Internet players to set up Internet body

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Several business associations and local universities are preparing to set up an independent Internet body to help develop and improve the system within the local Internet industry.

Named the Indonesian Internet Agency (LII), the body is expected to work with various sectors, including non-governmental organizations and the government, to create regulations and policies on the Internet industry.

"Our Internet industry is not going anywhere and remains undeveloped. This is partly because of the absence of policies," Heru Nugroho, the chairman of the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), said on Wednesday.

Budi Rahardjo of the country code Top Level Domain Indonesia (ccTLD-ID), a body which distributes and registers domain names in the country, said the organization would be similar to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a broad coalition of Internet business, technical, academic and user communities.

Founded in the U.S. in 1998, ICANN works to coordinate four key functions of the Internet: the management of domain systems, the allocation of IP address space, assignment of protocol parameters and the management of the root server system.

"We want to try to regulate ourselves first so that we can put the industry in order. To do that, we'll try to do what others have done so far," Budi said.

The LII, which is in the preparatory stage, is expected to be fully established next year, pending approval from the government.

Marcelus Adiwinata of Indonesian Internet Society added that while many IT or Internet associations had been mushrooming, their existence had hardly contributed to the development of the country's IT and Internet industry.

"Instead, their interests often conflict because they go their own way," Marcelus remarked.

Budi said one advantage of the future LII would be that it would help customers have a secure Internet domain to avoid cyber crimes.

"By regulating our domain name system, we can minimize cyber crime such as pornography or cyberfraud. Further, we can ask all community members to act on cyber crime," he added.

So far, some of the groups that have committed to establishing LII include APJII, the Telematics Community (Mastel), ccTLD, the Indonesian Software Association (Aspiluki), Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).

The body will have six supporting organizations, that is At Large Membership (ALM) for individuals, Government Advisory Committee (GAC), Non-Governmental Advisory Committee (NGAC), the Address Support Organization (ASO) for drafting policy on IP distribution, the Domain Name Supporting Organization for drafting policies on domain name distribution, and Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO), a technical unit related to the Internet system.