The EU wants some control:
The European Union insisted Friday that governments and the private sector must share the responsibility of overseeing the Internet, setting the stage for a showdown with the United States on the future of Internet governance.
A senior U.S. official reiterated Thursday that the country wants to remain the Internet’s ultimate authority, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting in Geneva for a U.N. body to take over.
EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said a new cooperation model was important “because the Internet is a global resource.”
“The EU … is very firm on this position,” he added.
The Geneva talks were the last preparatory meeting before November’s World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.
A stalemate over who should serve as the principal traffic cops for Internet routing and addressing could derail the summit, which aims to ensure a fair sharing of the Internet for the benefit of the whole world.
At issue is who would have ultimate authority over the Internet’s master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic.
That role has historically gone to the United States, which created the Internet as a Pentagon project and funded much of its early development. The U.S. Commerce Department has delegated much of that responsibility to a U.S.-based private organization with international board members, but Commerce ultimately retains veto power.
If someone has an article that discusses the real-world implications (other than the free speech issues), please forward it to me.
Mike
My feeling is: Tough.
The Internet was set-up and funded by the US, so now all of a sudden the EU says: “Well thanks America for doing all the heavy lifting, but you know this whole Internet thingy is pretty cool, so we’d like our share now”.
Screw ’em.
Clever
quickie, from here: news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20050930&ID=5152282
As the internet makes more inroads to business and daily life, it becomes of interest to any nations stability/security as to how it is run. At the moment it is mainly benevolent “big brother” US running the show, something which doesn’t sit well with some nations in the world.
for more info: news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=internet+governance&btnG=Search+New…
And as always: Slashdot article
Shygetz
I guess I’m a little unclear as to what “overseeing the Internet” means. Do they want to police the content, or what?
Clever
Its the tech end. But with control of the tech, control of the content is not much of a leap.
Src: businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8CTVNH00.htm?campaign_id=apn_tech_down&chan=tc
Tony Alva
“That role has historically gone to the United States, which created the Internet as a Pentagon project and funded much of its early development.”
I guess that was when Al Gore was assigned to the Pentagon.
Boombo
Get your own internet! This one’s ours!
jobiuspublius
What Clever said. Think carnivor. He who controls the master directories sees all traffic.
jobiuspublius
I imagine there is also a business angle to this. Protocols lead to patents and all that.
Off Colfax
Saw this one in the beginning of August, John. And here’s the two articles I linked to.
First, the Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance, part of the United Nations Secretariat. Basically, it calls for ICANN to turn into an official UN body rather than being part and parcel of the US due to the international significance of the Internet.
All rights and privileges guaranteed by any international treaty or agreement are to be preserved and enshrined under this plan.
And this here is Senator Coleman’s response to the plan. And in a nutshell, he’s not best pleased with the WGIG proposal, saying approximately what Boombo said a little bit up the page from here.
Take it as you will.
KB
“Get your own internet! This one’s ours!”
Well that could end up being the problem.
Now that North America has less that 25% of internet users, what if other countries or areas decide to set up their own authorities for this ? You could indeed end up with more than one internet.
scs
KB- what would be so bad with more than one internet? Could they make it so that you could choose which one you wanted to go on and be able to switch back and forth? That might be okay.
KB
“Could they make it so that you could choose which one you wanted to go on and be able to switch back and forth?”
Nope, you’d be dependent on which authority was handling the addressing directories for your ISP. There could be several http://www.balloon-juice.com‘s and which one you could access would be dependent on where you were.
The big internet outfits like google or the BBC would probably secure the same addresses in each authority , smaller outfits would probably be screwed.
Think telephone nos. Dialling 555 9999 will get you one phone in one city/country and a different phone in another city/country.
At the moment on the internet 555 9999 will get you a single site. In future it would depend on where you were.
tBone
Bad idea. The Internet works as well as it does because it has a unified global addressing system. Multiple independent addressing systems would destroy the “world wide” part of www.
jobiuspublius
More than one internet means pretty much the same problem as more than one operating system. They could make it so you can switch around the various internets(hehe). That would mean more hassles for your isp and you. Imagine having to get various pieces of hardware and software to handle all the different internets. It’s a recipe for chaos.
waddayaknow
I believe the real issue here, for the less technically inclined, is to maintain control over the “root” domain servers for the internet. These servers maintain the definitive listings of all .com, .net, .org, etc. domains and the IP addresses that are assigned to those domains. The root servers are the most ‘at risk’ portion of the internet and are heavily protected (secured) to resist being hacked or hijacked and having the records molested or changed by a hostile third party. As the internet continues to be an extension of the US defense strategy and was created and is currently in place to provide a communications system that cannot be brought down by single, multiple, or random attacks on the system, IMHO, it must remain under the full control of the US. Anything less will allow access to hostile elements that could corrupt or negate the system. Let the rest of the world enjoy the fruits of our labors and keep their hands off the hardware.
Sherard
Let me just say that the US basically got this exactly right. And by saying that I mean they turned it over to a private enterprise that isn’t subject to the inneficiency, corruption, and failure of a government agency.
Does ANYONE, ANYWHERE think now turning it over to some UN body is a good idea ?
Yeah, thought so. The UN would be even money to accidentally trade the internet for some hookers and oil money. Whoops!
tBone
Too late – several of the root servers are already under foreign control. The U.S. controls the DNS “root zone,” not the hardware itself.
scs
Then you put a country code and an area code in front of the phone number to get the person you want. I bet in the future the internet will be the same way as well, as Europe and China and others may start their own system. Instead of a “WWW” you can type “EUW” or “ASW” in front of the address. The trick is to invent a way to switch from one system to the next- maybe standardize some code, protocol etc. Maybe that will be a new tech thing.
John Anderson
scs, that is a point I was going to mention – because it already exists! E.g. Amazon.com vs Amazon.com.uk vs Amazon.com.au vs Amazon.com.ca… Or go to news.google and look at the bottom of the page.
Heck, the island/nation of Tuvalu has its own suffix – which, being “.TV”, was popular for a while.
I’m more worried about the restrictions other countries might vote to impose. EBay and Yahoo, at the very least, had to jump through hoops to avoid criminal charges for displaying stuff with a swastika. Do not carry a copy of Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich with the US bookjacket when you visit Europe – it wil land you in jail!
Retief
If ICANN wasn’t so dysfunctional this wouldn’t be such an issue. Whether this is the solution or not is another question, of course.
Check auerbach’s site Or just google auerbach and ICANN. Or, for that matter, ICANN and dysfunctional.