Should the U.S. or the U.N. control the Internet? Opinion

[kisrum]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007543

Should the U.S. or the U.N. control the Internet? Here's a third way.

BY BRIAN M. CARNEY
Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

It's been a good ride, this whole Internet thing. To hear its boosters tell it, the Net has, in addition to the porn, online poker and cheap drugs, given us democratized information, become a tool for the undermining of totalitarian regimes and given people in the farthest corners of the Earth a window on the wider world that would have been unthinkable before Al Gore invented the Internet (sic).

But all that is about to change--starting tomorrow. The bad news is that we can't really do anything about it. The good news is that the changes that are coming probably won't bring about the end of the Information Age, but merely its evolution.

Before we get to that, you're probably wondering what in the world is going on--surely if the whole Internet thing had been called off, there would have been a press release, right? Well, there was, but you may not have noticed. Tomorrow, in Tunis, Tunisia, the U.N. is hosting the World Summit on the Information Society. One of the goals of the summit is to advance the "internationalization" of what is known as "Internet governance."

Since its inception, the Internet has been a pretty American affair. Many fundamental aspects of its architecture are controlled by a California-based nonprofit corporation known as Icann, short for Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. Icann was founded by the U.S. government and, many believe, is still controlled by it to some extent. For a lot of different reasons, that makes a lot of people mad. So, for several years now, the U.N., through events like tomorrow's summit, has been urging the U.S. to give control of Icann--or more precisely, of the root file that maps every Internet address and connects them to the names, like OpinionJournal.com, that we are all familiar with--to the U.N.'s wise stewardship.
The U.S. hates the idea, with good reason. An Internet "governed" by the U.N. could be expected to travel a familiar road. The countries with the greatest interest in regulating, limiting or controlling the Net would pull out the stops to put themselves on the governing board, and then use the U.N.'s imprimatur to justify the shackling of a once (more or less) free medium in the interests of cultural diversity, or "Asian values" or some other bromide.

That the Saudi Arabias, Chinas and Frances of the world would love to impose their own particular vision of what should and should not be available on the Internet should surprise no one. All the countries above have restricted or attempted to restrict Internet access. America, for its part, has engaged in aggressive enforcement against offshore gambling sites that are accessible from the U.S.

The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would do if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic; U.N. control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr. Gore might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of either the U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently exercises, or its critics, who would much prefer to do their censoring under a multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues its Internet brinkmanship, the third way will become not only likely, but inevitable.

That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The U.S. government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing.

Here's how it might work. At some point, China will grow tired of the U.S. refusal to give up control to the U.N., and it will secede from the status quo. It will set up its own root server, tweaked to allow access only to those sites the government deems nonthreatening, and simply order every Internet service provider in the country to use it instead of Icann's. The change will be seamless to most users, but China will have set up its own private Net, one answerable to the people's revolutionaries rather than to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Others may follow suit. Root servers could spring up in France, or Cuba, or Iran. In time, the Internet might look less like the Internet and more like, say, the phone system, where there is no "controlling legal authority" on the international level. More liberal-minded countries would probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow users to specify which server they wanted to query when typing in, say, Microsoft.com.

As a technical means of content control, going "split root," as they say in the business, is too compelling for governments not to give it a try. But the user experience would likely be much the same as it ever was most of the time. ISPs, as well as most vaguely democratic governments, would have an interest in ensuring broad interoperability, just as no one in Saudi Arabia or China has yet decided that dialing +1-202-456-1414--the White House switchboard number--from those countries should go somewhere else, like Moammar Gadhafi's house. Nothing stops phone companies from doing things like that, except that the market expects a certain consistency in how phone calls are directed, so it is in the interests of the operators to supply what the market expects. The same principle would apply in a split-root world.

Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the Net just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it would be far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own, without a U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to drop the apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start looking beyond the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is hard to do, but in this case, the alternative would be worse.

Mr. Carney is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

_____________

A year ago many casually dismissed the UN scenario. I think they could pull it off.

[lordsmurf]

Not broke, don't fix it.

Only reason to do it is "Icann was founded by the U.S. government ........that makes a lot of people mad".

Whiners.

Who cares who made it? An NPO controls it. That's good enough for me.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

but not good enough for everybody it would seem.

I will be quite angry if I can no longer access the visual wonders of Kelly Brooke performing her world-renowned talents, just because people of a different culture find them to be offensive and/or immoral.

Do not judge my by YOUR morals, as they are most assuredly different than mine.

In fact, do not judge me.

This thread will inevitably turn to either a political or religious discussion......

[kisrum]

This thread will inevitably turn to either a political or religious discussion......

I know, which is why I almost never post articles but the UN power grab was only a whisper a year ago and now, from here, it seems to be rocketing ahead.

Complicating the web will, like the complicating the tax code, lead to more opportunities for those who exploit the complications, and those who help catch the exploiters. How it serves the customers is beyond me.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

it doesn't!
the "customer" isn't even an issue here.

it's all about perceived control and censorship.

[Gurm42]

Let's see here.

The UN wants to control the Internet? I don't think so. Let's run down some of the countries that make up "The UN" shall we?

Australia:
In the land of Oz, you can be sued... in CRIMINAL COURT... for your opinion, if you are foolish enough to put that opinion on your web page. Let's say I have a web page that says that I think that homosexuality is an abomination and a sin. (Last time I checked, Bush's 55% of America felt this way!) In Australia, I could be sued, and potentially jailed for this. Yum! Wow, let's allow THOSE guys to run the Internet!

China:
Nobody ever posts anything bad about China on the Internet. At least not the Internet that Chinese people get to see. Do I even need to elaborate?

France:
France doesn't even let people who don't have an "approved" religious affiliation talk about their religion in public places, nevermind posting about it on the Internet! If the French are allowed to regulate the Internet, bye-bye religious websites that are other than Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. And frankly, given that much power they'll probably get rid of the Muslims and Jews pretty quick, too.

You want to give control of the greatest medium for the free exchange of information in the history of manking... to an organization that lets CHINA and LIBYA chair its "human rights" committee?

[Faustus]

Yeah its our trailer house, sorry. You guys are welcome aboard at all times. But don't try and hook the trailer up and haul it off when we ain't home.

[mrtristan]

The internet crosses international borders, so it would make sense to have a multi-national group to regulate it. Having said that, I don't really care.

[SatStorm]

In France it is also illegal to air non french music daytime on radio....
And in Greece all electronic games are illegal.
Stupid laws exist everywhere

I don't like the fact that U.S.A. controls the internet. Since the internet is international, the control must be something international.
If the United Nations had some kind of status or power, I would love to see them "control" the internet. But UN today is a nothing.

To tell you the truth, I don't see how the internet can be controlled "as is". And I don't believe they gonna find any way to control it.

[Sillyname]

Babylon is falling.

[AlecWest]

France:
France doesn't even let people who don't have an "approved" religious affiliation talk about their religion in public places, nevermind posting about it on the Internet! If the French are allowed to regulate the Internet, bye-bye religious websites that are other than Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. And frankly, given that much power they'll probably get rid of the Muslims and Jews pretty quick, too.

One thing I'd like to see (since there seem to be new TLDs concocted every now and then) is a ".GOD" suffix for religious domains ... and an international agreement to leave them alone if it's a bonafide religion.

You want to give control of the greatest medium for the free exchange of information in the history of manking... to an organization that lets CHINA and LIBYA chair its "human rights" committee?

Well (ahem), on Bush's recent trip to China, he reminded them of the human rights issue and mentioned "prison torture" as one of them. Not sure whether the Chinese brought up Abu Gharaib prison in Iraq or not (grin) but I thought it was odd Bush mentioned it given recent controversy surrounding U.S. treatment of enemy detainees. Oh well, that's as far as I want to go into that can of worms since it could get (shudder) political.

[Gurm42]

Well (ahem), on Bush's recent trip to China, he reminded them of the human rights issue and mentioned "prison torture" as one of them. Not sure whether the Chinese brought up Abu Gharaib prison in Iraq or not (grin) but I thought it was odd Bush mentioned it given recent controversy surrounding U.S. treatment of enemy detainees. Oh well, that's as far as I want to go into that can of worms since it could get (shudder) political.

Yeah horrible torture there. I'm not defending the actions of the jailers at Abu Gharaib, but honestly there's a difference between pissing on someone's Koran, or making them stand naked in a cold room... and cutting off body parts, or gangrapes, or... Seriously.

[thevoelk]

Since it was developed originally as a US DoD resource, I fell the US should, and always should, retain control of the Internet. But that attitude is only because I work for the DoD.

[Mister Flonk-Flonk]

but not good enough for everybody it would seem.

Well then. In that case, **** everybody.

[SatStorm]

@Gurm42: From what I learned from Muslims, they prefer to cut ALL there body parts than someone pissing at their Koran

Obviously, you know nothing about those matters...

This post is one step before lock....