The .ug debate: Is Re-delegation Necessary? Comparison with .ke
Uganda seems to want to go the .KE way (public ownership), while .KE wants to go the .UG way (private ownership). Are there any lessons the two registries can learn from each other? http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/368-blogger-the-ug-debate-is-redelegation -necessary.aspx *There has been a lot said about the .ug ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) management over the years and by the look of things we seem to be reaching the peak of this debate. * Legislators have been drawn into the debate and judging from what we hear them say, there is definitely a lot of misinformation going on. There is cause for concern when one comes across news headlines like, "A Private Firm Owns Uganda's Internet Domain Name" and MP Taaka's query that "Is Uganda safe considering that .UG as a domain name is privately owned?" For starters, a ccTLD is a two letter domain name extension that corresponds to a country (.ke - Kenya, .tz - Tanzania, .rw - Rwanda, .uk - United Kingdom) , territory or geographic location. So, to make things clear, .ug isn't a domain name as is being insinuated in the discussions going on in the august house. In the early 1990s at the start of the globalised internet age, ccTLDs were issued to various countries and for those that never had the capacity to manage them, help came from ICANN through various agencies. Uganda was one of those countries that never had the capacity and Randy Bush <http://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/randy-bush> an Internet Pioneer and founder of the Network Startup Resource Centre (NSRC) <http://www.nsrc.org> volunteered to carry out the technical management of the .ug ccTLD. Around the same period, a then youthful and ambitious Ugandan Engineer, Charles Musisi <http://ug.linkedin.com/in/charlesi3c> had picked a lot of interest in the nascent internet technologies of the times. His interest led him to set up the first email service in Uganda (FIDO-NET) and as well join a group of internet pioneers on the African continent. This interest and exposure led him to pick interest in the management of the .ug ccTLD as far back as the mid 1990s. On application, he was assigned the administrative rights and Randy Bush continued to offer the technical management support as Charles' company then, Uganda Online (now called Infinity Computers and Communications Company Ltd - i3C) started developing local capacity to do the same. Eventually, he was able to wean off Randy Bush's support and his company took over full technical and administrative management of the ccTLD. Did he buy the .ug ccTLD as is alleged? NO. Around the same time, his colleagues in Kenya and Tanzania also undertook management of their countries' ccTLDs albeit with mixed results. Dr. Shem Ochuodho was eventually booted out of .ke ccTLD Management having failed to perform to the expectations of the community which led to the set up of KENIC <http://www.kenic.or.ke>. It is worth noting that Uganda Online was able to successfully commercialise the management of the .ug ccTLD and this is evidenced by the fact that the ccTLD has operated in a stable environment over the years without seeking any financial aid. However, like anything, change in the internet landscape will always necessitate changes in the supporting technologies and services. Currently, there has been a significant growth in the state's interest in ICT infrastructure and services provision. This has seen the country undertake numerous interventions like the roll out of the National Fibre Backbone, promotion of the Business Process Outsourcing, e-Government implementation among others. The .ug is also being looked at as one of those services that are likely to help fill the puzzle of ICT proliferation in Uganda. The Draft Policy Framework for the management of the .ug ccTLD has as its major objective, "to formalize management of .ug Country Code Top Level Domain Name and come up with a management framework that will ensure transparency and greater accountability towards the Internet community of Uganda and the rest of the Global Internet Community." The current status-quo is characterised by: * Efficient assignment of domain names * Decent Support for technical issues * Uniform domain registration costs * Stable Domain Name System (DNS) services It is clear that i3C <http://www.i3c.co.ug> is performing well on the technical front and not much can be said in that regard. However, as a private company, it has limitations on what can be achieved especially if one asks the following questions; 1. What governance systems are in place for the .ug ccTLD as a national resource currently? 2. What policies and procedures are there for the issuance, renewal, and arbitration of domain related disputes? 3. If policies are present, who designed them and was there community participation? 4. What strategies are in place to promote the usage of .ug by nationals? 5. What universal access measures are in place to ensure that various sections of society aren't alienated on the basis of gender, rural/urban divides, youth, disability among others? 6. What measures are in place to ensure that the Government of Uganda (the custodian of Uganda's resources on behalf of the people) actively participates in influencing the direction of the .ug ccTLD? 7. What measures are in place to ensure that civil society can have its input/feedback into the .ug ccTLD management process? At the current pace, there are more gaps being created in the overall .ug management and the earlier they are addressed, the better. A quick look at the .ke ccTLD, one is able to get updated information on how many domains that are registered and active, standing at 30,156 domains with a target of 33,800 domains by the close of 2014. Not only is it hard to get accurate information on the number of domains registered and active at the .ug ccTLD but the last time I got a whiff, the estimate was 3000 domains and assuming the numbers have doubled since then, our next door neighbors are definitely rounding us up five times. For purposes of cross comparisons, this table reveals a couple of things; The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of ICT <http://www.ict.go.ug> has come out to crusade for the formation of the Uganda National Information Centre (ugNIC) a not for profit company comprising of representatives from government, Internet Service Providers, Civil Society/ NGOs, consumers, infrastructure providers, academia and the business community. The ugNIC shall have the mandate to manage the operations of the .ug. According to the outlined functions for the ugNIC, it is worth noting that some issues were left out. It is vital that the company created should also undertake; * Marketing of the .ug ccTLD to win national appeal * Handling domain dispute resolution according to the set out guidelines and policies On the basis of this, it should therefore be clear that the following are mere myths: 1. That Charles Musisi <http://ug.linkedin.com/in/charlesi3c> or his company i3C <http://www.i3c.co.ug> OWN the .ug ccTLD 2. That the .ug ccTLD was assigned to a private company in bad faith. 3. That Government officials gave away the .ug ccTLD to a private entity. As an active member of the Internet Space in Uganda, some of the reasons why I support the proposed changes in the .ug ccTLD administration are; * Increased public accountability of the .ug resource * Increased community participation in determining the future of the .ug resource * The need to separate the Technical and Administrative management of the . ug resource. While i3C may have performed well handling the Technical aspects, it has fallen short on the Administrative front. * The lack of a well incentivised reseller programme has greatly hindered the promotion of the .ug ccTLD locally. * The need for serious promotion and marketing of the .ug ccTLD * Opportunity for using Government resources to upskill the technical managers of the .ug ccTLD. * Having witnessed companies fold, what happens if i3C closed shop out of the blue? It happened to Enron <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron> (One of the largest energy companies in the world during the last century). Risking the .ug ccTLD resource to this level can have a massive impact on the nation in case such a scenario plays out. As the Ugandan Internet community, we need to be careful to avoid the misinformation that is flying around and also ensure that we lend our support in a manner that will put national benefit at the forefront while not forgetting the patriotic work people like Engineer Charles Musisi <http://ug.linkedin.com/in/charlesi3c> have rendered this nation in the past. Twitter: @wirejames <https://twitter.com/wirejames> Email: lunghabo [at] gmail [dot] com ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya twitter.com/lordmwesh "There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime." - Maxwell Anderson
Mwendwa I think it's factually incorrect to say that Kenya looks to take .ke private. I think the idea is to move it from the current status where the regulator also sits on the board and directs the way KeNIC operates to its rightful regulatory role. Of course I stand corrected on my assertions above. The .UG issue brings out again the earlier discussions. The main one being whether the new KeNIC would be Multi-Stakeholder based or it would move to a status where one stakeholder at the exclusion of others takes over. That in my humble opinion would be unacceptable and the community should resist it with all its got. Regards Ali Hussein On Wednesday, 15 October 2014, Mwendwa Kivuva via isoc <isoc@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
-- Ali Hussein Sent from Gmail Mobile
I think we're getting confused between 'ownership' and 'management' and 'oversight'. The dot KE and dot UG tlds will always be owned by the governments of Kenya and Uganda respectively. It would be almost impossible for the governments to dispose of their ownership of the tlds and even if they did, ICANN would surely allow the government to take them back. 'Management' can be delegated to a private entity and this is what the discussion is really about. However, the 'management' is simply under the jurisdiction of the contract given to the manager which would be under Kenyan law in Kenya and Ugandan law in Uganda. It's really not much different than the GoK giving a contract to a private company to run a parking lot next to the parliament building. GoK can be sued within Kenyan courts for violating the contract but it's still under Kenyan law. 'Oversight' is the tricky issue of how the government intermediates its ownership with its desire for stewardship via good management of the resource that is beneficial to the country. This is where the board becomes critical and we must be concerned about its makeup. The goal of having a board is to get parliament and the executive branch farther away from an oversight role because they all know that this resource could really get devalued (which it already has). I remain confident that smart minds will prevail and we'll get a multistakeholder governance model for the 'oversight' role in Kenya - and hopefully in Uganda too. Cheers, Adam -- Kili - Cloud for Africa: kili.io Musings: twitter.com/varud <https://twitter.com/varud> More Musings: varud.com About Adam: www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Ali Hussein via kictanet < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Dear Adam, I beg to differ with you regarding your point that cctld are "owned" by the respective government of the country in question. This has been a matter of much debate within the ICANN fraternity and has come up severally within the GAC. As per ICP-1 https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/delegation-2012-02-25-en which is the document that sets out how cctld are to be administered, the concept is not one of "ownership", but rather that of "management" of a particular territory's cctld. While the opinion and concerns of a government are taken very seriously by ICANN - they need to be supported by key stakeholders to the Internet in that territory. The collective consisting of government and other stakeholders (private sector, civil society, consumers, academia etc) is loosely referred to as the "local internet community" and consensus by this grouping on who and how the cctld is managed is considered as paramount. In any of the aforementioned situations (.KE and .UG) what matters the most is **consensus** in determining any changes in "management" of the cctld. In Kenya's case, the consensus that persists until now is that KENIC (the entity) is the manager. It is therefore up to the local internet community to determine what the governance structure (board) of KENIC is - and thereby ensure that suitable personnel (management and staff) are appointed to fulfil the mandate as per ICP-1 guidelines and according to locally determined policies and strategies. I guess the same would apply to .UG - here below is what I sent to one of the lists in Uganda where this piece regarding .UG was being discussed.
Good read,
I was quite heavily involved in the .KE rede legation and the setup of
KENIC.
The most critical factor in the process is the construct referred to
by ICANN/IANA as the "Local Internet Community". This consists of
Government, industry, civil society, academia and ought to be
representative enough to be recognized as such.
No matter how much one stakeholders makes noise or lobbies, a rede
legation is very difficult or impossible without this critical factor.
If The ministry is serious about this, then they need to make an
effort to bring together all the critical stakeholders (including i3c)
and jointly develop a plan and strategy on how the namespace will be operated.
Obviously this cannot happen overnight (in Kenya it took us 13 months)
so be prepared to do some hard work. The process is also important as
it will also (over time) truly reveal those stakeholders who are
genuine (and those who
aren't!)
Best of luck,
My more than two cents, Mblayo On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:40 AM, Adam Nelson via kictanet < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
An important clause from RFC 1591 These designated authorities are trustees for the delegated domain, and have a duty to serve the community. The designated manager is the trustee of the top-level domain for both the nation, in the case of a country code, and the global Internet community. Concerns about "rights" and "ownership" of domains are inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned about "responsibilities" and "service" to the community. On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Exactly Brian. Thanks for bringing into play your institutional memory in this area. Ali Hussein +254 770 906375 / 0713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim Blog: www.alyhussein.com "I fear the day technology will surpass human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots". ~ Albert Einstein Sent from my iPad
I know that ICANN and the RFC are very specific about ownership but .kp is a great counter-example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kp Obviously there is no multistakeholder system in North Korea and the Government of DPRK (North Korea) still has 'ownership' of the tld. -- Kili - Cloud for Africa: kili.io Musings: twitter.com/varud <https://twitter.com/varud> More Musings: varud.com About Adam: www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> wrote:
Not really, .kp is managed by KISA http://icannwiki.com/KISA Which is a subsidiary of the ministry (similar to a state corporation) but also consists of NIDA <http://icannwiki.com/NIDA> (National Internet Development Agency of Korea), and KIICA <http://icannwiki.com/index.php?title=KIICA&action=edit&redlink=1> (Korea IT International Cooperation Agency). It could therefore be argued that the Korean government successfully managed to demonstrate their equivalent of consensus by the local internet community in designating KISA to manage the cctld. The concept of management still prevails - nobody "owns" any cctld... The wikipedia reference you cited seems to be factually incorrect as it claims that the manager of the cctld is an entity different from that on ICANN/IANA records. On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:11 PM, Adam Nelson <adam@varud.com> wrote:
What is becoming very clear and undisputed from the pundits who have given input here is for an "All inclusive multistakeholder governance". And a commonly agreed meaning of multistakeholderism is "a governance structure that seeks to bring all stakeholders together to participate in the dialogue, decision making, and implementation of solutions to common problems or goals." The stakeholder is an individual, group or organization that has a direct or indirect interest or stake in a particular organization; that is, a given action has the ability to influence the organization's actions, decisions and policies to achieve results. The stakeholders are businesses, civil society, governments, research institutions, technical communities and non-government organizations. Do we share the same definition for stakeholders and multistakeholders in our local scenario, say Kenya and Uganda? ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya twitter.com/lordmwesh "There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime." - Maxwell Anderson On 15 October 2014 13:44, Brian Munyao Longwe via kictanet < kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Adam, On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:40 AM, Adam Nelson via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Completely untrue. No one "owns" a TLD. Instead they are mnanaged by "Trustees" or "Stewards". These stewards could be a MS entity, a government or a commercial entity. While governments claim sovereignty over their ccTLD, in practice it is often the case that governments can enforce this claim. It would be almost impossible
for the governments to dispose of their ownership of the tlds and even if they did, ICANN would surely allow the government to take them back.
The IANA has very specific redelegation rules and processes. The GoU hasn't wanted to use them because this would be an admission that they aren't sovereign over .ug. I went over this with them a decade ago, it appears they still don't understand how the process works.
True for Kenya because GoK passed certain laws and regulations regarding management of the TLD. Untrue for UG. Even if UG passed a law, the .ug ccTLD could go overseas and the GoU would be powerless to stop it. It's really not much
We had the ideal MS governance model in KE already, but the then CCK and GoK mucked it up. Th UG situation could move to a MS oversight model, but that may require redelegation, which isn't likely to happen. -- Cheers, McTim "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
Interesting discussion colleagues. What is very clear is that innovation thrives in a multistakeholder environment. It is equally becoming clear that multistakeholderism could mean different things to different cultures and communities hence the need for a common definition of the same. The Internet pioneers had a unique spirit which resulted in the RFC 1591 and many other policy documents that have seen the Internet permeate all spheres of our lives. Probably we might require another RFC document that will act as a custodian of this virtues in light of the present day challenges however what we are currently facing are social challenges that can be addressed through social engineering. All that is needed is willingness, honesty and goodfaith. Best Regards On 10/15/14, McTim via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
-- Barrack O. Otieno +254721325277 +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno http://www.otienobarrack.me.ke/
participants (6)
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Adam Nelson -
Ali Hussein -
Barrack Otieno -
Brian Munyao Longwe -
McTim -
Mwendwa Kivuva