United Nations ponders Net's future

CNET News ^ | 03/26/2004 | Declan McCullagh

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The title alone should send chills down your spine!

[dirtboy]

The United Nations wants a big piece of the Internet.

Yep, now that Oil for Food's gone, they need a replacement source of bribe money.

[Centurion2000]

If China wants more addresess, let them build their own internet.

[cripplecreek]

Ponder all they want, My puter is a UN free zone.

[Skooz]

If I have a choice between spam and the UN getting involved in my internet, I would choose spam hands down.

And I HATE spam.

[Future Useless Eater]

The UN is looking at sources for a WORLD TAX, and thinks
the internet may be a way to accomplish that.

[boris]

And, of course, they will want to impose a 'reasonable' fee structure...say, $0.01 per hit....

[TomGuy]

Internet standards are set and domain names are handled, a process currently dominated by the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.

Couldn't be because, uhhhh....the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan developed it? So Koffie wants to give authority over to Tutuland, Fruitloopistan, and such similar nations.

Last year, the UN was wanting to tax the net.

Now, they want to steal it. After all, what contributions have the UN made in its development?

[CedarDave]

ICANN started this mess with FR yesterday. After what FR and FReepers went through the past 24 hours, I don't want any international agency anywhere near us. The UN would no doubt limit free-speech to whatever is PC according to them. Everything else could be considered "spam" and subject to censorship.

[ServesURight]

Here we go again. The U.N. is angry because the greedy old USA is denying hut dwellers in Mozambique Internet service.

[general_re]

The United Nations hastily backed away from that proposal, however, after prominent members of the U.S. Congress slammed it as a "bureaucracy looking to get its greedy mitts on the Internet through new taxes."

Yeah, don't let those greedy bureaucrats get their mitts on the internet through taxes - that's a job for Congress! Sheesh.

[MJM59]

Does this say anything about the UNs priorities?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Well...the UN does have a pretty good retirement program.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Dozens of delegates from developing nations echoed Annan's remarks throughout the rest of the day, arguing that their governments do not have a voice in the way the Internet is operated and that more money and investment from richer nations is the only way to end the so-called digital divide.

And so we see the real agenda. It's just another way for the third world to plunder productive countries.

[MrB]

That's the way socialists ALWAYS operate.

They are parasites on the producers and developers of the world.

"You make it, we'll steal it."

sounds like a democrat.

[CaptRon]

criticizing the current system through which Internet standards are set and domain names are handled, a process currently dominated by the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Such structures "must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people," Annan said.

Right. Typing dot-UN is much more accessible and responsive to the world's people than .com or something. I'd have more respect for this idiot if he just came out and said "I want total control of the Internet".

[Myrddin]

The internet was invented and implemented with the tax revenues from U.S. taxpayers. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). The U.N. and its member countries have no right to attempt to wrest our technology. Third world countries can participate when their economies grow sufficiently to justify the telecommunications infrastructure required. Until then, they need to focus on getting their act together. Prosperity is not a gift to be confiscated from successful nations and bestowed upon "poor" nations. The U.N. wants to play G_d and decide who gets to keep the fruits of their own labor. Screw them.

[MrB]

The U.N. wants to play G_d and decide who gets to keep the fruits of their own labor. Screw them.

No wonder the democRats love the UN.

And screw them, too.

[TLI]

I can delete spam. Now... if I could only delete the U.N.