ITU Meeting May Decide Governance of the Net

NickFitz writes "The Register has an article on the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, organised by the International Telecommunications Union. It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show, while developing nations would prefer control to be handed over to the ITU. As the second stage of the process isn't due until November 2005, it could be some time before we see any changes."

Comments

All Hail...

[j0keralpha]

The Great Emporer ICANN.

The real question is who would do a better job. ICANN has made some questionable decisions in the past regarding delegation of authority *cough* Netsol *Cough* Considering that whoever we get is going to be a largely bureaucratic body, what can the ITU give us that will make them a better solution? Bear in mind as well that handing control to the ITU could cost us in that ICANN has traditionally been a bit more... Anglo-centric in terms of policy.

Re:All Hail...

[eln]

The answer to "who can do better than ICANN?" is "it would be difficult for anyone to do any worse."

ICANN has managed to mismanage just about every aspect of the Internet, and has been too busy trying to keep itself in power and settle internal squabbles to worry about how their policies actually affect the modern Internet in the real, modern world.

I think it's high time a more international body took over what is, after all, an international network.

Re:All Hail...

[macshune]

I don't see developing countries doing a better job managing the infrastructure of the internet either from a technological or ideological point of view.

The nice thing about having the USA, UK, etc countries manage the internet is that we are more often than not held accountable and have a great degree of transparency in our decision making. Yeah, there are some problems with seemingly shady dealings with ICANN vis-a-vis other orgs/companies, but compare that with, say, China, a country that blocks a large part of the internet and jails dissenters.

In the end I'd be for a more global approach to the government of the internet. yeah, it's romantic and idealized, but it could happen. there would just have to be total transparency and no one should be allowed to mess with dns.

The unwashed hordes

[heironymouscoward]

The ICANN vs. ITU battle is a stage in the ongoing wars (fought with instruments other than bullets and knives for my fellow slashdottians who take everything uberliterally) between the rich states and the stateless masses.

The ICANN (or should this be called the "UCANT") represents the rich west controlling the Internet, the ITU represents what is laughingly called the "United Nations".

There is about much chance of the ITU taking over the nexus of the Internet as there is of the UN relocating to the Pentagon.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[WIAKywbfatw]

...the ITU represents what is laughingly called the "United Nations".

Funny how outside a certain country in North America, which got very upset twelve months ago when it found out that international opinion wasn't always going to be on its side, the United Nations is still well respected.

I find it the very height of hypocrisy that the US has been happy to veto otherwise unanimous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions condemning Israel for its heavy-handedness in the occupied territories but feels the need to shout it from the rooftops when the overwhelming majority of both bodies oppose a resolution that gives the US carte blanche to wage war.

Somehow, the US standing in the way of world opinion when it comes to Israel is called "diplomacy in action" but when world opinion doesn't tow the line and is heavily opposed to a US plan of action the United Nations is somehow "broken". Gee, nice double standards you've got there, pal.

The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done. Yet, somehow, that administration and the largely sycophantic US media continues to paint a picture of the UN being the one to blame. Flippant comments, such as the one made in the parent post, only serve to reinforce this absurd state of affairs.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[cheezedawg]

The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:

- The Korean War (and then only because the Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council vote). That war ended in a stalemate, and most of the issues behind the war are still unresolved today
- The Gulf War. The UN got off to a good start, but then showed its true colors over the following 12 years in its inability to enforce its own resolutions against Iraq.

The current US administrations, through its actions and words, has done more to harm the UN than any other country has ever done.

This is pure bullcrap. The UN killed itself. Any organization that can't even enforce its own resolutions is worthless. The United State's actions in Iraq this year have saved the UN from itself.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[bigpat]

"between the rich states and the stateless masses"

How exactly do you see the "stateless masses" working through the ITU?

Only states and corporations are represented in the ITU.

Re:The unwashed hordes

[Zeinfeld]

The United Nations is a worthless institution that has doomed itself to irrelevancy. In its entire history, the UN has acted in only 2 conflicts:

Right wing poppy-cock [in the original meaning of the word].

The security council is not the UN. Only fifteen members of the UN are on the security council and of those only five have significant power.

The UN has been involved in pretty much every conflict going on since it was founded. In particular you will find that almost without exception the UN has been involved in the peace negotiations in pretty much every case. The recent ending of the occupation of East Timor was entirely performed under UN direction.

As the French pointed out at the time, the UN does not have the military capability to stop the US invading Iraq. However having invaded the US is quite likely to end up regretting having done so and call on the UN to provide them with an exit strategy.

Since the start of the invasion more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first three years of Vietnam. The Iraqi resistance has steadily increased in its effectiveness. This might have been anticipated and planned for but it was not.

The bottom line is that the Administration called the UN irrelevant when their plans for post invasion Iraq were limited to the routes for the victory parades. Now that it is clear that the situation there is not "a cakewalk" cooperation and consultation with the international community does not look such a terrible idea.

Parallels to the UN?

[Slider451]

ICANN = Unilateralist, pre-emptive "improvements" to the Internet, whether you like them or not.

ITU = Lots of diplomatic talk barely concealing greedy power grabbers, in the end accomplishing little.

On a side note: What does Switzerland do for Internet access?

Re:Reliability is all we need.

[arivanov]

Well you should. Find anything by the ITU that is free. Even standards.

for those who don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain to me exactly what ICANN controls besides the policys on domain naming?

Everyone posting keeps talking about how they are doing a horrible job of controlling the internet, but I thought they only controlled DNS stuff and nothing else?

"Developing Nations"

[Le Marteau]

Whereas developing nations, China, India,...

Whaaa? How long is it going to take these nations to develop, anyway? I mean, they've only been civilizations for, um, how many millenium was it last time I checked.

My brothers, it's time to get off your backsides and get cracking! You snooze, you lose!

In my opinion

[suso]

Nobody asked me, but in my opinion and experience, non-technically oriented people have no business running the Internet and determining it's course.

Governance?

[RealProgrammer]

The Internet is supposed to be free. Free as in freedom free.

The model in microcosm is this: I have a cable modem and a wireless access point. You have a DSL and a wireless network, too. We agree to share the wireless network to route data on each other's landline. If one of our landlines is down, the other takes the load. If you get impolite with your usage of my network, I block your access, and vice versa. Each of us polices the Internet at our own router.

The power-hungry politicians and small-minded bean counters think my Internet needs "governance". They worry, "Someone will make a profit!" or "Someone will send spam!" or "Someone will have access to {information|music|software} without paying for it!" Someone will charge too much, or not enough, or not let people with green hair use their ftp site, or whatever. Or someone will go untaxed.

Hands off.

Good Point

[Orien]

You make a good point. We should definitely be aware of the underlying politics involved here, because it will have a big effect on how the internet is played out. One important thing to keep in mind is that when capitalist western countries like the USA are in charge of the internet (or have the biggest influence or what-have-you) the policy changes are most likely to be ones that are good decisions for business application, or will make someone some money somewhere. If the internet is controlled by third-world countries the decisions will lean toward crippling the bigger powers to boost their own 'net presence (of course they wouldn't word it that way, but it amounts to the same thing even if you use the words "fairness"). If the internet is controlled by a world organization such as the UN the internet will start to be shaped to answer the objections of the nations involved such as China who wants to guarantee censorship to it's citizens. Change needs to happen, and ICANN has defiantly made some bad decisions but my point is, let's not rush into a change just because we don't like what they have done. Another group could do FAR worse if we are not careful.

Re:"Developing nations"

[t0ny]

IMO, unless you are contributing to the technical base of people who are running the internet (America, Europe, Australia, etc), you really have no right to say how it is run.

Its like complaining about politics, but never voting. Every time you give the third a voice in how things are run, you end up with chaos- take just about any UN action as an example.

IMO, the third world should focus all their attention on the WTO, and forget the stupid shit like the UN and ICANN; the latter two are not really helping them any.

Bad decision to move it to an international medium

[TyrranzzX]

First of all, most of the internet's equipment is in america and europe, with an exception being made for china, japan, tiawan, and korea which also have substancial investment in the internet. So, letting some small country in africa dictate how the internet is run isn't a good idea, to start with. It can be looked at in a viewpoint of economic warfare; if Britan can get wal-mart.uk and register it to a britan based company instead of to wal-mart the international corperation, they could potentially make a lot of money importing.

After that, you've got problems with international corperations greasing the wheeles all over. The UN is even more corrupt than the US goverment. All the UN does is make "deals" (some of which involve bullying) between nations for resources as well as making it possible for GE to dump toxic waste in korea and if korea doesn't like that they can kiss the UN's sweet behind. This is why, as Jello Biafra says, the kidnapping rich people and corrupt goverment officials in mexico is what corperations like to call a growth industry.

So, if we move all the internets services to an even more corrupt govermental system with absolutely no responsability to a people but rather to goverments who want to supress people, what do you think will happen?

If china wants xyz banned internationally they can probably pull the strings to do that. If some "terrorist" group in the US puts leaked files on a website prooving conspiracy such as Diebold, what do you think the probability of them pulling the DNS registry would be? As long as the DNS stays under control of and protection by the biggest bully on the block it'll serve the needs of the biggest bully and so long as you don't fsck with it, the bully will leave you alone. It's a lot better than throwing it into the middle of a room with people ranging from weak babies to 500 pound strongmen and watching the freeforall.

Or better yet, what if they wanted to implement internet 2 so that stupid dinosaur people run the internet and not the smart people who do now (to put it in a blunt manner)? Hey, we don't like rantradio because it's a free, uncensored medium that's taking buisness away from RIAA affiliated companies so we're just going to take you off of DNS and fsck your internet connection.

I, as everyone else, would love to see the services ICANN trys to implement given real form and direction and be ruled by wise, progressive people instead of large international corperations and a goverment run amok as it does now.

I love assertions with no proof

[djeaux]

The Register proclaims:

"The people chosen to run ICANN in 1998 were those who knew more about the technology than anyone else - computer scientists. It was an apparently logical decision but tragically flawed. The characteristics that make a computer scientist are not those that make a good politician or decision-maker.

Now, I'd like to know exactly what characteristics that make a good computer scientist are incompatible with being a good decision-maker. Is the point here that governance is inherently the domain of the clueless?

The choice seems to be between computer scientists (ICANN) & telecommunications suits (ITU). Isn't ironic that the U.S. government is on the side of ICANN?

Information = sharing power and wealth!

[hughk]

One of the way that dictators (whether 'elected' or not) control their population is by limiting the access to information. I have seen places where the world price of sugar is a secret. Why, because government linked monopolies buy it from the farmers for a few dollars a ton then resell it on the international market.

In many cases they don't need access to the outside world, just the local market prices can be useful. Also, privatisation is great but unless people have a real idea of the value of the bits of the paper they receive, they are ready to be tricked out of them as happened in most of the former soviet union.

As users don't these nations also have a right to be part of the regulatory process?