in April 1969, well before the IETF was created. Originally
they were technical memos documenting aspects of ARPANET development and were
edited by the late Jon Postel, the first RFC Editor.[64][69]
RFCs cover a wide range of
information from proposed standards, draft standards, full standards, best
practices, experimental protocols, history, and other informational topics.[70]
RFCs can be written by individuals or informal groups of individuals, but many
are the product of a more formal Working Group. Drafts are submitted to the
IESG either by individuals or by the Working Group Chair. An RFC Editor,
appointed by the IAB, separate from IANA, and working in conjunction with the
IESG, receives drafts from the IESG and edits, formats, and publishes them.
Once an RFC is published, it is never revised. If the standard it describes
changes or its information becomes obsolete, the revised standard or updated
information will be re-published as a new RFC that "obsoletes" the
original.[64][69]
The
Internet Society
The Internet Society or ISOC is an
international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to "to assure
the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all
people throughout the world". With offices near Washington, DC, USA, and
in Geneva, Switzerland, ISOC has a membership base comprising more than 80 organizational
and more than 50,000 individual members. Members also form "chapters"
based on either common geographical location or special interests. There are
currently more than 90 chapters around the world.[71]
ISOC provides financial and
organizational support to and promotes the work of the standards settings
bodies for which it is the organizational home: the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF), the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), and the Internet
Research Task Force (IRTF). ISOC also promotes
understanding and appreciation of the Internet model
of open, transparent processes and consensus-based decision making.[72]
Globalization
and Internet governance in the 21st century
Since the 1990s, the Internet's governance and organization has been of global importance to
governments, commerce, civil society, and individuals. The organizations which
held control of certain technical aspects of the Internet were the successors
of the old ARPANET oversight and the current decision-makers in the day-to-day
technical aspects of the network. While recognized as the administrators of
certain aspects of the Internet, their roles and their decision making
authority are limited and subject to increasing international scrutiny and
increasing objections. These objections have led to the ICANN removing
themselves from relationships with first the University of Southern California
in 2000,[73]
and finally in September 2009, gaining autonomy from the US government by the
ending of its longstanding agreements, although some contractual obligations
with the U.S. Department of Commerce continued.[74][75][76]
The IETF, with financial and
organizational support from the Internet Society, continues to serve as the
Internet's ad-hoc standards body and issues Request for Comments.
In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunis, called for an Internet
Governance Forum (IGF) to be convened by United Nations
Secretary General.
The IGF opened an ongoing, non-binding conversation among stakeholders
representing governments, the private sector, civil society, and the technical
and academic communities about the future of Internet governance. The first IGF
meeting was held in October/November 2006 with follow up meetings annually
thereafter.[77]
Since WSIS, the term "Internet governance" has been broadened beyond
narrow technical concerns to include a wider range of Internet-related policy
issues.[78][79]
