[discuss] [governance] U.S. to Give Up Oversight of Web Policymaking Body

Sat Mar 15 16:59:30 UTC 2014

At 17:25 15/03/2014, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>Well, the NTIA announcement certainly paves the way for more focused 
>and productive discussions in Brazil. It eliminates "the status quo" 
>as an option.

Milton,

this depends on what you call status-quo. On the face of it, it is 
true that a transfer of NTIA decisions to ICANN looks like a change. 
However that change is an increase of the status-quo: ICANN will be 
under the control of its US StatusHolders. This will simplify the 
task of the NTIA and increase its indirect influence on the whole 
process. They would not have done it otherwise. Actually the NTIA 
will become the referee of the Multi-ICANN-StatusHolders common 
orientations, a more powerful master of the game, actually the "deus 
ex machina" since it will not have direct visible ties anymore. In 
this process the NTIA has quite extended its reach (IEEE, IAB, IETF, 
W3C, non-American RIRs, the legitmacy and the resillence of which now 
depends on their cohesion as a 15 [14+NTIA] state/stakeholder group, 
16 if you add your own DNSA).

M G