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Will the U.S. Lose Control of the Internet?
MattSparkes writes "The first UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting is taking place next week in Athens, which aims to 'contribute to a better understanding of how the internet can be used to its full potential.' It is likely that several countries will object to the US monopoly on Internet governance, as they did at the last meeting, where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power. Other topics to be discussed include online security, access for non-English users and spam."
that several countries will whine and whine and whine about not having Internet infrastructure and intead of investing thier own resources in building out their own infrastructure will guilt and bludgeon the rest of the world into paying for it.
Will the U.S. lose control of the Internet? One can hope.
I don't know where this insane notion came from that the U.S. is capable of governing the Internet any better than the world community at large. In case you haven't been watching the news, we can barely govern ourselves right now.
The U.S. has a fine history of coming up with a really nifty idea and developing it to the point that it's useful, and then totally screwing it up to the point that someone else has to come in dominate the market in that particular field. Witness the auto industry. Or computer chip manufacturing. Or cell phones. Or videogames. Or more recently, programming.
Also, if I were another country, I'd be mad as hell that certain parts of my industry are completely and utterly under the control of another country. Witness what's been going on with Spamhaus. Also, check out how our own leaders react when someone like, oh I don't know, Sadam Hussein starts threatening to impact the availability of our oil resources.
So go ahead and mod me a troll or baiter of the flame if you have to, but it doesn't change that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world stands up to the big bad U.S. and says, "Enough." And frankly, speaking as an American, even I think that that's a good thing.
They already have control over their part of the net. It's not that the US has a lot to give up.
This is true. Each country can do what they want with thier piece of the infastructure. If you don't have it working, don't whine to us. Besides, there is nothing that the UN can do any better than we do already. They have no authority to enforce anything. All they can do is point fingers tell you your bad. They need to go back to food and medicine and stay out of enforcement. They keep trying but no authority.
If you want your culture destroyed, let the U.N. and French run it!
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
At any rate, the Internet in its current form is the place with the freest speech in all the world.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
THE ONLY reason to give power to others is so they can assert control over US-OWNED NETWORKS
Maybe, but right now the US is asserting control over everyone else's networks.
Here's a real-life example for you: I was sued in a US court for a part of my website. I am a German. I've been to the US once, 15 years ago. I've never been to that particular state. The website is hosted on a server that has never been outside Germany (except probably to be assembled in China). The domain is registered to me, on a german address. The registrar is german, as is the ISP. Until that day, I knew nobody in California.
Jurisdiction wasn't even checked. I learned that it was my job to challenge it - by paying a US lawyer to appear in a US court to tell them "erm, did you notice that Germany happens to not be a county of California?".
No. Wake up, fool! This is not about anyone else wanting to control US networks, it's about getting the fucking US out of our networks. If you morons were to accept that there is an Internet outside the US, we wouldn't want to desperately get you to give up control.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The situation you pointed out is a problem, but it has nothing to do with "who controls the Internet." It's a legal issue, one of many examples where the laws have not really caught up to the times. Let me slightly modify your example to show you how complicated it can get: Let's say Bob lives in Germany. His server is located in... oh, I don't know, the UK. Jill lives in the US.
Jill thinks Bob has (for example) libeled her on his website. Where was the crime committed? IE, which court is going to have jurisdiction? Germany, where Bob lives? The UK, where the material in question resides and where one could argue Bob "went" to transfer his material to the website? The US, where the person who is claiming a tort resides?
Imagine instead of the server being in the UK, it's in some country with extremely lax laws or even no laws at all regarding things like this. A free pass to do absolutely anything they want? Your example might not be fair, but neither is that.
The two most logical, workable choices would be either Germany or the US. In the US, we believe that our citizens should be able to petition the courts. The obvious problem with US jurisdiction in the case is that they are basically powerless to enforce their decision, unless Germany decides to help. German jurisdiction also makes sense, but it really is little better; it simply shifts the potentially heavy burden of the suit from Bob to Jill.
It has nothing to do with malice. Nothing to do with controlling the Internet. It's a simple case of different places having different laws, and nobody really knowing what to make of this new-fangled Internet-majig. I'm sure numerous /.ers will pour in with their immense legal wisdom (and of course a IANAL disclaimer), but contrary to their opinions, these really are not simple problems with simple solutions. These are issues of international politics and international law. If you think it's hard to get good decisions made within a country, boy, try lining 100 different countries up and asking them to agree on something.
And you never told us what happened with your case. Did you hire a lawyer and was the case dismissed afterward? Because if it was, it seems to me that the process worked alright.