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    Government to hold consultations with IT services industry, ISPs and academia on internet standards

    Synopsis

    Officials said the workshop aims to identify the areas where the private sector and academia can work together to engage better with Icann.

    ET Bureau
    NEW DELHI: The Department of Electronics and Information Technology is bringing together industry and academia in a first move of its kind to ensure India has a greater say in setting standards on the internet by engaging with the Los Angelesheadquartered non-profit organisation Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

    The department has planned daylong consultations on Tuesday with the IT services industry, ecommerce players, internet service providers and academia including IITs, to fill an important gap in the ongoing debate on internet governance — the lack of active participation from the private sector.

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    Officials said the workshop aims to identify the areas where the private sector and academia can work together to engage better with Icann.

    The dialogue comes at a time when Icann itself is in the throes of a significant change and the debate about who controls the internet is intensifying. Often called the phone book of the internet, Icann matches domain names with appropriate IP address numbers. It manages the domain name system (DNS), which helps organise the internet with the allotment of domain names such as.com, .org and .net.

    Icann, which has a licence from the US Department of Commerce, has held this mandate since 1998. The fact that Icann operates under a US licence has generated resentment among countries such as India and China, which account for bulk of internet traffic and IP addresses. In September, the US government may finally cede control of Icann if the outgoing Barack Obama administration grants a stamp of approval.

    “There is no doubt that India has a strong business and consumer interest in the internet ecosystem. Icann is a key part of the ecosystem and is implementing policies developed by the stakeholder groups, including the private sector,” an official aware of the discussions for Tuesday’s workshop said, requesting not to be named. “These stakeholder groups currently do not effectively represent the interest of the Indian businesses,” he said.

    Among those invited for the consultations are internet and ecommerce companies such as Snapdeal, Flipkart and Infibeam; IT sector companies including Tata Consultancy Services; deputy national security adviser Arvind Gupta; national cybersecurity coordinator Gulshan Rai; Icann board member Ram Mohan and about 60 other representatives from industry and academia.

    “The internet standards and protocol which are being developed today within Icann and the broader internet governance will have a long-lasting impact on internet companies and telecom companies as it will affect mainstream business issues such as cybersecurity, intellectual property and technology standards,” the official said.

    Along with the ongoing transition, Icann is expanding its domain names from the usual .com, .net and.org to sector and business-based domain names such as ‘.cars’, ‘.bmw’, ‘.nike’, ‘.mercedes’, ‘.trade’, ‘.technology’ and so on. The private sector is a key participant in this process globally but the participation from the Indian industry has been lacking.

    “In an age where both your identity and your brand are linked to your domain, the process of allotment and seizure of domain names is critical,” said Chinmayi Arun, executive director, the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University in Delhi.

    Other countries within Icann, including the US, China and European Union have had a long and sustained business-led engagement with Icann. “Our companies need to represent their own priorities and interests — it is short-term effort for long-term gain,” Arun said.

    Communications and information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad pledged support to the multistakeholder model last year and in March led a high-level government delegation to an Icann meeting, cementing this approach.

    India has for long been plagued by the lack of adequate representation from industry at Icann and other internet governance forums. “There are clear implications, not just for the IT industry but the country and economy as a whole,” said R Chandrashekhar, president of industry body Nasscom, who will also be part of the discussions on Tuesday.
    The Economic Times

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