<incom> vint cerf resigns from icann

[Geert Lovink]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/net-pioneer-leaves-oversight-group/ 
2007/10/29/1193555566207.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

October 29, 2007 - 9:52AM

In the 1970s, Vint Cerf played a leading role in developing the  
internet's technical foundation. For the past seven years, he's faced  
the more daunting task of leading a key agency that oversees his  
creation.

After fending off an international rebellion and planting the seeds for  
streamlining operations, Cerf is stepping down this week as chairman of  
the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers.

"My sentence is up," Cerf said with his characteristic sense of humour,  
which he and others credit for helping him steer the organisation  
through several high-profile battles from which it emerged more stable  
and stronger.

Cerf, 64, who's also a senior executive at internet search leader  
Google, joined ICANN in 1999, a year after its formation to oversee  
domain names and other internet addressing policies. Cerf was elected  
chairman in 2000 and leaves the unpaid position after Friday's board  
meeting in Los Angeles because of term limits.

When he joined the board, many questioned whether ICANN would survive.  
Now - though some people still complain that ICANN is arbitrary,  
secretive and slow - the focus is more on improving it than replacing  
it.

Under Cerf, the organisation withstood power struggles and ballooned in  
size. It also has shown signs of movement on key issues: After years of  
debate, for instance, it is now beginning to create mechanisms for more  
easily adding internet addresses, including domain names in languages  
besides English.

"In some respects it has gained credibility," Cerf said. "It is now  
part of the internet universe as opposed to a thing that was open to  
some serious debate."

That has been particularly so since ICANN, teaming with the U.S.  
diplomats, resisted efforts by China, Brazil and other developing  
countries to replace the group with a more U.N.-like organisation over  
which world governments would have greater control.

Among other things, ICANN critics wanted quicker action on addresses in  
other languages, saying the current restrictions are akin to requiring  
all English speakers to type in Chinese. Many foreign governments also  
resented the U.S. government's veto power over the Marina del Rey,  
Calif.-based nonprofit agency.

Calls to strip ICANN  and the United States - of its oversight of  
domain names, which are key for computers to find Web sites and route  
e-mails, grew as world leaders gathered in Geneva for the 2003 U.N.  
World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union even joined  
by the time the summit convened again in 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia.

But ICANN ultimately emerged intact.

Credit goes to many people besides Cerf, yet many say he had the  
gravitas to meet with heads of states and senior ministers - and tell  
them, "no."

"He has a certain star quality," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's chief  
executive since 2003. "He can open a door. He can talk to anybody. He  
can say, 'Me and my colleagues actually invented the internet and  
here's how it works.' There was a lot of ignorance, and he was able to  
say, 'It just doesn't work the way you think it works.'"

Cerf tested the first internet hookups in 1969 when he was a graduate  
student at UCLA. As a professor at Stanford University in the 1970s,  
Cerf led a team that invented the protocols, known as TCP/IP, that now  
serve as the internet's basic communications tools.

Known since as one of the internet's founding fathers, Cerf continued  
working on internet technology at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research  
Projects Agency and later developed MCI Mail, the internet's first  
commercial e-mail service. Google lured him in 2005 to be its "chief  
internet evangelist" and gave him an office a few doors from CEO Eric  
Schmidt.

In 1997, then-President Clinton presented Cerf and TCP/IP co-inventor  
Robert Kahn the National Medal of Technology, and in 2005 President  
Bush gave the pair the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As ICANN chairman, Cerf has played a hands-on role, attending many  
committee meetings and workshops in his trademark three-piece suit,  
often asking questions and contributing his know-how.

Jeffrey Eckhaus, a business development director at domain registration  
company Register.com Inc., found him "very knowledgeable about every  
single topic that would go on. He would really know all the ins and  
outs."

Besides his sense of humour and his technical knowledge, Cerf brought  
business and administrative acumen, many ICANN participants say. He has  
a slew of anecdotes ready and has displayed a willingness to listen to  
concerns and "engage with people from heads of states down to  
university students," Twomey said.

Now that Cerf has guided ICANN from nearly its inception through a  
tumultuous adolescence and into early adulthood, many believe it's time  
for an ICANN driven more by procedures than personality.

"It doesn't demean Cerf's towering legacy to say people are ready for a  
change," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and  
frequent ICANN critic.

The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications  
expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been  
active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf's name recognition or  
long-standing ties to the internet.

"The bad news is we're not going to find another Vint," said Steve  
Crocker, a high school classmate of Cerf's and fellow internet pioneer.  
"It's equally a form of good news. We're now going to go through a  
period where ordinary mortals are managing things."

Even with Cerf's clout, ICANN has had its share of battles. For one, a  
decision to reverse preliminary support for a proposed ".xxx" domain  
name for porn sites was criticized as arbitrary and politically  
influenced.

During Cerf's tenure, ICANN's staff and budget have grown, permitting  
faster response. Its roughly 100 staff members are paid out of a $41.6  
million budget for fiscal 2008, compared with about a dozen employed  
during fiscal 2001, when ICANN budgeted $3.78 million for operating  
expenses.

The board and its constituency committees have reorganized numerous  
times in an effort to better reflect the internet community, and  
minutes to private board meetings have been posted more quickly to  
improve transparency.

Nonetheless, many critics still complain that ICANN has neither opened  
the decision-making process enough nor acted as quickly as it should on  
issues like adding domain names  after several years, it is just now  
streamlining the approval process.

Few of those complaints, however, are directed at Cerf.

"It would have been a lot more without Vint," said David Farber, former  
chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. "I don't  
have warm, fuzzy feelings about ICANN, but Vint is not a person you  
want to get into battles with. He's a nice guy. He's smart. He's  
reasonable to talk to."

Cerf plans to disengage entirely from ICANN for at least a year,  
freeing him to write books and devote more time to his Google duties.

"This is a very important test ICANN both must pass and will pass, that  
it can withstand a change of its senior management," Cerf said. "I have  
no hesitation at all turning this over to a new team."

AP