US Internet Control To Be Topic #1 In Rio

Crazy Taco writes "It looks as though the next meeting of the UN's Internet Governance Forum is about to descend into another heated debate about US control of key Internet systems. Although the initial purpose of this year's summit was to cover such issues as spam, free speech and cheaper access, it appears that nations such as China, Iran, and Russia, among others, would rather discuss US control of the Internet. In meetings leading to up to the second annual meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janiero on Monday, these nations won the right to hold an opening-day panel devoted to 'critical Internet resources.' While a number of countries wanting to internationalize Internet control simply want to have more say over policies such as creating domain names in languages other than English, we can only speculate what additional motives might be driving nations that heavily censor the Internet and lock down the flow of information across it."

Comments

Re:It's all about censorship

[Robert1]

Exactly. No other country has a history of free-speech like the US, nor do they have it so prominently featured in their government, nor do they have a history of holding free-speech in very high regard. Yeah, the government may overtly monitor traffic (as I'm sure all governments do!) but that really has no basis for who controls the internet. Why in the hell would give the single most open tool for communication to regimes that are the defacto standards for censorship and oppression?

Seriously slashdot, why are you so stupid sometimes?

Re:Just wondering?

[HangingChad]

surprise surprise, that most people in the world would rather not have their packets routed through a police state.

Exactly. Who says this discussion is being driven by nations wanting to censor content? Maybe the rest of the world starting thinking about all the business sensitive information zipping through the US and doesn't trust America not to pass that information along to their buddies in big business or use it inappropriately. They've got every right to be skeptical of our behavior, motives and policies.

I'm just amazed at the people that apparently think we can act like complete dicks on the world stage and not expect the rest of the planet to push back. If any nation on earth deserves a big slice of humble pie, it's us.