IP Democracy: EU Countries Propose International Control of Internet

Princeton Professor Ed Felten has an interesting piece about a tussle going on between the EU and the U.S. over control of the Internet. European countries surprised the U.S. last Wednesday by suggesting that an international body, and not the U.S., have control over certain Internet functions.

Right now, the U.S. Commerce Department approves changes to the Internet’s “root zone files,” which are adminstered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a nonprofit organization based in Marina del Rey, California. Although this responsibility primarily governs naming, the EU countries cite it is an example of why a new body is needed to “set principles for running the Internet,” a much broader goal.

Felten fears that if the U.S. disagrees with the internationalization of the Internet, a split could emerge between ICANN and a newly formed body he calls UNCANN. Such a split could force two different classes of names, with the potential for neither set of names to work with the others.

But the bigger concern is the seeming anti-American sentiment driving the EU countries (no real big surprise). As Felten points out, this is a very reasonable concern, given the sentiment expressed in a Register editorial. Here’s an excerpt from that editorial:

America is a nation with an insular majority that is easily hijacked by minorities or companies with cash to buy politicians. Currently the religious right in the US has a scary amount of power. They are even trying to kick teaching evolution out of schools because they don’t think the Bible approves of it. This would be OK if they only tortured the people who voted for them. But with control of the Internet these groups can leverage the US government to spread their loony message throughout the world. We have already seen how 30 or so letters from a single right wing Christian group to a US government agency has stopped the .xxx domain dead in its tracks. The question is, why should people in Europe have to accept moral standards imposed on them by the US which seems to get its knickers in a twist about wardrobe failures of stars during football matches.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 1, 2005 10:16 PM to IP Democracy