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UN Wants To Regulate Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the this-will-work-out-swell dept.

LegendOfLink writes "News.com has good interview with the UN's ITU Director, Houlin Zhao, and his desire to regulate the internet. He says "One of the most important changes was the early stages, when the Internet started, when ICANN started in 1998. The purpose was to exclude governments (but that didn't work). People realize today that the governments worldwide have to play a role. People say the Internet flourished because of the absence of government control. I do not agree with this view. I argue that in any country, if the government opposed Internet service, how do you get Internet service? If there are any Internet governance structure changes in the future, I think government rules will be more important and more respected." "

3 of 735 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No, China wants to regulate the Internet... by amembleton · · Score: 4, Informative
    Only in the UN do the Sudan, Iran, and Syria have the same voting power as the UK, Canada, France, Australia, and the USA.

    No, US, UK, France, China and Russia are pernament members of the security council which gives them veto rights. If a resolution is to be passed, these five members must all agree to it otherwise it doesn't happen. This gives them a great deal of power.

    Wikipedia article on UN Security Council

  2. Re:Hey why not! by Ducon+Lajoie · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey... Your phone line works to call anywhere in the world (think about it for a second). Modems and faxes too. Same for leased data lines. The bird your satellite TV comes from does not talk over its neighbourgh. Deregulation and uniform interconnection rates make you life easier and cheaper. H.264 is pretty neat. Cut them some slack...

    ITu has a fairly good track record at making stuff work behind the scenes. It also has way more engineers in house than diplomats.

    There are many good things to question in this article but UN bashing, ITU bashing or WSIS bashing (for the few who seem to be able to tell the difference), or even China bashing, just wastes electrons.

    All of those who are so prompt to jump at power grabs by private compagnies over their beloved internet should think twice: maybe this level of oversight would reduce such interferences.

  3. Re:Careful! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    Oil-For-Food scandal that CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC all refuse to report on.

    I shouldn't reply to trolls, but what the hell:

    CNN
    MSNBC
    CBS
    ABC

    And, in the interests of impartiality:

    Fox News.

    Sorry, what was your point?