Time to change control (of the internet)

[Briar]

Time to change control

Guardian Leader

Who should run the internet? Until recently it was an academic question. After all, the United States - thanks to public money and (later on) private entrepreneurialism - had been the midwife of the net in the 1960s and had assumed de facto maternal control. But this divine right is now being challenged. Last week the EU proposed new global institutions, possibly under UN control, to replace existing organisations such as Icann which controls the issuing of domain names such as ".com" and the "root servers" critical for the working of the net's infrastructure. This is to be decided at next month's UN world summit in Tunis on the information society, where the US is likely to be in a tiny minority against the rest of he world.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1589098,00.html

[rogerashton]

1. But the major purpose of this change seems to be

to establish state control of the internet to eliminate dissident sites like this one.

[beingthere]

2. extremely scary

[tavalon]

3. And if it stays in American hands

That won't happen!..................RIGHT!.............right?..........uh, right???

We need a way to keep it out from under as many hands as possible otherwise we will go away like a bad dream. Yeah, I remember something about some site named after depleted uranium. No, it wasn't really named after that but it's nickname was DU and well,...........................................................Yeah,
whatever happened to that site anyway?

[rogerashton]

5. Has anybody proposed

a shift in control that would NOT move in an authoritarian direction?

Not to the best of my knowledge.

Nor is there, to my knowledge, a proposal NOW under consideration that would both keep in "in American hands" and move it in authoritarian directions. Not to say that won't happen in the future, but fighting a hypothetical next battle now is a good way to lose the war.

I think the Economist got that one right, this week; but unfortunately the column is "premium content," so not much point in a link.

[bemildred]

4. Nobody runs the internet.

It "runs" itself. That's what they don't like.
Why, this sort of thing could lead to societies without governments.
No big shots. No way to become a big shot.
Now that is scary for a big shot to think about.

[Raster]

6. a subset of the UN should take over control of the Net. The Net is an

International resource now, just about every country depends on its infrastructure. No one country or ideology should be the keeper of the flame.