Plans for global management of the internet are a threat to its future
Monday, October 17th, 2005
“…although America’s exercise of power in the bricks-and-mortar world may not always have been flawless, its oversight of the internet, which it invented…has been remarkably benign. That’s probably partly because politics has been kept out of it. The longer it stays that way, the better.”
“Yet because the system runs under American auspices, other countries are unhappy with this arrangement. Many of those who want to relieve America of its control think ICANN’s job should be taken over by a United Nations agency. To anybody who has spent much time observing the UN at work, this sounds like a poor idea. (emhphasis added)
This next point is one I’ve made a number of times:
“It is also no accident that many of the countries loudest in their demands for the internet to be taken out of American hands are those, such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that are keenest on restricting its use by their own citizens.”
Can you imagine if China’s goverment had a say in how the internet was run? We’re talking about the government that redirected traffic to Google to pro-government search engines, and regularly blocks web sites critical of the government.
Related posts:
[...] they going to be put in charge of running this thing?” For more on this issue, see: Plans for global management of the inter [...]