EU says internet could fall apart (Guardian Unlimited Technology) [View All]

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http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,16559,1589967,00.html
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EU says internet could fall apart

· Developing countries demand share of control
· US says urge to censor underlies calls for reform

Richard Wray
Wednesday October 12, 2005
The Guardian

A battle has erupted over who governs the internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped create and other countries demanding more control.

The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart.

At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) under contract to the US department of commerce.

A meeting of officials in Geneva last month was meant to formulate a way of sharing internet governance which politicians could unveil at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. A European Union plan that goes a long way to meeting the demands of developing countries to make the governance more open collapsed in the face of US opposition.