I don't usually forward POC mailings, since I'm never sure of their confidentiality status, but I think this makes quite interesting reading and looks like it's fairly public. W.B. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 11:43:39 -0500 From: Don Heath <heath at isoc.org> To: poc at gtld-mou.org Subject: FC: Larry Irving on domain names, censorship, regulation

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============================================ Excerpts from transcript of press conference ============================================

Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, NTIA January 8, 1998 Washington, DC

[...]

Q Larry, you mentioned electronic commerce, but can you tell us your progress on the green paper to privatize the domain name registration?

MR. IRVING: As many of you know, to my great chagrin and disappointment November 1st came and went without us releasing our green paper. I generally don't give dates that we are going to release something, unless I am absolutely certain that we can release it. In this case we failed, and I apologize to those folks who were expecting it, and I particularly apologize to Congress, and want to thank those members of Congress who have ben forbearing, and to those members of Congress who have gone home, and because they are home haven't bothered to call me to castigate me for not getting my paper in on time.

We are working very diligently, and to be honest we thought it was more important to get it right than to get it in on time. There have been a lot of people across industry who have a lot of issues. And what we began to discover was looking just at the issue of domain name wasn't sufficient; you have to look at the entire - there's a - (inaudible) - affecting Internet governance, and there are a lot of issues involved here. And we are trying hard to come up with a comprehensive consensus document that we can deliver to Congress. I can't give you another date, but it will be soon. And one of the reasons it will be soon, because I promised it two months ago and have not delivered it. Another reason it will be soon is Congress is coming back, and I think some of those people who requested it will want it on their desk at or about the time they come back and Congress reconvenes. But we will have a comprehensive approach. Ira Magaziner and members of my staff, Becky Bird (sp) and others, have done yeo person's work, or yeoman's work - I'm not sure which is the non-sexist term - but have worked diligently to come up with a product. They've met with literally hundreds of people and/or read thousands of pages of documents to get this right. And we are committed to getting to the public and to the Congress as good a report as we can. Anything we get is going to have some critics, but we do think we can get a better report by taking a little more time, being a little more careful and talking to a few more people.

[...]

Q If you abandon control of the Internet, or try to minimize government regulations on the Internet, what happens when you discover down the road perhaps - and let's say perhaps dominating of the Internet by a few contract providers - perhaps - (off mike) - how do you recover - (off mike)?

MR. IRVING: I think it is better to monitor and see if a mistake is made then to start to regulate and assuredly make some mistakes.

Q Fair enough. What do you do once a mistake is made?

MR. IRVING: You try to correct them.

Q To minimize government regulation?

MR. IRVING: We would - even if there are mistakes made, we will try to correct those mistakes with minimal government involvement.

Q What tools do you have?

MR. IRVING: You have all the tools you already have. You have regulatory authority, you have litigation, you have legislation. There is nothing - there is nothing that I can't do prophylactically upfront that we couldn't do as a government after the fact; but at least we'd know what the issue is. Right now we'd be trying to - you know, it's like trying to find a needle in the dark, in a 10,000 square foot room. What problem am I trying to solve? And right now we don't know.

You know, nobody knew - none of us in this room would have said in 1993 that in 1998 one trillion e-mails would be transmitted around the globe. That's what happened last year: one trillion - one trillion e-mails, according to Financial Times, were transmitted around the globe. What if I tried to do something to regulate e-mail based on what I knew e-mail was going to be in 1993? I would have been completely wrong, because I had no clue that there would be one trillion e-mails in 1993. Did any of us know in 1996 that real video would be a tool that people would be using around the country, that you could watch the Rolling Stones concert or pull up video - watch Savion Glover do a tap dance recital on the Internet. Did any of us know that? I didn't know in 1996 that in 1997 I could do that. I'd be trying to regulate something I had no clue as to how it is going to progress, and I might be stifling the progress. I don't think that's good policy; more importantly, the president and vice president don't think that's good policy; Secretary Daley doesn't think that's good policy. Let this thing grow at the rate it should grow as opposed to.

Internet telephony - 1995, 1994, who of you writing about Internet telephony and talking about it as a real central competitor, reducing prices and increasing opportunity for entrepreneurs and for consumers? Have you thought - and there were those calling to regulate Internet telephony. The investments made would not have been made had we started doing something when we were requested to with regard to Internet telephony. We come down - I feel strongly we have come down on the right side of this debate. And I think that the people who are making investments and who are building this industry, building this economy, building this technology, feel strongly that we should keep a relatively hands-off approach. That doesn't mean we don't have guiding precepts. That doesn't mean we are ignoring what's happening. It does mean we are trying not to get in the way of a great success story globally.

[...]

Q Larry, do you think that the present deregulatory policy carved out for the Internet will hold insofar as Internet service providers can withdraw from the universal service - (off mike)? And then there's a growing debate between federal policymakers and mayor and governors, both that you met with and talked with, about taxation. That issue won't go away, and it all gets to, you know, if and how the Internet gets regulated. Is it always going to be a hand-off approach, or will that just not hold and - (off mike)?

MR. IRVING: We're going to try to be as hands-off as possible. The Internet, again, we have said this, and we are going to continue to, the Internet has grown - has rapidly grown precisely because of a lack of government involvement in its regulation, in its structure, in its future. And we are going to continue to try to make sure that this is private sector-led. As frightening as some people - as frightened as some people are of state and local involvement - and the tax issue is an issue that I think is resolvable. I mean, there is a way to resolve that. And when you talk to people it's at the margins, but there are ways to resolve that.

I'm more concerned about the international implications for regulation. I am very concerned that there are people around the world - you know, in the United States and Washington we are not scared of the Internet - we think it's a good thing. We want the entrepreneurs to go out there, we want them to build it. As you go around the country there are people who are scared about the Internet, and there are people who say that there should be international governing bodies of the Internet. We don't want that, and we are going to have to - you know, we are going to have to make sure that people in Brussels, and people in Geneva, and people in Paris, and people in various capitals of the world don't get involved in governing the Internet. There is, however, in industry and among most of the nations that use the Internet, a consensus that the Internet should be private sector-led, developed, and industry should have development. There are issues such as indecency, where there has to be some government involvement to make sure things like parents know where the good stuff on the Internet is - parents are given the tools to protect their children from bad things on the Internet.

They agree within the Department of Justice and (IFPS ?) is one instance where working with the government we can try to find ways that children don't have access to things that are inappropriate in it. Those are positive things that have to happen.

With regards to censorship or developing guidelines to how the Internet - (inaudible) - to go - we don't want that. With regard to domain name system, we don't want that. With regard to privacy, we have said repeatedly, consistently, we need the private sector to step up to the plate and come up with comprehensive plans to ensure protection of privacy of users of the Internet. Those things I think are consistent and we can continue.

With regard to access charge and other fees charged by Internet service providers, we have been very careful to say that as this industry is a nascent industry they should not at this time be charged those kinds of fees. We've also said we should continue to monitor and look at the debate. There is a difference between whether or not an economic entity should be treated the same as other economic entities in terms of some kind of a fee structure, and saying that we want to govern that entity. We do not want to govern the Internet. We in Washington - and we are going to work diligently - we are going to fight any effort by others around the globe to start regulating the Internet.

[...]

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