Do not mess with (Im)perfection
Ismail Serageldin
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The phenomenal success of the Internet has prompted a number of voices to
question how it is governed, and who makes the decisions and who benefits. Some
see the US Government pulling the strings behind a system that remains mostly
dominated by American firms and whose most important installations have largely
remained on US soil. Politics entered the argument, many simply saying that in this
day and age of globalization and multilateralism, and the relatively reduced
economic power of the USA in the global economy, others must have an equal say
in how the Internet is run. And the governance debate was on.It became a part of
the central debates launched at The World Summit for the Information Society
(WSIS) held in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. An Annual Internet
Governance Forum (IGF) ensued, meeting yearly in different parts of the World.
Further fueled by the political controversies surrounding the NSA and US
Government snooping, the increasing invasion of privacy that is part of the rapidly
changing contexts created by social media and even commercial services being
provided through the Internet, more voices were raised demanding to break up the
“US monopoly” on running the internet. As we approach the tenyear
mark for
IGF 2015, a number of committees and Panels have been convened to reflect on
the substance of the issues and produce recommendations on the topic of how the
Internet should be governed. This small note is one contribution to one of these
distinguished panels, devoted to the future role of The Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).