Posted on 10/06/2005 5:55:46 PM PDT by Blogger
Breaking America's grip on the net
After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments
Kieren McCarthy Thursday October 6, 2005 The Guardian
You would expect an announcement that would forever change the face of the internet to be a grand affair - a big stage, spotlights, media scrums and a charismatic frontman working the crowd. But unless you knew where he was sitting, all you got was David Hendon's slightly apprehensive voice through a beige plastic earbox. The words were calm, measured and unexciting, but their implications will be felt for generations to come.
Hendon is the Department for Trade and Industry's director of business relations and was in Geneva representing the UK government and European Union at the third and final preparatory meeting for next month's World Summit on the Information Society. He had just announced a political coup over the running of the internet.
Old allies in world politics, representatives from the UK and US sat just feet away from each other, but all looked straight ahead as Hendon explained the EU had decided to end the US government's unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body that would now run this revolutionary communications medium.
The issue of who should control the net had proved an extremely divisive issue, and for 11 days the world's governments traded blows. For the vast majority of people who use the internet, the only real concern is getting on it. But with the internet now essential to countries' basic infrastructure - Brazil relies on it for 90% of its tax collection - the question of who has control has become critical.
And the unwelcome answer for many is that it is the US government. In the early days, an enlightened Department of Commerce (DoC) pushed and funded expansion of the internet. And when it became global, it created a private company, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to run it.
But the DoC retained overall control, and in June stated what many had always feared: that it would retain indefinite control of the internet's foundation - its "root servers", which act as the basic directory for the whole internet.
A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused. The meeting "was going nowhere", Hendon says, and so the EU took a bold step and proposed two stark changes: a new forum that would decide public policy, and a "cooperation model" comprising governments that would be in overall charge.
Much to the distress of the US, the idea proved popular. Its representative hit back, stating that it "can't in any way allow any changes" that went against the "historic role" of the US in controlling the top level of the internet.
But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world's governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.
But will this move mean, as the US ambassador David Gross argued, that "even on technical details, the industry will have to follow government-set policies, UN-set policies"?
No, according to Nitin Desai, the UN's special adviser on internet governance. "There is clearly an acceptance here that governments are not concerned with the technical and operational management of the internet. Standards are set by the users."
Hendon is also adamant: "The really important point is that the EU doesn't want to see this change as bringing new government control over the internet. Governments will only be involved where they need to be and only on issues setting the top-level framework."
Human rights
But expert and author of Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller, is not so sure. An overseeing council "could interfere with standards. What would stop it saying 'when you're making this standard for data transfer you have to include some kind of surveillance for law enforcement'?"
Then there is human rights. China has attracted criticism for filtering content from the net within its borders. Tunisia - host of the World Summit - has also come under attack for silencing online voices. Mueller doesn't see a governmental overseeing council having any impact: "What human rights groups want is for someone to be able to bring some kind of enforceable claim to stop them violating people's rights. But how's that going to happen? I can't see that a council is going to be able to improve the human rights situation."
And what about business? Will a governmental body running the internet add unnecessary bureaucracy or will it bring clarity and a coherent system? Mueller is unsure: "The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."
There are still dozens of unanswered questions but all the answers are pointing the same way: international governments deciding the internet's future. The internet will never be the same again.
Uh-oh. Folks had better consult with Al Gore. As the inventor of the internet, he SHOULD have some say in the matter, shouldn't he??? [/sarcasm]
Seriously, though - where and how was the internet developed? Wasn't the US a if not THE major player in the creation of it many years ago? That should, at minimum, give us some say i the matter.
But leave it up to the "world", probably meaning the Euro dorks - then you can BET there will be some sort of increased cost (taxes).
Calling Al Gore ... Al Gore, please invent a new Internet...
When the point comes where I can talk on my cell phone and post a picture or post to my blog from anywhere on the planet without "fear" of where I am, who I am, or what I say than we can think about having the UN involved. Not a day sooner.
Don't you mean that Algore should just invent something else, after all he did invet the internet.
No. They want ours. They want regulatory capacity over the internet.
The usual suspects! Are they suggesting we give up naming standards, or that all the backbone servers reside in the basement of the U.N.?
And ".net" and so on.
Each country has its own suffix ( eg Canada is ".ca" ), and the country's govt can make its own rules as to how names get assigned in its suffix.
But everybody wants a ".com" name
The way naming works is the root servers point to what servers handle ".com", ".net", ".ca", etc, and the subsidiary servers may in turn point to lower level servers. So ibm.com may have its own name servers to resolve what the IP address for "magoo.ibm.com" happens to be.
So the world can do as it pleases, but we have the means to ignore them if our side chooses not to bend over. China may designate its own name server that chooses to say that "freerepublic.com" points to a machine in the basement of their secret police headquarters, but that won't affect somebody who uses the US name servers
If there were a Democrat in the White House right now, this would already be a done deal.
This link should provide some answers to your question. Please note the remark Senator Kennedy made.
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html
Nope. I'm getting ready for bed. No fat drunk lunatic 'Rat nightmares for me tonight.
Turn it into "cheap housing"? I'd sell it to the highest bidder and give the proceeds back to the American people as a tax refund.
No, they want TAXING capability over the Internet. They want businesses to pay thru the nose for their names, and they want ISP's to pay a surcharge to the UN for allowing them to use the net (which will get passed to individual users)
They also want the ability to censor the net
Ah yes using that well known Internet Plug.
And so you feel that because it is an "(R)" president in the White House, this will not happen?
They are going to Zimbabwe-ize it..It will go
from being a profitable and going concern,
exporting profit and success to it's neighbors,
to being cannabalized and run in fiefdoms to
the point where it can not only no longer develop
profitable markets and sussesses, but it won't even
be able to support itself, and chunks of it will
fall off the WWW...and who will it hurt the most? the self same countries that aere arguing for it's seizure.
The US, aas one poster said, will develop something
bette, and keep it to ourselves. In fact, we allready
*have* all we have to do, is start rolling out the infrastructure for it. Makes broadband look like the
Telegraph.
Well, no, I didn't say that, and I don't feel that either, unfortunately.
No one can "force" us to do anything. Our "Globalist" rulers might acquiesce to their demands however. Its a pathetic state of affairs.
The article is pure over-reaction to an otherwise irrelevvant issue
The rest of the world thinks that they have an entitlement to use the U.S. funded Internet?
F the F'n F'ers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.