Thursday, October 06, 2005

UN controls the WWW

Sorry for my extended absence. I’ve been burnt on Politics, so I just haven’t had the heart to comment on all the BS.

But I stumbled on this tonight and felt compelled to comment.

[Dave] 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.

[…]

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.
While I find the ‘principle’ of the UN an altruistic ideal, it’s just like Communism.  It looks good on paper, but is unmanageable by humans. I cannot imagine the bureaucratic morass the Internet will be imbroiled in  if the UN is in control of the WWW.

5 comments:

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The probligo said...
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The probligo said...

Like I have said to a number of others who have raised this same flag...

The motivation for the initial political discussion came out of EU (France in particular if I remember) some three weeks or so back - not from the UN. It was suggested that the UN could be responsible for the control of the 'Net.

The idea was to control and prevent the use of the 'Net for the dissemination of pornography, fraud, terrorism, pornography, false reporting, terrorism... you get the picture.

In truth only the Chinese have any idea on how to control the 'Net.

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