UN Wants To Regulate Internet

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." "

Comments

Re:Oh my god

[MillionthMonkey]

Instead, I would like to challenge someone to explain how this could possibly be a good thing.

It could provide a mechanism for shutting down spam relays in China.

This quote disturbs me though:

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 I am not standing on your neck, do I not deserve credit for everything you do?

Re:No thanks, we are just fine w/o you.

[nihaopaul]

i am in china, i can visit most sites just not all, access speeds have slowed to a crawl, china telecom blames an increase in users, i doubt that, a drop from 30kbs on a single socket down to 1-2kbs, seems a bit ridiculas in just one year, hey i've still got next year to look forward to!

but its not just china, look at france and germany working with google to *help the end user* get the right search results. (previous slashdot artical)

my 2 jiao