Question: Other than prosecuting internet users under common law for bringing harm to others through fraud or trespass, what controlling role (over the internet and/or it's users) do you advocate delegating to any governmental body?

Nominee Replies

Barbara Simons - posted on 2000-10-01 21:07:34 If any delegation is to take place, it will be governments delegating to other organizations, not the other way around. Because the Internet does not adhere to national boundaries, governments might decide to pass treaties and to create international institutions to deal with some Internet related issues. Such outcomes might be good or bad, depending on who controls the discussion. But ICANN's currently does not have the mandate to make international law. Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-10-01 20:38:47 I'm amused by the presumption in this question, literally interpreted, that I as an individual am in a position to delegate a controlling role to any governmental body. However, if, as I suspect, the intent of your question is to ask what regulatory role I think any governmental body ought to have, then I do believe that governments have, and ought to have, reasonable regulatory authority over the Internet and its users. What's reasonable, at least in the U.S., will be worked out over time in our usual political processes. Lyman Chapin - posted on 2000-09-29 12:03:58 At the baseline, governments control the Internet and its users in the same way in which they control anything else that falls within their jurisdiction - with laws and regulations. In practice, of course, it's not as simple as that, because of the difficulty of determining jurisdiction on the Internet, and because the Internet gives the impression, at least, of engaging a polity (the Internet community) that is not based on national governments. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-09-26 07:24:39 In terms of giving controlling authority to ICANN, this is a difficult question. I have stated that there is some value in having ICANN take on more policy (I guess you might call it controlling authority) over issues that we might want individual governments to stay out of (because it would be a mess for 250 countries to each encumber the Internet with their own rules). This may be done best in policy areas that appear to be more technical (such as TLD allocation). It is currently also being done with domain name disputes and trademark policy. I find the TLD allocation and domain name disputes proper areas for ICANN to exercise at least some parallel authority with national governments. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-09-26 02:58:02 This is not a matter of delegating authority. ICANN has no authority to delegate. Whatever authority ICANN has it has in part because of authority delegated to it. Law applies to behavior on the net -- sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. Registries may have better ideas for dealing with the complexity of international rules. ICANN should encourage experimentation with those rules.