Saturday, July 16, 2005
U.N. Plans How to Take Control of the Internet
A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate.
The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops.
In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information Society" summit.
One option would largely keep the current system intact, with a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, continuing to handle basic policies over Internet addresses.
At the other end, ICANN would be revamped and new international agencies formed under the auspices of the United Nations.
"In the end it will be up to governments, if at all, to decide if there will be any change," said Markus Kummer, executive director of the U.N. Working Group on Internet Governance, which issued the report.
The 40 members of the panel hailed from around the world and included representatives from business, academia and government.
World leaders who convened in December 2003 for the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva couldn't agree on a structure for Internet governance.
Some countries were satisfied with the current arrangement, while others, particularly developing ones, wanted to wrest control from ICANN and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.
Though the group could not agree on a single model, it does recommend the creation of a new global forum for governments, industry and others to discuss key issues such as spam and cybercrime - areas not currently handled by ICANN.
The panel recommended a larger international role for "governance arrangements," Kummer said, and participants felt no one country should dominate.
He stressed the sentiment dates back to the Geneva summit and was not meant as an attack on the United States or a direct response to the U.S. Department of Commerce statement two weeks ago that it intends to keep ultimate authority for authorizing changes to the list of Internet suffixes, such as ".com."
The United States historically has played that role because it funded much of the Internet's early development.
"The group as a whole recognizes that it is clear the U.S. has played a beneficial role," Kummer said.
ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey said the report confirmed his organization's role.
"If the Internet was a postal system, what we ensure is that the addresses on the letters work," he said. "We don't think we're a regulator. We think we're a technical co-ordinator."
Others have expressed concerns that ICANN remains too close to the U.S. government, which gave ICANN its authority in 1998 but retains veto power.
Developing countries have been frustrated that Western countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations to share a limited supply.
And some countries want faster approval of domain names in non-English characters - China even threatened a few years ago to split the Internet in two and set up its own naming system for Chinese.
A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate.
The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops.
In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information Society" summit.
One option would largely keep the current system intact, with a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, continuing to handle basic policies over Internet addresses.
At the other end, ICANN would be revamped and new international agencies formed under the auspices of the United Nations.
"In the end it will be up to governments, if at all, to decide if there will be any change," said Markus Kummer, executive director of the U.N. Working Group on Internet Governance, which issued the report.
The 40 members of the panel hailed from around the world and included representatives from business, academia and government.
World leaders who convened in December 2003 for the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva couldn't agree on a structure for Internet governance.
Some countries were satisfied with the current arrangement, while others, particularly developing ones, wanted to wrest control from ICANN and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.
Though the group could not agree on a single model, it does recommend the creation of a new global forum for governments, industry and others to discuss key issues such as spam and cybercrime - areas not currently handled by ICANN.
The panel recommended a larger international role for "governance arrangements," Kummer said, and participants felt no one country should dominate.
He stressed the sentiment dates back to the Geneva summit and was not meant as an attack on the United States or a direct response to the U.S. Department of Commerce statement two weeks ago that it intends to keep ultimate authority for authorizing changes to the list of Internet suffixes, such as ".com."
The United States historically has played that role because it funded much of the Internet's early development.
"The group as a whole recognizes that it is clear the U.S. has played a beneficial role," Kummer said.
ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey said the report confirmed his organization's role.
"If the Internet was a postal system, what we ensure is that the addresses on the letters work," he said. "We don't think we're a regulator. We think we're a technical co-ordinator."
Others have expressed concerns that ICANN remains too close to the U.S. government, which gave ICANN its authority in 1998 but retains veto power.
Developing countries have been frustrated that Western countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving developing nations to share a limited supply.
And some countries want faster approval of domain names in non-English characters - China even threatened a few years ago to split the Internet in two and set up its own naming system for Chinese.
