Fergie's Tech Blog

Bush administration opposes U.N. Net control

Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh write in C|Net News:

In a sign that traditionally obscure discussions about Internet control have taken on new prominence, President Bush broached the topic in a meeting this week with European Commission President José Barroso.

The high-level meeting, which took place at the White House on Tuesday, comes as the United States is facing a revolt among third-world nations that are demanding reduced American influence over key aspects of the Internet. The European Commission recently threw its support behind one of the reform proposals that's scheduled to be discussed at a United Nations summit in November.

"Obviously we want to find common ground, we want a successful summit, but we're not giving away our principles in order to get there," U.S. Ambassador David Gross, the State Department's coordinator for information policy, said Thursday. Bush discussed the European Commission's stand with Barroso, Gross said without elaborating. The White House did not provide details.

At the heart of this international political spat is the unique influence that the U.S. federal government enjoys over Internet addresses and the master database of top-level domain names--a legacy of the network's governmental origins years ago. The Bush administration recently raised objections to the proposed addition of .xxx as a red-light district for pornographers, for instance, a veto power that no other government is able to wield.

posted by Fergie @ 10/20/2005 07:20:00 PM