[AfrICANN-discuss] ITU to control Internet?

[SM]

Hi Adamou,
At 01:49 09-08-2012, Adamou Nacer wrote:
>The US president signed an executive order on July 6 that autorizes 
>him to take control off all national medias, including Internet. I 
>didn't read the executive order myself, but my source (see [2] in 
>french) give some ideas on what can be operationnally an "Internet control":
>- control of ISP and content providers like google or facebook to name a few,
>- control of root servers (as far as I know, 3/4 of root servers are 
>hosted in US) and the master root server.

Thanks for the explanation.

>It means to push for "ITU to take Internet governance away from the 
>Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and 
>other organizations" and to change "International Telecommunication 
>Regulations" to regulate Internet instead of its "open, 
>consensus-based, multistakeholder model for standards setting and 
>Internet policy development" [3].

The press release from ISOC mentions that:

  "The Board noted that the success of the Internet has been driven by open,
   consensus-based standards processes embodied in organizations such as the
   Internet Engineering Task Force"

There is no mention of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
Numbers in it.  The only reference to names and numbers would be 
"Adversely impact Internet naming, numbering, and addressing".  The 
press release does not provide any further details.

>I don't agree with these new proposals. But Internet is US-centric 
>and I feel this is an issue of the same nature to what is propoed. 
>So I asked two questions:
>- is there an African common position on this discussion?

The countries from Africa which have sent comments about the ITRs are 
Egypt and Ivory Coast.  There has been some open discussion about the 
proposed changes in the European region.  I haven't seen any comments 
about an African common position.

Regards,
-sm