New moves to wrest internet from US

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" Zepp " <zepp

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:59:14 -0700

[Zepps_News] #New moves to wrest internet from US

 

 

 

 

 

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1812343,00.html

 

New moves to wrest internet from US

 

Richard Wray

Tuesday July 4, 2006

The Guardian

 

Phil Willis

Phil Willis. Photograph: PA

 

Efforts to remove the US government's historical stranglehold on the

internet will kick off again today.

 

Ministers, MPs and internet experts will attend a parliament reception

hosted by Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat MP and chair of the house of

commons science and technology select committee.

 

Emily Taylor - director of legal policy at Nominet, the .uk domain name

registry, and a member of the IGF advisory board - will attend the

event, which is aimed at starting the process of finding out what kind

of governance, if any, British internet users want.

 

Last November the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society

was hijacked as governments looking to control web content seized upon

the technology that powers the internet and the governance of the

California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names

and Numbers (Icann), which directs internet traffic.

 

Icann operates under a contract with the US department of commerce, a

situation that has made other countries suspicious even though the

American government has never directly interfered with its activities.

At the summit in Tunis several governments caused outrage among

" neterati " by suggesting individual states should have a greater role in

the running of the nuts and bolts of the internet.

 

The US government refused to give up its historic role, fearing that

increased bureaucratic and governmental meddling could disrupt a system

that connects more than 250,000 networks, which all use the same

technical standards to allow almost 30bn user sessions daily.

 

Deadlock was avoided with the creation of the Internet Governance Forum

(IGF), which will discuss and decide on the over-reaching issues of the

internet. Crucially, though, it will not have any oversight powers when

it comes to Icann, which remains under contract to the US government for

the time being.

 

The first meeting of the IGF is due to take place in Athens on October

30. Its agenda will be shaped by the 46-person IGF Advisory Board, made

up of representatives from government, the private sector and civil

society, including the academic and technical communities.

 

Its chair is Nitin Desai, UN secretary general Kofi Annan's special

adviser for the World Summit on the Information Society.

 

At a meeting in Geneva in May the board decided to look at four rather

vague areas: openness, security, diversity and access. Exactly what

these mean, however, involves another round of consultation, and this

process will be launched at today's event.

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking

about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order.

Nothing has

changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,

we're

talking about getting a court order before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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