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US government favors government regulation and control of the Internet?
This is the part I don't understand.
"In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN, a private organization with international board members, to decide what goes on those lists. Commerce kept veto power, but indicated it would let go once ICANN met a number of conditions.
But earlier this year, the United States indicated Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether and when those conditions were met."
What possible use would the US government have for reserving such irrelevant unexercisable "control"? If they really don't want UN involvment then why are they so reluctant to remove residual symbolic US government involvment? I thought the current administration was really gung ho about removing government involvment in the private sector in as many ways as possible.
link to the following article from cnn
"In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN, a private organization with international board members, to decide what goes on those lists. Commerce kept veto power, but indicated it would let go once ICANN met a number of conditions.
But earlier this year, the United States indicated Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether and when those conditions were met."
What possible use would the US government have for reserving such irrelevant unexercisable "control"? If they really don't want UN involvment then why are they so reluctant to remove residual symbolic US government involvment? I thought the current administration was really gung ho about removing government involvment in the private sector in as many ways as possible.
link to the following article from cnn
U.S. insists on controlling Web
Friday, September 30, 2005; Posted: 4:51 a.m. EDT (08:51 GMT)
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The United States refuses to relinquish its role as the Internet's principal traffic policeman, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting for a U.N. body to take over, a top U.S. official said.
But while the United States stuck to its position, other negotiators said there was a growing sense that a compromise had to be reached and that no single country ought to be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global economy.
"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."
Speaking Thursday on the sidelines of the last preparatory meeting before November's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, Gross said that progress was being made on several issues, but not on the question of Internet governance.
The 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.
Internet governance historically has been the role of the United States, because it created the original system and funded much of its early development.
While this arrangement satisfies some, developing countries have been frustrated that Western countries that got onto the Internet first gobbled up most available addresses required for computers to connect, and left developing nations to share a limited supply.
One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.
"We think that that's inappropriate," Gross told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible (and) private-sector led."
The United States was "deeply disappointed," he said, with a proposal made Wednesday by the European Union, which seemed to shift the bloc's position in that direction, against well-established U.S. policy.
One negotiator said on condition of anonymity that only a handful of countries remained in the U.S. camp.
"We've been very, very clear throughout the process that there are certain things we can agree to and certain things we can't agree to," Gross said. "It's not a negotiating issue, this is a matter of national policy."
ICANN now controls the Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world interact with them everyday, likely without knowing it. Policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable.
Though the computers themselves -- 13 in all, known as "root" servers -- are in private hands, they contain government-approved lists of the 260 or so Internet suffixes, such as ".com."
In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN, a private organization with international board members, to decide what goes on those lists. Commerce kept veto power, but indicated it would let go once ICANN met a number of conditions.
But earlier this year, the United States indicated Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether and when those conditions were met.
A U.N. panel has outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance, ranging from keeping the current system intact to revamping it under new international agencies formed under the auspices of the U.N.
International forums for discussing Internet and information-related issues would be a possible compromise, so long as they were outside the realm of the U.N. and did not seek to serve as regulatory bodies, Gross said.
"It has to be done in an appropriate way, so that nobody thinks it is a backdoor approach to have intergovernmental regulation for something that ought not to be regulated," Gross said.
Friday, September 30, 2005; Posted: 4:51 a.m. EDT (08:51 GMT)
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The United States refuses to relinquish its role as the Internet's principal traffic policeman, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting for a U.N. body to take over, a top U.S. official said.
But while the United States stuck to its position, other negotiators said there was a growing sense that a compromise had to be reached and that no single country ought to be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global economy.
"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."
Speaking Thursday on the sidelines of the last preparatory meeting before November's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, Gross said that progress was being made on several issues, but not on the question of Internet governance.
The 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.
Internet governance historically has been the role of the United States, because it created the original system and funded much of its early development.
While this arrangement satisfies some, developing countries have been frustrated that Western countries that got onto the Internet first gobbled up most available addresses required for computers to connect, and left developing nations to share a limited supply.
One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations.
"We think that that's inappropriate," Gross told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible (and) private-sector led."
The United States was "deeply disappointed," he said, with a proposal made Wednesday by the European Union, which seemed to shift the bloc's position in that direction, against well-established U.S. policy.
One negotiator said on condition of anonymity that only a handful of countries remained in the U.S. camp.
"We've been very, very clear throughout the process that there are certain things we can agree to and certain things we can't agree to," Gross said. "It's not a negotiating issue, this is a matter of national policy."
ICANN now controls the Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world interact with them everyday, likely without knowing it. Policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable.
Though the computers themselves -- 13 in all, known as "root" servers -- are in private hands, they contain government-approved lists of the 260 or so Internet suffixes, such as ".com."
In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN, a private organization with international board members, to decide what goes on those lists. Commerce kept veto power, but indicated it would let go once ICANN met a number of conditions.
But earlier this year, the United States indicated Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether and when those conditions were met.
A U.N. panel has outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance, ranging from keeping the current system intact to revamping it under new international agencies formed under the auspices of the U.N.
International forums for discussing Internet and information-related issues would be a possible compromise, so long as they were outside the realm of the U.N. and did not seek to serve as regulatory bodies, Gross said.
"It has to be done in an appropriate way, so that nobody thinks it is a backdoor approach to have intergovernmental regulation for something that ought not to be regulated," Gross said.
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