Posted on 10/16/2005 11:56:03 PM PDT by qlangley
It sounds like a reasonable step. Insofar as the Internet is governed, it should be governed by an international body, right?
The problem with the analysis is that the Internet is not governed at all. Icann ensures that allocated domain names link to one unique site, in just the way that telephone numbers link to one, and only one, connection. It is a technical job. The fact that Icann is located in California and governed by US law is insignificant. Like Microsoft - also located in the US - it is accountable to its customers, not any government.
So why are some countries calling for a UN-sponsored body to take over the governance of the Internet? There are three main reasons.
First, policy makers in some dirigiste countries - France, most of the Arab world, some parts of Africa and, to a lesser extent India and China - genuinely don't get the concept of market accountability. Like all the anti-globalists they imagine sinister American conspiracies - many would add under Jewish influence - to control the Internet.
Second, some policy makers know full well that the Internet is not governed, and do not like this at all. China falls into this camp too, as does Saudi Arabia. The free flow of information is not something they want to encourage or permit.
Third, and most European countries fall into this category, some governments know perfectly well that the Internet cannot be governed, and that insofar as it can, the US is not going to hand Icann over to the UN anyway. This means they can posture all they like, and suck up to China and Saudi Arabia, knowing that it is going to make no difference at all.
Quentin Langley is editor of www.quentinlangley.net and an academic at the University of Cardiff
The fools will probably attempt to set up their own internet. The market wil teach them a lesson they won't soon forget: it controls the internet, just like it controls stock, bond and currency prices. The idiots will have no more success setting up their own internet than they will replacing the English as the worlds standard language of wider communication.
Why didn't you just post this as a vanity rather than attempt tp pass it off as having a source other than yourself.
Your thinking is somewhat muddled around the area of what/who constitutes "globalists".
I assure you, the conservative movement in the US is not globalist in any sense of the word.
There are plenty in this country as well who would like to see the internet governed and censored. They would be MSM and their bed partners, the Democrats.
Good post!!!
We should encourage them to establish their own U-N-Net. Then each individual country can decide whether it wants - for example - to connect to the U-N-Net top level domain servers.
I don't envision many takers.
In any case what they're really looking for is a way to control the approval and distribution of domain names and IP address.
It's not about freedom from ICANN and American Internet tyranny, it's about controlling and limiting their own populations.
They should just come up with a .UN and leave everyone else alone.
I don't know much about the internet, but it looks as though it's getting along just fine without "governance".
Sites have their standards that seem to keep them decent (outside the indecent sites). If bounds are crossed, people can sue and governments can enforce decency and other laws.
I suggest you re-read what I wrote. I didn't attempt to 'pass off' my post as anything.
I also did not call you, or anyone else, a globalist. I described the French government and others as anti-globalists. This is in the perfectly ordinary understanding of the phrase - ie they oppose free trade, capitalism, etc and want to introduce economic and cultural protectionism.
I didn't comment one way or the other on what the American conservative movement supports but, as it happens, most American conservatives - except a tiny fringe of Pat Buchanan, the Constitution Party etc who advocate policies just like Ralph Nader's - is in favour of globalisation.
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