"ICANN is not a legitimate international organization"
Louis Pouzin, the French Vint Cerf, talks exclusively to Domaines.info about what's wrong with the way the Internet is currently managed, what can be done about it and why ICANN's should not be the Internet's custodian.
Although they have since taken very different paths, Louis Pouzin and Vint Cerf rank among the few people truly deserving of the "father of the Internet" moniker. Indeed, Cerf's work in creating the TCP/IP protocol, which remains the core of today's Internet, was partly based on research previously carried out by Pouzin. The French scientist designed the very first packet communications network, Cyclades, which can be considered to be the French Arpanet, the ancestor of the Internet as we know it today.
While Vint Cerf has since embraced America's governance of the Internet (he joined ICANN in 1999 and is chairman of its board), Louis Pouzin has stayed away from mainstream Internet institutions, remaining more of an "Internet activist". Never slow to speak his mind with candour and clarity, Pouzin is passionate about internationalising the Internet and is a founding member of Eurolinc, an organisation dedicated to the goal of a multilingual Internet.
There seems to be two side to Internet governance today. ICANN on the one hand and UN-sanctioned initiatives like WSIS and the IGF on the other. Through Eurolinc, you're very much involved in the UN side of things, yet you don't seem to be so interested in ICANN. What is you view of ICANN? The existence of the IGF is one of the major decisions in the Tunis Agenda, which is the outcome of the WSIS signed by all UN Member States in 2005 in Tunis. Therefore, the IGF is a legitimate international space opened to all stakeholders interested in Internet governance. ICANN is not a legitimate international organization. It is a proxy of the US government. Eurolinc did opt for legitimacy.
So do you consider that the future of the Internet should be built on initiatives such as the IGF? The IGF is the first example of an initiative that should introduce innovative Internet governance principles. By itself it cannot be sufficient. Other initiatives should be taken by international organizations such as ISO (the International Organization for Standardization – ed.), ITU (the International Telecommunication Union is the UN's telecoms regulator – ed.), WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization is the UN's intellectual property protection agency – ed.), WTO (the World Trade Organization is the world's trade watchdog – ed.), and also at regional and national levels.
IDN is a stopgap
Today's Internet faces many challenges, including internationalisation. IDN implementation looks like being a real headache for the people currently in charge of running the Internet. Do you think IDNs are a good idea? Using native languages in the Internet, including in domain names, is a must. English does not make sense for 90% of the world population. However, the IDN standards seem designed primarily to avoid changing the Domain Name System (DNS) rather than to offer a convenient and reliable way of using native languages. IDN is a stopgap artefact, wanting in engineering. Presentations at the IGF 2006 in Athens, using IDNized Arabic and other Asian scripts, were unconvincing.
Another major work in progress is the potential introduction of new extensions. Do you think launching new extensions is good for the Internet? This is a loaded question. Do we need extensions at all? Technically, no. What is needed is brand name protection, which is not the case with a multiplicity of extensions. This raises a basic issue. Why is ICANN minding this business? Should it not be transferred to WIPO, or ISO? We would still need registration systems, but their turf could be structured by other criteria than extensions.
What urgent measure do you think needs to be taken with regards to the Internet? There does not seem to be any urgent measure to be taken relative to the Internet, if only because it would be no more than rhetoric. On the other hand it would be very urgent to fund the IGF operation on a UN budget, rather than on voluntary donations from a very limited number of sponsors with vested interests.
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