The diversity and profundity of the range of problems currently dogging the Net - CDA-like legal nooses, copyright and intellectual property-related legislation, threats of "brown-outs" and the domain-name crisis - has made it obvious that some kind of forum is required where rules for the final layers of the protocol stack - the economic and the social - can be discussed and debated.
The recently formed Internet Law and Policy Forum (ILTF), based in Montreal, seems to fit the bill. Jeffrey Ritter, its organising chair, promises that the forum will provide "a neutral venue" where all stakeholders can come with problems, ideas and solutions. Think of it as the Internet community's own think tank. It will help explain the Net's wizardry factor to governments. And hopefully it will convince authorities to keep their regulatory and police mitts off the Net until rules arrived at through open processes are available.
Underwritten by 22 corporate sponsors in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the ILPF is a global, non-governmental organisation, incorporated in Washington state. It will engage a worldwide array of stakeholders - including the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), industry associations and groupings, user and vendor groups, ISP communities, standards organisations, governmental and intergovernmental bodies and public interest organisations. The ILPF will have no legislative power, only the ability to reach agreements with the entire Internet community.
That's not to say that the project is uncontroversial. Dave Farber, ISOC board member and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, worries that the "pragmatic training" of the ILPF's lawyers will cause them to be too narrow-minded and err on the conservative side. This concern, however, ignores the fact that engineers - along with the IETF - will be included in the ILPF process.
Critics of the ILPF have also homed in on the questions of funding, board seats and representation. Corporations that fund the initial pilot phase have the option of taking board seats. This has raised the hackles of public interest groups and others who ask how the interests of consumers and other non-corporate groups will be represented. But Ritter points out that having a board seat may be less important "than playing a constructive role in the process through participation in the working groups."
Like it or not, the Internet's non-silicon-based architecture is finally branching out to match its technological diversity. The ILPF is part of this transition. Let's embrace it as a part of the Net's coming-of-age. What may at first blush look like a power grab by a group of Internet old-timers and lawyers is nonetheless far better than the alternative: resisting self-government, thereby allowing someone else to come in and do it for us.
Craig A. Johnson is a telecoms policy specialist based in Washington, DC.