THE H-REPORT

Who Will Capture The Internet's Leadership?

by Christine Hudgins-Bonafield

Overwhelmed by the sweep of commercialization, the loose techno-cabals of genius and personality that have ordered the Internet's chaos are being broken down and reassembled. Some say it's a matter of droves of newcomers who wrest control from the old guard. Others contend Internet growth has deepened old organizational wounds. Some point to friction from fears that the Internet community's free-wheeling processes will result in high-stakes antitrust lawsuits. Others accuse Internet providers of trying to co-opt standards groups for their own ends.

What is certain is that the existence of pivotal Internet institutions is no longer assured. And new Internet organizations are springing up to address new policy and legal issues.

One high-level source says that with the retirement of Internet Society (ISOC) president Vinton Cerf and the expected exit, after December, of executive director Tony Rutkowski, a new organization will be formed to take over tasks now performed by the ISOC and the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI).

The ISOC was set up as an umbrella organization to represent the U.S.-based Internet community globally and to provide administration for several loosely governed Internet organizations. Some say it failed. "If you had the Three Stooges in charge of the Internet, they couldn't have done worse," says long-time Internet Engineering Task Force leader Marshall Rose.

The CNRI also has its detractors. Funded through a U.S. governm ent contract, CNRI supports certain administrative tasks--the secretariat--of the Internet's principal standards-setting organization, the Internet Engineering Task Force.

The new organization is expected to be an administrative umbrella for Internet groups and to set up a second organization to provide domain names. Funding is expected to come from domain name fees. That may compete directly with Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), which has been operating under government contract to administer domain names.

NSI's policies for disputed domain names--coupled with its failure to evenly enforce its own policies limiting some corporations to a single domain name while companies, like Kraft and Proctor & Gamble, received dozens--have outraged users and vendors alike. NSI's announcement that companies will pay a $50 annual "lease" fee for domain names may be its undoing. But users may have to set up multiple domain names--the existing name, a name set up under the new ISOC-like authority and names from other independent entrepreneurs intent on establishing their own naming authorities.

Meanwhile, still other organizations are being constructed from the ground up. In September, Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros approved funding to help establish a global Internet legal/policy group. Meanwhile, the Internet service providers (ISPs) of the U.S.-based Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) readied a plan to extend its mandate.

Soros' move follows a midsummer ISOC board decision to limit the society's mission primarily to standards and education. The board also nixed a bid by vendor-based ISOC sponsors (including some pushing an expanded ISOC role) for guaranteed board seats. The board opted for an academic-side president, Larry Landweber and decided to consolidate its presidency and executive directorship in a single CEO position to be filled by December.

Soros, who has earned more than $1 billion a year in currency speculation, may aid those who want Internet policy to move beyond its technological underpin nings. Soros, however, isn't likely to touch administrative tasks like assigning addresses.

Why is Soros coming to the rescue? Apparently, the Internet relates to Soros' fervor for Karl Popper's Open Societies model. Soros has invested millions promoting democracy in the Eastern Block and elsewhere--including $13 million in the last three years for Internet connectivity in Eastern Europe.

Long-time Internet players like Cerf, Landweber, Rutkowski and ISOC board member Scott Bradner like the plan. They believe such a group could help prevent poorly thought-out legislation, such as the legislation proposed earlier this year calling for Internet censorship, or taxes like the $50,000 fees India has charged to set up Internet servers. It could also examine encryption issues and the use by repressive nations of software to protect children from obscenity to censor other content.

Jonathan Peizer, Internet program director for Soros' Open Society Institute, says the new organization could:

Help create a "law of the seas" for the global Internet by gathering information and offering advice to whatever organization takes on that task;

Provide policy advice on global Internet-related legislation to organizations like the GATT and WTC;

Organize conferences and;

Create databases to match those seeking Internet funding with resources offering it and track the status of global Internet-related legislation.

Peizer said in August, however, that it was too early to describe how the organization might function. For example, he said, it could fund policy initiatives of other organizations like the CIX. "We aren't trying to be confrontational and we don't want to compete with any other organization."

While Soros is revered in many quarters, detractors see his currency speculation as less than savory, and not all nations welcome his contributions. Even a few United States business leaders express mixed feelings about having such a powerful personality funding the Internet's legal and policy mission. Peizer says such fears are one reason why Soros believes he must act in concert and with the funding of other groups to effectively build an organization.

One grassroots option Peizer is considering is establishing working relationships with Internet Society chapters around the world. By August, several potential board members had been contacted and a director was being sought. Peizer expected some form of the organization to exist by early 1996.

A new CIX may also vie to lead the Internet. We're told the organization has drafted a cogent plan to address the primary criticism leveled against it--an inability to accomplish tasks because of differences among its very broad membership. Several ISPs believe that CIX is ideally positioned to deal with national and international operations issues--establishing practices and policies for interconnecting service providers globally, which may require it to exit the business of providing its own traffic exchange mechanisms.

Insiders predict we'll see other new groups or the expansion of existing ones--such as the Internet Engineering Planning Group. Peter Harter, executive director of the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN), has proposed an Internet Law Task Force that would be structured along the lines of the Internet Engineering Task Force. A copyright group, led by Harvard University's Anne Branscomb, is also being considered. Some have said Rutkowski will form a group himself, but he says he's talking to many groups. Bradner says "there will be a number of parallel activities addressing the same issues and it will take time to figure out which will predominate."

For more information on Soros see http://www.soros.org.

Additional comments from Tony Rutkowski, Marshall Rose and Christian Huitema,

are available. Christine Hudgins-Bonafield can be reached at cbonafield@nwc.com.

October 15, 1995