<h1><span style="">U.N. Delegates
Debate Control Of Internet</span></h1>
<p class="byline"><a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/12/17/132144972/U-N-Delegates-Debate-Control-Of-Internet?sc=tw&cc=share">http://www.npr.org/2010/12/17/132144972/U-N-Delegates-Debate-Control-Of-Internet?sc=tw&cc=share</a></p>
<p class="byline">by <a href="http://www.npr.org/people/2100536/tom-gjelten">Tom
Gjelten</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">December
17, 2010 </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Among the
little-noticed debates at the United Nations this week was one that focuses on
a potentially explosive issue: the future of the Internet. On one side are
those countries favoring more governmental controls. On the other are the
advocates of Internet freedom.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The debate has
its roots in the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a
U.N.-organized conference that addressed the "digital divide" between
countries over their relative access to the Internet. One result of the
conference was a mandate that the U.N. should explore ways to internationalize
the governance of the Internet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For all its
power and worldwide reach, the Internet is still largely an unregulated space.
But many governments, especially in the developing world, argue that it's time
to strengthen international oversight, with intergovernmental bodies such as
the United Nations taking a lead role.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">At issue is the
extent to which private industry, civil society groups, and other
nongovernmental actors should continue to play significant roles in the
management of the Internet. At this week's hearing, organized by U.N.
Department of Social and Economic Affairs, some countries, including China,
favored limiting the oversight role to governmental and intergovernmental
bodies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"The
governments are located in the center of this process," argued Tang Zicai,
representing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in Beijing.
"This process cannot be accomplished without the meaningful participation
of the governments."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The current
organization of the Internet, however, leaves little room for government
control, and many civil society groups say it should stay that way.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"The
Internet is a network of networks working cooperatively together, designed to
operate without centralized control or governance mechanisms," argued the
Internet Society, a nonprofit international organization focusing on Internet
standards, education, and policy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In a statement
prepared for the United Nations debate, the organization said the
"intelligence" of the Internet is "predominantly at the edges,
with the users. ... This model has proven to be flexible, adaptable and
responsive to users' needs, and is itself the source of the tremendous
innovation the Internet has created."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But support for
increased government regulation of the Internet is growing, especially among
the developing countries who constitute a majority in the United Nations
General Assembly. Several were outspoken in presentations this week at the U.N.
hearing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"Developments
have not been supportive of increasing the leverage of developing countries in
policy issues pertaining to the Internet," said Mohammed Hussain Nejad,
representing the government of Iran. "The few developed countries are
either monopolizing policymaking on such issues or entering into exclusive
treaties among themselves, while further marginalizing other countries, mainly
developing ones," he said.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For those
governments who simply favor more control over the Internet and for those who
want to see the network reformed for the benefit of less powerful countries,
there is one obvious solution: the United Nations should take more
responsibility. Among those backing such a move are Brazil, India, Saudi
Arabia, and other emerging powers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On the other
side, in addition to civil society groups, are the United States and its
western allies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"The worst
case scenario would be the imposition of U.N. types of governance over the
Internet," says Philip Verveer, the Coordinator of International
Communication and Information Policy at the US State Department. "[It
would] inevitably bring with it tremendous slowness in terms of reaching
critical decisions, because you can't have decisions taken among nations on
anything that won't take a very long time. It would potentially [slow] changes in
the architecture of the Internet, the adoption of technology, or the commercial
arrangements that surround interconnection."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Of additional
concern to U.N. critics is the prospect of governments pushing for new
international rules to limit the political impact of the Internet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"[These
governments] don't like the idea of the free flow of information," Verveer
says, "and intergovernmental controls would be a way of controlling the
content that passes over the Internet by requiring, by treaty if you will, other
administrations to cooperate in terms of suppressing speech that they didn't
like."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The government
of Mauritania, in its contribution to the U.N. debate, proposed that
"international policy in the field of Internet should urge each country to
ensure control of Internet content" in order to block the dissemination of
any information "not authorized by law and morality" in some other
country.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Such views,
however, may reflect some naivete. The WikiLeaks episode showed how hard it can
be to keep content off the Internet. Upset as it was by the disclosure of state
secrets, the US government had no real way to keep users from finding the
WikiLeaks material.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Indeed, more
broadly, the U.N. debate over the future of the Internet shows that governments
are still figuring out which Internet policies make sense and which don't.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">"We're
getting an opportunity for governments to ask dumb questions," says
Gregory Francis, managing director of Access Partnership, a London-based
lobbying firm that follows global Internet regulation issues. "If
Mauritania asks Russia or France, 'Is this possible?' and the governments of
those countries reply, 'No, it ain't,' they'll probably pipe down and go
away."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But the debate
over the Internet's future promises only to grow. Diplomats are already
preparing for a World Conference on International Telecommunications, due to be
held in 2012 in Malaysia.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>