Russia and China Withdraw Bid For Internet Control

judgecorp writes "Russia, China and other nations have withdrawn proposals to take control over the Internet within their borders. The proposals, handed to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) on Friday, caused widespread dismay and protest. The WCIT event in Dubai, run by the UN agency ITU, is working on new International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) which are due for their first revision since the emergence of the mass Internet. The line-up of nations wanting to formalize their power to restrict the Internet included Russia, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt. Their proposal has been withdrawn without explanation, an ITU spokesperson confirmed."

Comments

Close shave

[Twinbee]

It'll be a very long time before world peace is achieved, but this news may have potentially cut that time by decades or even centuries.

Language, currency and cultures often divide us, but the internet is one of the things unified in this world. Long may it stay that way.

Re:Close shave

[JoshuaZ]

Language, currency and cultures often divide us, but the internet is one of the things unified in this world.

Unfortunately, the internet in many ways divides us. It used to be that people needed to be geographically proximate to form in-groups that were culturally distinct and had distinct ideologies. Now, people can easily form groups with people from very far away, and then only focus their information sources and ideologically affiliated sources. Thus, you can get conservatives who only read right-wing websites, and similarly for liberals, or anarchists, or monarchist, etc. It is likely that the internet can easily increase division for issues of ideology and religion. And if there's one thing the last few hundred years of history have taught us, it is that people are willing to kill over abstract ideals even when they share culture, currency and language.

Re:Withdrawn without explanation

[mwvdlee]

Do they really have to ask, as long as it's within their borders?
If they wish to break the internet within their own borders, who will be able to stop them?

Summary is biased

[Dan East]

This summary is slanted and biased: "proposals to take control over the Internet within their borders". The text "within their borders" has been added by the submitter - the word "border" isn't even in the document that text links to.

Countries already have control over the internet "within their borders", just like they have control over everything else within their borders. They were seeking control *outside* their borders, to force outside companies to have to pay them to deliver content. What these countries are wanting (among other things) is the ability to force content producers, like Google's YouTube, to have to pay their ISPs in order to be able to deliver content at a "quality" level to their citizens.

In other words, there are countries that want the US to have to pay them so their population can consume content created by the US. If Google deems it wise to invest in a country's infrastructure so that more people in that country can (for example) watch YouTube videos at a certain level of quality, then that's Google's prerogative. They shouldn't be forced.