Why to Cry Over the Spilled Milk?

With the recent tectonic shift in the Internet, that is, replacement of JPA with a newly adopted Affirmation of Commitment”, no wonder both the Obama administration and ICANN have found themselves under the squall of criticisms thrown by political hardliners and proponents of the pax-Americana in the Internet.

One can of course resort to a reasonable advice for them not to cry over the spilled milk; however, it is worth examining their standpoints to better realize why the termination of JPA fueled such a reaction. Take for example a recent article by renowned academics in WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574446942665685208.html

Political reasons aside, one can find the same primordial assertions: “without the effective oversight of ICANN, billions of dollars of online commerce and intellectual property would be at risk, and various forms of mass censorship could become the norm”. The authors further elaborate that with IDNs in place, “companies that have invested huge sums to protect their trademarks under “.com” will have  to fight for protection of their names in the new domains…[E]ven more disturbing is the prospect that foreign countries will pressure ICANN to impose Internet controls that facilitate their own censorship schemes” and put a question as to whether “ICANN <would> be better situated to resist such pressures now that it no longer has a formal contract with the U.S. government” .

No doubt, the US should be lauded for the invention, development and promotion of the Internet, let alone billions of dollars invested into it since its very onset. But it would be right to ask ourselves whether ICANN, under the US’s unilateral supervision, was an effective vehicle to counter innumerous violations of all kinds of IPR and trademarks, or whether China, or Iran, or any rogue nation was really precluded from building nationwide firewalls (which, by the way, were effectively bypassed, if needed). So what is this fuss about, really?

For example, we in Russia work really hard to design legal instruments with the emphasis on IPR, protection of trademark owners’ rights, etc. as a cornerstone of the legal base for the soon-to-be national Cyrillic IDN .РФ (the Cyrillic acronym for Russian Federation). Plus, our government repeatedly goes public to assure there is (and will be) no censorship in RUnet. Why? As pragmatists, they acknowledge the fact that Internet cannot be effectively censored in any way.

Finally, GAC, where the US will have “no greater authority than any other country” will unlikely mobilize consensus, as far as the above critical issues are concerned, particularly when it comes to a crackdown on basic human rights and freedoms and their expression in the Internet.

I am in no way a staunch proponent of Mr. Obama’s policies, but have to give his administration due credit for their courage in acknowledging the indisputable fact: Internet is no longer American – rather, it is a global asset. And the termination of JPA and endorsement of the Fast-Track procedures constitute just a harbinger on the path towards its further internationalization.