How Global Should the Internet Be?

Domain names are a sore point with nations who use alphabets other than Roman. Now, the group that oversees domain names is trying to translate

by Jennifer L. Schenker

Lest you think a U.N. meeting to discuss the future of the Internet would be a ponderous, low-key affair, consider this remarkable tale. Back in 2003, when the U.N. held just such an event in Geneva, the delegates unexpectedly decided to close the meeting to nongovernmental officials and to eject a handful of attendees. One of them was Paul Twomey—president of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), a private, nonprofit company that oversees technical aspects of the Internet's address system—who was escorted by guards to the exit.

The surprising turn of events underscored the simmering resentment felt by many nations, especially in the developing world, over the governance of the Internet. They had been vexed for years about what they perceived as a lack of voice in how the Net was run—and by the continued U.S. ownership of key Internet resources. Some said that excluding ICANN, which works under contract to the U.S. government, was a fitting lesson in powerlessness for an organization that had enjoyed sweeping control since its founding in 1998.

Under Twomey's leadership, ICANN has spent the past five years trying to address the issues raised in that meeting. But making the Internet more global is proving far more difficult than anyone could have imagined, say some of the 1,900 government representatives and other stakeholders attending an ICANN conference in Paris, which runs June 23-26.

Limitless Domain Names?

A key issue on the agenda is finding a way for ICANN to extract itself finally from oversight by the U.S. Commerce Dept., a move that even some of the U.S.'s closest allies, including Canada and Italy, now support. A contract with the U.S. governmental agency expires in 2009, so a roadmap is now being hammered out for a more independent future. "What we are seeking is to strengthen our accountability to our whole community," says Twomey.

Also on the agenda is the possibility of introducing an unlimited number of new top-level domains, the technical term for the suffixes such as .com or .net tacked on to the ends of Internet addresses. One proposal would lift all restrictions, opening the way for domains such as .love or .hate. If ICANN approves the plan, Twomey says, the impact on the Net could be akin to what happened when TV went from a few channels to hundreds.

But the thorniest problem by far on the Paris agenda is how to introduce domain names in non-Roman scripts. It is a hot-button issue tied to cultural identity and politics, but also of critical importance in bridging the digital divide. In India, for instance, there "are more than 100 million people who read English but a billion who don't," Twomey says.

A World of Different Alphabets

If that country and others are to reach their goals of getting people in the world's remotest villages to use the Net, it's necessary to give Web sites names in scripts other than Roman, he says. To that end, ICANN is trying, during the meeting in Paris, to finalize a way to fast-track the introduction of domain names using a variety of different alphabets.

The move is being applauded by high government officials the world over. "The rapid introduction of domain names in non-Latin characters is becoming a moral imperative as well as a political necessity," said Eric Besson, France's minister in charge of development of a digital economy, during June 23 opening remarks at the Paris ICANN conference. "It is a major symbolic issue," Besson added, that calls into question "the very credibility of ICANN as a truly global agency."

Trouble is, though ICANN thinks it has finally solved technical difficulties associated with routing Internet traffic when new language scripts are added, it now finds itself dealing with nightmarish political and cultural issues.