U.N. Wants to Run Internet
By Callimachus | Related entries in Bad Decisions, In The News, TechnologyBruce Kesler has been banging the gong of warning about the bid by world bodies to place the Internet under international control.
Some sources I read on this topic say not to worry; that the Internet can’t be controlled on the level that is being negotiated now. But Kesler feels otherwise. He quotes Arch Puddington, director of research for Freedom House:
Some of the most shameful U.N. episodes – particularly regarding freedom issues – have occurred because the world’s democracies were outwitted by a coalition of the most repressive regimes – the very coalition that is taking shape over Internet control….It is no secret why Iran, China and Cuba are lobbying so desperately to replace ICANN [the central technical hub – in the U.S. – for maintaining a worldwide web]: The Internet has proven a potent weapon against state repression…. It nullifies totalitarian schemes to monopolize the airwaves.
Issues beside political repression seem to be involved:
At the heart of this international political spat is the unique influence that the U.S. federal government enjoys over Internet addresses and the master database of top-level domain names–a legacy of the Internet’s origins years ago. The Bush administration recently raised objections to the proposed addition of .xxx as a red-light district for pornographers, for instance, a veto power that no other government is able to wield.
During a series of meetings organized by the United Nations, ministers from dozens of other countries have raised objections and demanded more influence. Suggestions that have been made include new mandates for “consumer protection,” the power to levy taxes on domain names to pay for “universal access,” and folding ICANN into the International Telecommunications Union, a U.N. agency. As far back as 1999, U.N. agencies have mulled imposing taxes on Internet e-mail.
Here’s a report from an earlier skirmish in this battle. You’re likely to be hearing more about this in months to come. It’s probably not too soon to bone up and form an informed opinion.
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November 15th, 2005 at 7:00 am
This is a thoroughly stupid, non-technically relevant issue. The Internet is working just fine, and the US is thoroughly neutral in those small things which actually require any oversight.
The Internet was built with a distributed-systems architecture, and as such doesn’t rely on any one place, network, or service to funciton. The DNS root servers, which are in question here, are widely distributed around the world via “anycast,” and work just fine.
Nothing to see here other than blatant anti-americanism by the UN and its member dictatorships, move along…
November 15th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Also it’s been pointed out on other blogs that any attempt to internationalize the Internet will probably prove futile, because even if some of the root servers were to be placed outside of U.S. control there’d be almost nothing to prevent new root servers from being built in the U.S., or to prevent people in other countries from accessing those servers as easily as they do now. The internationalized servers would probably become dominated by those looking to avoid U.S. legal entanglements (terrorist Web sites, gambling and certain porno sites come to mind).
November 15th, 2005 at 10:00 am
David,
I agree that we should keep the Internet under US jurisdiction, if only because we have the greatest respect for free speech than any where in the world, and we would be less likely to restrict use and content. But where I have to say enough is to assume that because the UN is interested in taking control as “blatantly anti-american” is simplistic. There can be clear arguments that make sense for UN control, namely a universal justice that no one country should have dominion over a system that is available to the world. Now with that said, it is an American invention, and should other countries wish greater control over this invention, there is nothing stopping them from putting together their own internet and placing whatever controls and limitations they wish, but for the most part I agree that I do not want dictators or “unfree” nations like China having controls or even the slightest say in regards to the internet. However their interest is not Anti-American, it’s self-motivated to protect themselves and their ideas, however different they are from ours.
November 15th, 2005 at 11:15 am
If a country doesn’t like US control of the internet’s root servers, all they have to do is set up their own root server and require all their ISPs to use them instead of the US controlled ones. There are nice and fuzzy theoretical arguments for giving the UN control over the internet, but history and current events show that it wouldn’t be long before oppressive regimes like China or Cuba would be dictating the makeup of the internet.
November 15th, 2005 at 11:54 am
Surprises me that Bush objected to the .xxx domain - frankly I would have thought he’d have been thrilled, considering it would make it a lot easier to police websites with software to lock children out.
Of course that would be presuming we would eventually force ALL pornographic content into the .xxx domain, which would take a long time and lots of lawsuits…
November 15th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
Sure, hand it over to the UN. How long before we have a
Porn-for-Food scandal?
November 15th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
The thing that makes me most leery about this idea is the proponents that are pushing it. Iran, China, Cuba - obviously they have ulterior motives, they want to control it so they can censor it heavily.
Probably now they’re having problems because “unwelcome” websites spring up with weeds, and hacker types most likely find ways around their national firewalls. They want to redesign it so that they alone control the vertical and the horizontal…the Inter Limits.