As the Internet community prepares for the transition of the Internet’s stewardship from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) of the U.S. Commerce Department to the global multi-stakeholder community, stakeholders made progress on enhancing accountability at the latest annual meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

At the week-long meeting, which wrapped on October 22 in Dublin, some 1,800 participants from government, business, civil society and the technical community rallied around a proposal to develop an ICANN accountability mechanism to replace the “backstop” function currently provided by ICANN’s contract with U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Barbara Wanner, USCIB’s vice president for ICT policy, represented USCIB member interests at the meeting.

Since NTIA announced in March 2014 that it would transition key Internet functions and domain names to the global multistakeholder community, USCIB and other stakeholders have underscored that any new model of domain name system (DNS) management must include mechanisms that ensure it is accountable to the global stakeholder community. USCIB further has emphasized that the transition process must be thoughtfully conceived so as to not in any way compromise principles set forth by NTIA for the IANAN transition. These include supporting and enhancing the multistakeholder model, maintaining the security, stability, and resilience of the Internet DNS, meeting the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services, and maintaining the openness of the Internet.

“The proposal developed at the Dublin meeting marked an important step in developing a mechanism that will effectively empower business and other stakeholders to hold ICANN accountable. We have repeatedly said that accountability mechanisms must be in place before the IANA transition takes place,” said Wanner.

Mathieu Weill, co-chair of the Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability), concurred. “What I think we can take away from this week is the wonderful and amazing way in which we have brought together in the same room people from different [stakeholder] groups to work in a collaborative manner – and that makes a difference and brings progress,” he said, noting that stakeholder collaboration is being embedded in ICANN’s accountability framework.

According to Wanner, ICANN’s work on accountability is helping to build the case for a multistakeholder Internet governance model, which is preferable to a government-controlled alternative. “Participants proposed that the CCWG-Accountability’s work demonstrates to critics who advocate inter-governmental organization jurisdiction over Internet governance issues that a multistakeholder model, although occasionally ‘messy,’ is effective and produces important results,” she said.

In addition to discussions about the enhanced accountability mechanism, the Dublin gathering featured some over 300 separate sessions on topics as diverse as “Women in ICANN, Internet and ICTs,” “Universal Acceptance of TLDs [top-level domains like .com and .org],” and “The Role of Voluntary Practices in Combating Abuse and Illegal Activity,” which reflected the substantive breadth of the policy and technical issues considered by ICANN.

USCIB is a member of the Business Constituency, a stakeholder group representing the private sector in discussions with ICANN on Internet governance.

USCIB member companies dominated the agenda at the B20 Digital Economy Forum in Istanbul on October 6. Speakers included representatives from Intel, Boeing, Oracle, eBay, PayPal, Google, AT&T, Facebook, IBM. HP, GE, Ernst and Young and more.

“USCIB ICT Committee Chair Eric Loeb (AT&T) and Vice Chair Joe Alhadeff (Oracle), as well as dynamic local reps from member companies made effective presentations on governmental policies affecting the Digital Economy,” said Shaun Donnelly, USCIB vice president for investment and financial services, who attended B20 meetings in Istanbul this week.

The B20 is finalizing its policy recommendations to the G20 on improving the policy environment for the digital economy. The B20 Digital Economy Policy Paper is online here.

Excerpted from the paper, the B20 priorities on the digital economy are:

1. Develop alternative policies to data localization
   • Address growing issues concerning the movement of data and adopt alternative policies to data localization.
2. Improve the global trade system for the emerging digital economy with direct focus on e-commerce and digital trade
   • Discuss trade-facilitation measures to improve customs procedures with a direct focus on e-commerce challenges.
   • Establish one-contact information centers to support SMEs around legislation issues concerning cross-border e-commerce.
3. Improve access of enterprises to digital economy and infrastructures
   • Commit to improved digital infrastructures and incorporate a five-year universal broadband connection target for G20 countries
4. Develop and finance programs aimed at reducing skills mismatches in an era of rapid changes in technology and innovation
   • Establish a problem-solving and practice-focused STEM education approach in collaboration with the business community to prevent the expected skills shortage in STEM jobs.
5. Assure legislative and regulatory support for alternative forms of funding
   • Support the emergence and growth of alternative sources of funding by harmonizing policies, regulations, and standards.
6. Improve digitization of government processes
   • Increase use of digital technologies to transform key business processes to create greater leaps in efficiency and productivity.
   • Promote integrity in public procurement by instituting digital systems for efficiency and transparency to address issues during the procurement process.
   • Reduce corruption and improve efficiency in trade by moving towards a comprehensive digital environment for customs and cross-border systems through public-private collaboration in all G20 countries within five years.
7. Establish a G20 governance mechanism to implement measures to improve the digital economy
   • Start a study group, with the inclusion of the World Trade Organization, World Customs Organization, International Trade Center, World Bank, OECD, the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the relevant engagement groups.

As President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping get set to hold their highly anticipated summit meeting next week, USCIB joined twelve business organizations in signing a letter to the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), urging China to implement regulations that reflect global banking principles rather than localized solutions.

China’s proposed new banking regulations would require foreign technology companies to give source code and encryption keys to Beijing officials. The global business community has argued that these regulations discriminate against foreign providers of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and would effectively shut foreign firms out of China’s banking sector.

In a letter whose signatories represent companies from Asia, Europe and North America and do business across all industry sectors in China, USCIB and others encouraged China to “implement a prudential regulatory framework which reflects [internationally recognized] principles, allowing appropriate industry-level benchmarking and avoiding the pitfalls associated with mandating prescriptive mechanisms of technology and cybersecurity standard-setting.”

Read the full letter.

The letter summarizes a list of principles for enhancing IT security in the banking sector on which signatories encourage China to base its regulations. These high-level principles include:

• Transparency in the policymaking process – together with sufficient time for consultation with industry on proposed approaches.
• Polices that are flexible and adaptable to confront emerging threats while enabling companies to continue to innovate.
• A risk-based approach to examining whole systems for cyber threats to foster a prudential regulatory framework that can be more efficient and more effective than focusing on individual functions or processes.
• Reliance on global security standards based on consensus industry processes, which will ensure that the best practices from around the world are incorporated and that security requirements will be regularly updated to respond to evolving threats.
• An important role for market-based approaches that achieve desirable outcomes.

“Use of such standards also avoids the insurmountable challenge of asking international firms with global platforms to comply with conflicting rules and regulations between markets,” the letter stated. “To that end, we urge the CBRC to consult with other national regulators for rules that avoid exclusive use of localized solutions, prescriptive technologies and restrictions on data flows.”

The signatories noted that the best approach for developing technology policies is “open and transparent formulation and implementation, which allows stakeholders to provide helpful input to regulators.” They urged China to base its banking regulations on internationally accepted principles to ensure that global financial systems are as secure as possible.