Internet Governance Forum ’09 Roundup: IP Blocking, Root Changes and IDNs

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded this week and its implications sent shockwaves rippling through the domain industry.

As background, the IGF met in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt from November 15th-18th. There were more than 1800 participants from 112 countries. The major discussion topics included: promoting local content, protecting against cybercrime, managing root server system, IP blocking, trademark issues and IDNs. From relatively tame topics, here are the big stories that emerged:

*IGF Mandate and Censorship. The IGF itself has a UN mandate that is set to expire next year.  While many emphasized the usefulness of the IGF as a platform for dialogue, China called for the termination of the forum:  “Without any reforms to the IGF, it is not necessary to give it a five year extension,” stated Chen Yin, head of the Chinese delegation.  This stance was not shocking, as China was a big target for anti-censorship advocates this week at IGF and flyers reading “Free Tibet” were distributed freely.

*Surrender the Root. Y.J. Park, an ICANN Multistakeholder Advisory Group member and a professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands said, the  “US government still remains as a sole global authority that approves all delegation and redelegation of the rest of 251 ccTLDs (country top-level domains) and 21 gTLDs (global top-level domains) as of today.”  Park continued:  “Instead, the next IANA contract should identify an international body that will take over the current role of the US government. ”

*IP Blocking. Nigeria spoke out against those who mass IP block their country.  The issue is really sad.  You surely received emails from a fraudulent Nigerian prince who wants to transfer his fortune to you if you only provide your bank account access details.  Well, many forums, email providers and others dealt with this problem by simply blocking access to all Nigerian IPs.   For the honest Nigerians seeking to connect with the broader Internet community, being cut off is a death blow.  For those who don’t care about Nigeria, the issue of censorship and IP blocking has broader implications.

*WWWF Launch. Tim Berners-Lee used the IGF as a launching pad to announce his new non-profit venture, The World Wide Web Foundation, which has beautifully ambitious projects such as the web alliance for re-greening in Africa (W4RA), which according to the webfoundation.org website, “aims to enhance collection and sharing of information among rural farmers working in harsh, near-dessert environments.”

*IDN Fast Track. Egypt’s information technology minister Tarek Kamel wisely took advantage of the spotlight to focus on IDNs and announce a forthcoming Arabic TLD, pronounced “.MISR” and spelled .مصر , and translating as “.Egypt”.

***UPDATE: The IDN Fast Track process now has 10 requests. They are spread over 5 different languages.