U.N. Sets Aside Debate Over Control of Internet

Washington Post ^ | December 9, 2003 | David McGuire

[jalisco555]

United Nations member states this weekend headed off a showdown over who should control the Internet, agreeing to study the issue and reopen it in 2005.

In a last-minute meeting before the start of this week's World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, representatives set aside a brewing debate over whether national governments, rather than private-sector groups, should be in charge of managing and governing the Internet around the globe.

UN member states instead will ask Secretary General Kofi Annan to put together a panel of experts from government, industry and the public to study the issue and draft policy recommendations before the high-tech summit reconvenes in Tunisia in 2005.

[jalisco555]

The lights were turned on and the cockroaches went scurrying away. We need to remain vigilant, though, because this fight is far from won. The EU and the dictators do not want the Internet to remain free.

[aynrandfreak]

agreeing to study the issue and reopen it in 2005

Translation: we know we can make any of the democrat candidates give us control over the internet if they become President in 2005.

[Orangedog]

Looks like they decided that this would be about as successful as the cat-hearding operation or their initiative to bottle blue sky and sunshine.

[Reactionary]

Oh, they'll be back. The insufferable Stalinist UN never sleeps.

[antiRepublicrat]

I prefer private-sector control, of course. But I do think that the common people need a voice through, although not through government. Total private sector control by big companies would be as dangerous to freedom of speech and free structure of the Internet as total government control. Just look at a guy named Uzi Nissan who had his site shut down by a car company of the same name. The little guys just don't have the money to fight for their rights against the big guys.

[WOSG]

The fight is never over as long as Socialist live in these institutions of power.

Cockroaches? More like Termites gnawing at the foundations of liberty.

[af_vet_rr]

I prefer private-sector control, of course. But I do think that the common people need a voice through, although not through government.

You might find this article at TechNewsWorld interesting :

Paul Twomey, the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, found out what it feels like to be voiceless. On Friday night, Twomey, who flew 20 hours to Geneva from a meeting in Vietnam to take part in a preparatory session for this week's United Nations summit meeting on Internet issues, was escorted to the exit of the meeting room by guards after participants suddenly decided to exclude observers.

The move underscores the wrath of countries that for years have been unhappy with what they perceive as their voicelessness over how the Internet is run and over U.S. ownership of key Internet resources. It also foretells the level of criticism that both the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation, or ICANN, may face at the UN meeting, one of the largest gatherings ever of high-level government officials, business leaders and nonprofit organizations to discuss the Internet's future.

The head of ICANN said this :

At ICANN, anybody can attend meetings, appeal decisions or go to ombudsmen, and here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats most of whom know little about the technical aspects are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet. I am not amused.

[antiRepublicrat]

I just posted a thread about that. Sick, itsn't it.