JUNE 14, 2011 INET NEW YORK ****** 15:00 Keynote: Lawrence E. Strickling >> I'd like to introduce Lawrence Strickling. He served at the Department of Commerce since 2009, administrator of the NTIA, principally responsible for advising the president on communications and information policy, and key issues of the NTIA agenda includes the management of broadband grants and Internet governance. (Applause.) >> LAWRENCE STRICKLING: Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to join you all here today in New York at the Internet Society's INET conference. Just over a year ago, I delivered remarks at the Washington, D.C. INET events, and introduced the Obama administration's vision for Internet policy making. I want to thank Lynn and Sally for the invitation to return today to provide you an update on the global challenges confronting the Internet and the actions we at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration are taking to respond to those challenges. But before getting started, I thought I would first offer some congratulations to the Internet Society for organizing last week's world IPV6 day. NTIA was among a wide range of organizations including other U.S. government agencies and Internet companies that participated. It was a critical learning opportunity for us and I think others, and the activities helped draw attention to this important undertaking and promised a good opportunity for both the public and private sectors to make additional strides in IPV6 deployment efforts. Congratulations for a job well done at the Internet Society, and we look forward to future opportunities to partner with the Internet Society and other stakeholders on this important issue. Now, on to today's topic. The question is, what kind of Internet do I want? And unlike Vint, I do not have a comprehensive answer to that question. But I do know that I and the United States government want an Internet that is open, growing, innovative, and global, and which continues to rely on the established global Internet institutions for guidance and direction. When I spoke to you last year, I said we were at an all-hands-on-deck moment, in terms of working together to preserve, enhance, increase everyone's access to an open global Internet. Events over the past year have only confirmed the need for action. We have seen more and more instances of restrictions on the free flow of information on-line, disputes between standards bodies, and statements by international organizations and some governments to regulate the Internet more directly. All of these events only strengthen my view that it truly is a time for all those who are concerned about maintaining a vibrant and growing Internet as well as preserving the established global Internet institutions to get involved. We have a full agenda at NTIA on a long list of Internet policy issues. At the top of the list is the need to preserve and enhance the multistakeholder model that's been a hallmark feature of the global Internet institutions that have been responsible for the success of the Internet. Organizations like the Internet Society, Internet Engineering Task Force, Worldwide Web Consortium, have all played a major role in the design and operation of the Internet. In addition, this multistakeholder concept is critical to preserving what you here at the Internet Society have termed the user-centric Internet. Maintaining the openness, transparency and user choice of today's Internet can only be sustained and advanced in a world where all stakeholders participate in relevant decision-making, not one where governments or any other stakeholder dominates. We believe that preserving our existing institutions while extending this model in other aspects of Internet policy making is important for ensuring the continued growth and innovation on the Internet. Fortunately, we have several opportunities in the coming weeks and months to do just that. At the end of June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is convening senior decision-makers from governments and of the private sector and civil society in Paris. The meeting is an unprecedented opportunity to advance the global consensus around the working multistakeholder model that we believe is critical to the Internet's success. Just as important, the Internet policy making principles that will be considered in Paris provide an opportunity for many nations to agree that there is no need for a treaty-based regulatory regime for the Internet, such a regime would threaten the key attributes of flexibility and decentralized decision-making that led to the Internet's success and would put future growth and innovation at risk. From all of this it should be crystal clear that the Obama administration is fully committed to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance. We have strongly supported the Internet Governance Forum, a key multistakeholder institution. And I have stated before and here again today say that the IGF is the very embodiment of the multistakeholder Internet governance model. And I was gratified to see it specifically mentioned in the recent statement of the G8 leaders. I'm also pleased that the United Nations renewed the mandate of the IGF for an additional five years, and I look forward to participating in this year's meeting in Nairobi. We have also devoted attention to the Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers. ICANN is important not only for multistakeholder nature, but also its core mission to provide technical coordination of the Internet domain name system. I have been direct in criticizing some aspects of ICANN, but it's not because of any concern about the model. We remain committed to the ICANN model as the best way to preserve, protect the stability of the domain name system. As with any institution, it's important reality match the vision. And we never shy away from critically evaluating its performance and in making improvements where appropriate. There have been improvements. In recent speeches I've highlighted the progress ICANN has made since we signed the affirmation of commitments in 2009. Today, however, I will focus on two key challenges confronting the ICANN board as it prepares for its meeting in Singapore next week. First is the accountability and transparency of its decision-making processes. The affirmation of commitments, among other things, established four global multistakeholder review teams to evaluate ICANN's performance and execution on key tasks. The first of these review teams was related to preserving and enhancing accountability and transparency in ICANN's decision-making, and ensuring that the interests of global Internet users are taken into account in those processes. I had the privilege of serving on this first accountability and transparency review team, and last December after months of work the team set forth thoughtful and meaningful suggestions based on community stakeholder input to enhance and improve this model. For the most part, our recommendations are not new. They have been suggested in past studies and in past years. But the question now is whether the ICANN board and management have the discipline and willpower to embrace and implement these recommendations in a serious and meaningful way. It is my expectation as a review team member and as a cosigner of the affirmation of commitment that the board will respond to this challenge and move to implement these recommendations at the upcoming ICANN meeting in Singapore. In order for ICANN to continue to enjoy the support of all global stakeholders, it must take the specific proactive steps outlined by the review team to ensure that the accountability and transparency of its day-to-day operations match the expectations of the global Internet community. A second challenge facing ICANN in Singapore is finding a way to adequately address the collective concerns of governments as expressed through the government advisory committee regarding the expansion of the generic top level domain names. I've spoken before about my concern that one of the greatest challenges facing the Internet in the next five years is its political sustainability, which of course forces us to confront the question of what exactly is the collective role of nation states with respect to multistakeholder governance. The ICANN board and interaction in recent months is an example of this challenge. The discussions represent the first meaningful exchange between the board and GACs to evaluate (inaudible) I commend ICANN for its efforts to respond to GAC advice. For the long-term success, it's critical we learn from recent interactions, result in clear predictable processes and work methods for the ICANN board and the GAC going forward, and I do urge that they be codified. But with the Singapore meeting starting this weekend, the ICANN board and GAC are down to a handful of issues to resolve. From our perspective, the largest remaining issue is how to implement the meaningful way for governments through the GAC to express objections to proposed sensitive strings. The United States and other nations are quite concerned by ICANN's current position that a GAC consensus objection to a proposed string for any reason gives rise to a strong presumption for the board to deny the application, but at the same time attempting to dictate the terms of how the GAC should develop its consensus advice. The GAC has been operating on a consensus basis as set forth in its operating principles, and there is no basis for ICANN to now attempt to dictate a new definition of consensus in the context of the expansion of top level domains. In light of the reporting of some recent events, particularly the EG8 meeting in France last month, I do want to emphasize that this proposal for dealing with objectionable proposed top level domains is not intended in any way to turn decision-making over to governments. Instead, we need to find a way to bring nations willingly if not enthusiastically into the tent of multistakeholder policy making. While some nations insist in proposing such measures as giving the Internet telecommunication authority to veto board decisions, ICANN is opposed to overturning the governance model that built and spread the Internet around the world with extraordinary openness, speed and innovation. Objecting leading Internet institutions such as ICANN, ITEF, W3C, traditional 3D-based regulation such as through the ITU, would certainly lead to the imposition of heavy-handed and economically misguided regulation and the loss of flexibility the current system allows today, all of which would jeopardize the growth and innovation we have enjoyed these past years. The United States government will work with other nations to protect existing global Internet institutions by better defining the role of governments as one set of stakeholders. We do not seek to supplant these institutions with the United Nations or treaty-based regime. Yet another example of NTIA's commitment to engaging all stakeholders is the process we have been, we have had under way to review the IANA functions contract. As you know, ICANN currently performs the IANA functions on behalf of the United States government through a contract with NTIA. The contract expires at the end of September. And so last March we issued a notice of inquiry to seek global stakeholder input on how to enhance the performance of the IANA functions in the development and award of a new IANA functions contract. We received comments from stakeholders from around the world, and I thank those of you in this room who took the time to file comments on these important issues. The fact that so many comments are from stakeholders outside of the United States reinforces the global nature of the Internet, and the need for us at NTIA to understand that our stewardship role in this area must reflect interests of stakeholders world. We reviewed the comments received and this week issued a further notice of inquiry. This notice is our attempt to go back to the global community and interpret correctly what was set in the comments. We set forth conclusions with respect to the comments and provided a draft statement of work for public comment. Based on the input of the global Internet community, we are proposing the following changes in the IANA functions contract. First, we propose a functional separation between DNS policy making wherever it occurs at ICANN or elsewhere in the actual execution of tasks associated with the IANA functions. Second, we propose enhanced transparency and accountability through the development of documentation processes as well as performance standards and metrics to establish service levels. Third, we propose that the contractor needs to include documentation that demonstrates how proposed new top level domain strings have received consensus support from relevant stakeholders and are supported by the global public interest. This process is the first comprehensive review of the IANA functions contract since the award of the initial contract in 2000, and it's the first time NTIA has sought public input on a draft scope of work. In keeping with our commitment to the multistakeholder model, NTIA through this process is actively seeking the input of global stakeholders. And I encourage all of you to carefully read the further notice and submit comments. Finally, given that the panel that directly follows my remarks is on new privacy frameworks, I'd like to give you a brief update on where we are in our thinking on privacy in the administration. Last December, after convening a workshop and soliciting comments, the Department of Commerce released a green paper recommending the establishment of stronger privacy protections for on-line commercial data. I'd like to highlight two key elements of our proposed framework. First, the starting point is the green paper's recognition that strong privacy protection is necessary to preserve and build the trust of users of the Internet. In March, the Obama administration announced its support for legislation that would set forth a baseline set of privacy protections for all consumers. There are many statements of these fair information practice principles, and NTI is working now with other federal agencies to develop a version that is a useful guide for consumers as well as the organizations that handle personal data. Second, drawing on the power of multistakeholder processes, we then proposed the companies, civil society and others come together to take these baseline protections, and expand them into legally enforceable codes of conduct. To get there, we will need a process that incorporates input from everyone who has a stake in consumer data privacy. As we laid out in the green paper, the Department of Commerce plans to be facilitator and convener of these discussions which will allow consumers, civil liberty (inaudible) privacy principles should apply in specific industries or business context. Though we are still working out the details, we envision an open process, in which anyone who is willing to contribute careful thought and a willingness to work towards consensus will be able to participate. It is essential that this process produce standards that are legally enforceable, as well as be faithful to the consumer data privacy principles we are developing. But beyond that, stakeholders should do the deliberating and be in control of the outcome. In closing, I reiterate that now is the time for all of those who believe in an open global Internet to get involved, and actively participate in the global Internet institutions. In the Obama administration, we will continue to improve and strengthen existing multistakeholder processes as an essential strategy for dealing with Internet policy issues. We will address how all stakeholders including governments can operate within the paradigm of this environment, and be satisfied that their interests are being adequately addressed. Resolving this issue is critical to ensuring the long term political sustainability of the Internet that supports the free flow of information, goods and services, as well as meeting the Internet Society's commitment to preserving the user-centric Internet. Thank you very much for your attention. I understand we are going to defer questions to the 4:30 group discussion. Thank you very much. (Applause.)