Fergie's Tech Blog

EU outlines future net governance

Well, we can expect the whole nasty mess of Internet Governance to be a hot issue for the foreseeable future...

Kieren McCarthy in Geneva writes for The Register:

An oversight body of international governments will decide the top-level of the internet from now on, pulling it away from the US government and enshrining the revolutionary medium in international law.

That is the position taken by the EU, which is currently cutting a deal with other nations including Brazil, Canada and China, to end two weeks of argument at the PrepCom3 conference in Geneva.

The UK/EU representative, David Hendon told us that a new co-operative model would build on the existing ICANN organisation but that "its legal status has to change. It will need to be established under international law rather than US law".

"At the moment," he continued, "ICANN works to a contract from one government, and the governments advise it what to do. It's kind of strange for governments to be advising a public sector body and for that body to be doing things for the whole world under the instruction of one government."

That is not a criticism of the US' stewardship of the internet up to now, Hendon stressed, which has "done a good job", but "you can see for some countries it is impossible to leave their country's bit of the internet in the hands of a government where they quite often have disagreements."

posted by Fergie @ 9/30/2005 07:39:00 AM