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UN beachside conferencing goes way beyond plans for a December blowout on Bali, and the UN agenda goes way beyond taxing us in the name of controlling the weather. Live, right now, the UN is continuing its grab to control the internet, with a Nov. 12-15 conference in Rio de Janeiro (beach facilities shown in accompanying photo). Big on the agenda is the UN-based campaign to take away control of the internet from the U.S. The aim, now that U.S. freedoms and resulting creativity (not Al Gore, his own claims notwithstanding) have brought mankind this marvelous gift of the internet,...

Swiss President Samuel Schmid has been censored by Tunisian television for harshly criticising states that muzzle civil liberties. Schmid's comments at the opening of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis drew lengthy applause from delegates who were his only audience. "It is, quite frankly, unacceptable for the United Nations to continue to include among its members states which imprison citizens for the sole reason that they have criticised their government on the internet or in the media," Schmid said in his opening speech. "As far as I'm concerned, it goes without saying that here in...

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Despite a late-night agreement averting a global showdown over continued U.S. control of the Internet's addressing system, many delegates to a U.N. technology summit did not believe the Americans emerged victorious. Representatives of a number of countries remained adamant that U.S. control must be tempered if the Internet is to fully reach its potential. And even traditional allies of Washington considered it to have opened the door to the possibility of more shared governance. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe spoke for the more radical opposition to U.S. control, saying Washington and its allies cannot continue to "insist...

The United Nations has lost its bid to take control of the Internet. That's a good thing, because it was a poor idea at every level. According to a CNN dispatch from a global summit in Tunisia, the U.N. based its argument on the need to close the "digital divide" that separates rich and poor nations. But it's hard to understand how U.N. control over domain names and technical issues would help poorer nations make fuller use of technology. The U.N. certainly hasn't been a factor in the growth of the Internet in the U.S. or Europe. And I doubt...

If Paul Revere were alive today, he'd have his midnight work cut out for him. Most likely he'd be spreading the alarm not on horseback, but by Internet: The U.N. is coming! The U.N. is coming! The United Nations' so-called World Summit on the Information Society opens today in Tunis, Tunisia, proposing to set up U.N. sway over the Internet under the slogan of bridging the "digital divide." But that's the wrong metaphor. This three-day jamboree is a U.N. turf grab: the latest case of the U.N. misinterpreting its noble mandate to promote peace as a license to take a...

TUNIS, Tunisia — A U.N. technology summit opened Wednesday after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that direct the Internet's flow of information, commerce and dissent. A lingering and vocal struggle over the Internet's plumbing and its addressing system has overshadowed the summit's original intent: to address ways to expand communications technologies to poorer parts of the world. Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge, through a quasi-independent body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. That averted...

US endorses Internet Governance Forum The US has inked a broad agreement at WSIS but that does not mean it relinquishes its influence over Internet operations The Bush administration and its critics at a United Nations summit at Tunis in Tunisia have inked a broad agreement on global Internet management that will preclude any dramatic showdown this week. By signing the statement, the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an "Internet Governance Forum" that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the UN. The forum is meant to be a central point for global...

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- A summit focusing on narrowing the digital divide between the rich and poor residents and countries opened Wednesday with an agreement of sorts on who will maintain ultimate oversight of the Internet and the flow of information, commerce and dissent.

Efforts to replace U.S. oversight of the Internet with an international committee were defeated yesterday during U.N.-sponsored meetings. Hundreds of government, nonprofit and industry delegates meeting at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia, agreed to establish a new international forum to discuss Internet issues, but it would not have any policy-making power. "No new organizations were created," said David Gross, the State Department's Internet policy chief and head of the U.S. delegation. "No oversight mechanisms were established by anyone over anyone. There was also no change in the U.S. government's role in relation to the Internet,...

The BBC fawns over a looterfest in Tunisia, to which 15,000 delegates, and more than 50 heads of state, are gleefully converging (likes ants to a picnic) to pan-handle their way into control of at least a slice of the world’s most important information technology delivery system. It isn’t fair, you see, that te net’s infrastructure has been managed in an informal way through collaboration with businesses, civil society, academic and technical communities. Many developing countries have felt left out of this process.

UN telcom agency says would be ready to run Internet Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:28 PM BST Printer Friendly | Email Article | RSS By Robert Evans GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is ready to take over governance of the Internet from the United States., ITU head Yoshio Utsumi said on Friday. The United States has clashed with the European Union and much of the rest of the world over the future of the Internet. It currently manages the global information system through a partnership with California-based company ICANN. "We could do it if we...

ALARM - Agreement in Tunis on a progressive evolution of Internet TUNIS - an agreement on a progressive modification of the Internet was reached Tuesday, avoiding a rupture between the United States, hostile with any international control, and the rest of the world, announced negotiators at the world Top on the company of the information (SMSI) of Tunis. MORE...