U.N. bureaucrats and telecommunications ministers from many less-developed nations claim the U.S. government has undue influence over how things run online. Now they want to be the ones in charge.
While the formal proposal from a U.N. working group will be released July 18, it's already clear what it will contain. A preliminary summary of governmental views claims there's a "convergence of views" supporting a new organisation to oversee crucial Internet functions, most likely under the aegis of the U.N. or the International Telecommunications Union.
At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organisation include Internet surveillance, "consumer protection," and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access."
This development represents a grave political challenge to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which was birthed by the U.S. government to handle some of those topics.
A recent closed-door meeting in Geneva convened by the U.N.'s Working Group on Internet Governance offers clues about the plot to dethrone ICANN. As these excerpts from a transcript show, dissatisfaction and general-purpose griping is rampant:
- Syria: "There's more and more spam every day. Who are the victims? Developing and least-developed countries, too. There is no serious intention to stop this spam by those who are the transporters of the spam, because they benefit...The only solution is for us to buy equipment from the countries which send this spam in order to deal with spam. However, this, we believe, is not acceptable."
- Brazil, responding to ICANN's approval of .xxx domains: "For those that are still wondering what Triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."
- China: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework...For instance, spam, network security and cyberspace--we should look for an appropriate specialised agency of the United Nations as a competent body."
- Ghana: "There was unanimity for the need for an additional body...This body would therefore address all issues relating to the Internet within the confines of the available expertise which would be anchored at the U.N."
The "nuclear option"
Those proclamations served to flush out the Bush administration, which recently announced that it will not hand over control of Internet domain names and addresses to anyone else.
That high-profile snub of the U.N. could presage an international showdown. The possibility of a political flap over what has long been an abstruse Net-governance issue casts a shadow over ICANN's meeting this week in Luxembourg, and will be the topic of a July 28 symposium in Washington, D.C., called "Regime Change on the Internet."
Beyond the usual levers of diplomatic pressure and public complaining, Brazil and China could choose what amounts to the nuclear option: a fragmented root. That means a new top-level domain would not be approved by ICANN--but would be recognised and used by large portions of the rest of the world. The downside, of course, is that the nuclear option could create a Balkanised Internet where two computers find different Web sites at the same address.
"It wasn't until now" that a fragmented root was being talked about, says Milton Mueller, a professor at Syracuse University and participant in the Internet Governance Project. "China and other countries might be pursuing responses that lead to fragmentation."
Such an outcome remains remote, but it could happen. That possibility means an obscure debate about Internet governance has suddenly become surprisingly important.
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent.
Need for a change.
The Internet is a “joint venture” owned by the netizens at large whether they belong to US, UK or anywhere else. It is true that originally the Internet was invented by the US and US people paid for its existence by paying taxes for the same, but they have already derived enough benefit out of it. It is high time that Internet should be “decentralised” and access to it should be provided to all the nations of the world in an equitable and judicious manner. The same, however, cannot happen unless and until the issues of its “ownership” is decided conclusively at the “International level”. The same should, however, in no case be pressed further through the mechanism of UN. That is a remedy worst than the malady. The proper solution is to make it a part of WTO, etc and formulate an “International Treaty” named “Internet Treaty” and let the nations at large decide about its proper utilisation and ownership. It must be appreciated that Internet is an indispensable mode of communication in the contemporary society and it is the “electronic environment” of the planet named earth. If we can resolve the “environmental matters” of the earth by International Treaties and Convention, we can do the same vis-à-vis the “electronic environment”. The parameters of Internet will be extended to “Space” as well in the distant future and the Inter-Planetary Internet System may again face the same problem. We need a “futuristic aspect” of the current problem and that mandates an amicable solution of the internet ownership problem as soon as possible.