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<P><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/net-pioneer-leaves-oversight-group/">http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/net-pioneer-leaves-oversight-group/</A><BR>
2007/10/29/1193555566207.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1<BR>
<BR>
October 29, 2007 - 9:52AM<BR>
<BR>
In the 1970s, Vint Cerf played a leading role in developing the<BR>
internet's technical foundation. For the past seven years, he's faced<BR>
the more daunting task of leading a key agency that oversees his<BR>
creation.<BR>
<BR>
After fending off an international rebellion and planting the seeds for<BR>
streamlining operations, Cerf is stepping down this week as chairman of<BR>
the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers.<BR>
<BR>
"My sentence is up," Cerf said with his characteristic sense of humour,<BR>
which he and others credit for helping him steer the organisation<BR>
through several high-profile battles from which it emerged more stable<BR>
and stronger.<BR>
<BR>
Cerf, 64, who's also a senior executive at internet search leader<BR>
Google, joined ICANN in 1999, a year after its formation to oversee<BR>
domain names and other internet addressing policies. Cerf was elected<BR>
chairman in 2000 and leaves the unpaid position after Friday's board<BR>
meeting in Los Angeles because of term limits.<BR>
<BR>
When he joined the board, many questioned whether ICANN would survive.<BR>
Now - though some people still complain that ICANN is arbitrary,<BR>
secretive and slow - the focus is more on improving it than replacing<BR>
it.<BR>
<BR>
Under Cerf, the organisation withstood power struggles and ballooned in<BR>
size. It also has shown signs of movement on key issues: After years of<BR>
debate, for instance, it is now beginning to create mechanisms for more<BR>
easily adding internet addresses, including domain names in languages<BR>
besides English.<BR>
<BR>
"In some respects it has gained credibility," Cerf said. "It is now<BR>
part of the internet universe as opposed to a thing that was open to<BR>
some serious debate."<BR>
<BR>
That has been particularly so since ICANN, teaming with the U.S.<BR>
diplomats, resisted efforts by China, Brazil and other developing<BR>
countries to replace the group with a more U.N.-like organisation over<BR>
which world governments would have greater control.<BR>
<BR>
Among other things, ICANN critics wanted quicker action on addresses in<BR>
other languages, saying the current restrictions are akin to requiring<BR>
all English speakers to type in Chinese. Many foreign governments also<BR>
resented the U.S. government's veto power over the Marina del Rey,<BR>
Calif.-based nonprofit agency.<BR>
<BR>
Calls to strip ICANN and the United States - of its oversight of<BR>
domain names, which are key for computers to find Web sites and route<BR>
e-mails, grew as world leaders gathered in Geneva for the 2003 U.N.<BR>
World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union even joined<BR>
by the time the summit convened again in 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia.<BR>
<BR>
But ICANN ultimately emerged intact.<BR>
<BR>
Credit goes to many people besides Cerf, yet many say he had the<BR>
gravitas to meet with heads of states and senior ministers - and tell<BR>
them, "no."<BR>
<BR>
"He has a certain star quality," said Paul Twomey, ICANN's chief<BR>
executive since 2003. "He can open a door. He can talk to anybody. He<BR>
can say, 'Me and my colleagues actually invented the internet and<BR>
here's how it works.' There was a lot of ignorance, and he was able to<BR>
say, 'It just doesn't work the way you think it works.'"<BR>
<BR>
Cerf tested the first internet hookups in 1969 when he was a graduate<BR>
student at UCLA. As a professor at Stanford University in the 1970s,<BR>
Cerf led a team that invented the protocols, known as TCP/IP, that now<BR>
serve as the internet's basic communications tools.<BR>
<BR>
Known since as one of the internet's founding fathers, Cerf continued<BR>
working on internet technology at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research<BR>
Projects Agency and later developed MCI Mail, the internet's first<BR>
commercial e-mail service. Google lured him in 2005 to be its "chief<BR>
internet evangelist" and gave him an office a few doors from CEO Eric<BR>
Schmidt.<BR>
<BR>
In 1997, then-President Clinton presented Cerf and TCP/IP co-inventor<BR>
Robert Kahn the National Medal of Technology, and in 2005 President<BR>
Bush gave the pair the Presidential Medal of Freedom.<BR>
<BR>
As ICANN chairman, Cerf has played a hands-on role, attending many<BR>
committee meetings and workshops in his trademark three-piece suit,<BR>
often asking questions and contributing his know-how.<BR>
<BR>
Jeffrey Eckhaus, a business development director at domain registration<BR>
company Register.com Inc., found him "very knowledgeable about every<BR>
single topic that would go on. He would really know all the ins and<BR>
outs."<BR>
<BR>
Besides his sense of humour and his technical knowledge, Cerf brought<BR>
business and administrative acumen, many ICANN participants say. He has<BR>
a slew of anecdotes ready and has displayed a willingness to listen to<BR>
concerns and "engage with people from heads of states down to<BR>
university students," Twomey said.<BR>
<BR>
Now that Cerf has guided ICANN from nearly its inception through a<BR>
tumultuous adolescence and into early adulthood, many believe it's time<BR>
for an ICANN driven more by procedures than personality.<BR>
<BR>
"It doesn't demean Cerf's towering legacy to say people are ready for a<BR>
change," said Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor and<BR>
frequent ICANN critic.<BR>
<BR>
The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications<BR>
expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been<BR>
active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf's name recognition or<BR>
long-standing ties to the internet.<BR>
<BR>
"The bad news is we're not going to find another Vint," said Steve<BR>
Crocker, a high school classmate of Cerf's and fellow internet pioneer.<BR>
"It's equally a form of good news. We're now going to go through a<BR>
period where ordinary mortals are managing things."<BR>
<BR>
Even with Cerf's clout, ICANN has had its share of battles. For one, a<BR>
decision to reverse preliminary support for a proposed ".xxx" domain<BR>
name for porn sites was criticized as arbitrary and politically<BR>
influenced.<BR>
<BR>
During Cerf's tenure, ICANN's staff and budget have grown, permitting<BR>
faster response. Its roughly 100 staff members are paid out of a $41.6<BR>
million budget for fiscal 2008, compared with about a dozen employed<BR>
during fiscal 2001, when ICANN budgeted $3.78 million for operating<BR>
expenses.<BR>
<BR>
The board and its constituency committees have reorganized numerous<BR>
times in an effort to better reflect the internet community, and<BR>
minutes to private board meetings have been posted more quickly to<BR>
improve transparency.<BR>
<BR>
Nonetheless, many critics still complain that ICANN has neither opened<BR>
the decision-making process enough nor acted as quickly as it should on<BR>
issues like adding domain names after several years, it is just now<BR>
streamlining the approval process.<BR>
<BR>
Few of those complaints, however, are directed at Cerf.<BR>
<BR>
"It would have been a lot more without Vint," said David Farber, former<BR>
chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission. "I don't<BR>
have warm, fuzzy feelings about ICANN, but Vint is not a person you<BR>
want to get into battles with. He's a nice guy. He's smart. He's<BR>
reasonable to talk to."<BR>
<BR>
Cerf plans to disengage entirely from ICANN for at least a year,<BR>
freeing him to write books and devote more time to his Google duties.<BR>
<BR>
"This is a very important test ICANN both must pass and will pass, that<BR>
it can withstand a change of its senior management," Cerf said. "I have<BR>
no hesitation at all turning this over to a new team."<BR>
<BR>
AP</FONT>
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