Here's an interesting article.
In the run-up to the UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, a coalition of developed and developing countries attacked the US's unilateral control of the internet's domain name system.
They proposed the establishment of a multinational council to supervise the net.
In response, the US has focused on the need to provide stability for the internet.
But the US position undermines the very stability it has pledged to protect. It should internationalise governance of the internet, but in a way that avoids intrusive, centralised control. Click the link for more and comment on what you guys think.
I can't say I'm all that well informed on this issue, but these arguments have been around for awhile..
ReplyDeleteI'm perfectly unconvinced by the "need" to internationalize this.. if you read this article closely, there are lots of "shoulds" and "potentiallys" followed by "needs" and "requires." What it doesn't have is concrete examples of Why and How. How would it be better if weren't under "unilateral" US control? Why is it so bad now?
Oh yeah, and don't forget, Al Gore invented the Internet, that's gotta be worth something.
I guess I fail to see the real social impacts, because we're talking about such technical stuff. It's not like whoever decides how a domain name is stored or a packet of data is transfered from node to node has control over the actual content on the net. I'm sure over time more and more of this "power" will be internationalized... but again I don't see regular people / users complaing about this, perhaps because I'm in the states... WE'RE #1... USA, USA, USA!! (Is it possible to start a USA chant via text?)
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