ISOC México on WCIT: draft ITRs, document 51-E

ISOC Mexico text on the pre-final WCIT document 51-E. My responsibility, thankful to ISOC Mexico members who contributed generously and in a very short time.

Presento a continuación el texto que ISOC México, a través mío, ha remitido a la delegación mexicana ante la Conferencia Mundial sobre las Telecomunicaciones Internacionales - WCIT o CMTI - de la Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones, UIT

El texto es resultado de un esfuerzo colaborativo. Agradezco a los miembros de ISOC México que aportaron su esfuerzo y sabiduría, y asumo desde luego la responsabilidad sobre el texto. Comentarios bienvenidos.

ISOC Mexico
Comments on ITU WCIT Document 51-E


December 11, 2012


1. General comment: the draft ITR in this version goes way beyond the limits that the ITU Secretary General had publicly expressed in the process previous to WCIT and several times during the Conference and evidently out of the scope of such regulations. It does so by including explicitly significant issues of Internet Governance and by including provisions with potential deleterious effects on the freedoms of speech, of association, and of access to knowledge, which are clearly a matter of content and not infrastructure.

Mixing in the ITR infrastructure and content issues may lead to unwanted outcomes. Most of the present delegations have a limited mandate to deal only with infrastructure issues. Delegations were not prepared to discuss content issues in this conference. At the international level there are other venues to deal with Internet related issues.

(Most of the comments on this document recommend avoiding including concepts that are out of the scope of the ITR. This does not mean such subjects are not important nor does it infer there should not be a discussion around these. However, given the complexity of the issues involved, they deserve to be treated as agreed by the International Community at WSIS. Excluding Internet issues from the ITR is not only desirable but also respectful of other organizations -including many of the UN family- and agreements. This should also help to gain consensus and achieve the main goal of the conference).

2. The provision on “unsolicited commercial communications” is ill advised, not enoughly well thought out, and misleading. It should be deleted.

In its present form it could be interpreted as a provision against all telemarketing and many business models of telephony call centers. This is consistent with being caused by the attempt to avoid the words “spam”, “e-mail”, “Internet”, and other related ones.

Should the resolution be rewritten to include these terms, we would still see its deletion necessary. Dealing with spam and related uses of the Internet is an issue of Internet Governance and does not belong in WCIT; it must follow the WSIS principles and be dealt within multistakeholder fora with the participation of all relevant stakeholders.

Further, the problem of spam is known to be very difficult to solve. Relevant multistakeholder organizations like the MAAWG, and in related work the APWG, have been able to make a dent on the problem by creating mechanisms and standards like DKIM and SPF, by recommended practices such as the closing of port 25 at ISPs, and others which only work in a multistakeholder models.

If the negotiators are irreducible in their position of including a provision in this field, it may read: “Member States agree to support multistakeholder mechanisms, initiatives, and organizations, compliant with the WSIS principles, in their continuing work against unsolicited communications; to cooperate with these organizations and among themselves in standards, technology, and practice; to frame such cooperation rigorously avoiding opportunities for anti-spam operations to curtail free speech be it by design or misuse; and to instill capacity building at all levels in order to curtail the driving force of spam, which is the lack of understanding by many users that leads them to make spam profitable.”

Also, one of the serious problems associated with spam is that wrongly implemented anti-spam measures stop legitimate communications from reaching their intended recipients. States can help reduce this problem by capacity building and by carefully setting high standards in their selection of providers and in the consumer-oriented evaluation of software and Operating Agencies.

3. The provisions for cybersecurity and security of telecommunications should be deleted. The role of Member States can be articulated as follows: “Promote cooperation of all parties in multistakeholder and specialized mechanisms and organizations, such as CERTs and CSIRTs, SDOs, and expert professional organizations and academic institutions, to create a culture of cooperative risk management in telecommunications. Such cooperation will firmly avoid risks by design or misuse of security-related provisions to curtail the rights of free speech, free association, and access to knowledge.”

Other functions that States must address urgently, such as provisions for creating baseline standards for network security for private and public operations, are not appropriate ITR matter.

3Bis About 31C. [Member States shall refrain from taking [unilateral and/or] discriminatory actions that could impede another Member State’s access to public [international telecommunications networks and services] [Internet sites and using resources].]

Although in principle it is adequate to state the desire of ruling out discriminatory behaviour, the ITR should confine to telecommunications and not the Internet.

4. About 31D 3.8 [Member states shall, if they so elect, be able to manage the naming, numbering, addressing and identification resources used within their territories for international telecommunications.]

This provision is likely to be dysfunctional, and outside the ITR capacity to rule. Naming, numbering, addressing and identification resources in modern networks, including the Internet, are globally coordinated within proper bodies that allow state participation among other relevant stakeholders in a context of multiple and equal participation. Furthermore, given the global nature of these networks, managing these resources on a local-national level may prove insufficient and may hamper the potential of a truly global network.

In this manner, according to the reasons stated before, it is recommended that this provision should be eliminated. In the case the ITR establish a provision in this field, it should encourage States to participate in the global decision-making mechanisms in a role according to WSIS.

5. Articles related to emergency and other privileged telecommunications should not be used as a way to step into the “quality” of services and differentiated cost provisions, discussed separately.

5Bis. Article 5B para 41C. The addition of this article is a good example of how the introduction of new concepts may generate confusion. There is not a definition of electronic communications in the ITR and as mentioned previously the ITR do not appear to be the appropriate mechanism to deal with this issue.

6. 42L on exchange points: the article is written in such a way as to avoid mention of Internet Exchage Points (IXPs) and it does not belong rightfully in the ITR. States and mostly non-state actors are in a renewed cycle of building interconnection points. States should be in the obligation at most, of supporting such efforts, and making sure that equipment, software and operations of the exchange points do not interfere with the freedoms cited elsewhere in this document. The recent adoption of a DPI recommendation in the ITU makes this connection particularly worthy of attention.

7. 42T on “charging based on agreed quality of service” should be deleted. It is formulated in urgent language which is consistent with the know “ETNO proposal” and is not mature enough in the analysis of foreseeable and especially unforeseeable consequences of this provision, the most important of which may be undesirable forms of discrimination among technologies, sources, destinations, and contents. Giving to the operating agencies the power to charge over international communication applications and services could lead to limit innovation, entangle the development of new technologies and services and the natural growth of the internet ecosystem.

8. The new resolution on “enabling environment” should not be included in the ITR. Although it gives lip service to WSIS, its concluding statement is not consistent with a full multistakeholder collaboration as is needed for the avowed purposes of the resolution.

9. On Article 7: On the case of exercising the right of suspension of services: Even though it is a good provision that the States should be enforced to notify the execution of this right to the Secretary General, it should be recommended that better regulations on this right should be imposed. A thorough justification on the reasons and further consequences to the public opinion could serve as a good measure to prevent States abusing of this right.