UN Mulls Internet Regulation, Draws Criticism From Google, Others

Together with word this week that the Federal Communications Commission will be voting on net neutrality rules comes news that the United Nations is mulling new efforts that could shape Internet regulation.

"At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks," wrote IT News.

The UN has announced that a "Working Group on Internet Governance," made up solely of member states (governments), will consider changes to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a "forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on public policy related to Internet governance issues, such as the Internet's sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development."

The government-only makeup of the working group has attracted criticism from groups including Google, the International Chamber of Commerce, and The Internet Society.

"Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf, now Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, denounced the UN's working group in a blog post titled "Governments Shouldn't Have a Monopoly on Internet Governance."

"Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance. The current bottoms-up, open approach works--protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let's fight to keep it that way," Cerf wrote.

There were those at the UN who also expressed doubts that this was the best approach to taking on improvements to Internet governance.

"My concern is that if we were to make a move to form a governmental-only body then that would send a very strong signal to civil society that their valuable contribution was not required or was not being looked for," said an Australian representative at the UN's meeting to discuss regulation for the web on Wednesday, according to ITNews.

A resolution from the UN's Economic and Social Council called on the Secretary-General to "convene open and inclusive consultations involving all Member States and all other stakeholders with a view to assisting the process towards enhanced cooperation in order to enable Governments on an equal footing to carry out their roles and responsibilities in respect of international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet but not in respect of the day-to-day technical and operational matters that do not impact upon those issues, through a balanced participation of all stakeholders in their respective roles and responsibilities [...]." (pdf)

Comments

[Pandoras Folly]

08:26 AM on 12/20/2010

im not too worried name three resolutions the UN passed in the last 3 decades that had any real impact.

[RedRat]

10:19 PM on 12/19/2010

Well this is not entirely surprising or unexpected. Keep in mind that the majority of nations in the UN are not exactly open democracies, they tend toward the totalitarian. Even major nations have this secrecy streak, i.e., China, the U.S. (check the government's response to WikiLeaks), the UK (Official Secrets Act), and then include all the smaller nations. Frankly, I am surprised that this was not brought up earlier.

We must also keep in mind that we here in the U.S. have a unique view on Free Speech and Free press, etc. We come from another world compared to many nations. Also, the Internet grew up in a "wild west" atmosphere largely due to the fact that for many years government wasn't looking or understanding the Internet. That rapidly changed with the so-called "war on terror", where even our illustrious Vice-President has now called Assange a "terrorist", so begins the propaganda. The U.S. Government would love nothing better than to have complete control of the Internet, along with a majority of nations. Secrecy is a way of life for governments.

[Pandoras Folly]

08:21 AM on 12/20/2010

i would argue further that governments still don't fully understand what the internet is becoming and that any understanding they do have is a decade or more behind the times.

[RedRat]

02:26 PM on 12/20/2010

Quite on the contrary. I think many, many nations, particularly ours, fully understand that age old dictum "Knowledge is power". With so many data ports through which data is flowing nowadays (read that as information or knowledge) they truly fear the Internet. Why do you think that the our own government has become almost rabid against Assange. The last thing that any government actually wants is transparency, Obama notwithstanding.

How government does its internal business, be it budget or diplomacy or military, is like the proverbial sausage factory. Sometimes the product coming out looks and tastes OK, but you may not really want to see what exactly went into it.

[Afi Keita James]

02:52 PM on 12/19/2010

Another reason why want the UN out of the United states

they are front runners for One World Government.

[Genders]

03:11 PM on 12/19/2010

Who do you think is pushing this? The USA.

[Middle Blue]

02:16 PM on 12/19/2010

This is a fight about money, nothing more.

Besides, anyone happen to read up on Brazil's crazy control of the web in their country?

The US invented it, so we were stupid not to find a way to make a ton of money on it in the first place. So, maybe we should start figuring that out now, in addition to telling the UN that we're not going to fund them via the old formula any longer; let's cut it by, oh, 80% and let the countries which benefit directly from UN aid pay for it -- e.g. if activity in Africa costs X, the wealthy nations in Africa pay X plus 30% UN overhead for it. We pay zero.

[Ron Willison]

01:55 AM on 12/19/2010

Don't know about the rest of you but this worry's me big time. Think I'm gonna go download the LOIC file and install on all three of my computers. And then turn them over to those operation payback people.

[edejan]

02:46 AM on 12/19/2010

Please explain. I'm of the opinion it's time for and "underground" free internet to be created if that's at all possible since governments all over the globe as well as big corporations are salivating over taking of control of the internet.

[Middle Blue]

02:44 PM on 12/19/2010

Someone has to pay for the servers, routers etc -- Who should that be? Well, the consumers of the bandwidth. So, maybe we should send other nations a bill for the bandwidth they're burning in the US with their traffic? Why not?

[Pandoras Folly]

08:25 AM on 12/20/2010

yeah a pirate internet would be completely possible and easy to do at, at least for data files, text communiques, and small files. If you consider how much data sloshes back and forth it would be fairly easy to create low volume data network hiding behind and piggybacking on netflix, ipod, and WOW downloads.

[Middle Blue]

02:18 PM on 12/19/2010

These people just need to look like they're doing something, that's all. And they need a wedge issue with the US to get more cash from us in return for nothing. Pretty simple. No worries, they can't even convene their own meetings, much less tell nations what their policy should be. I think we should provide a blunt response: we'll talk about this issue right after China and Brazil take down their national firewalls. Boom. But, we won't, because we're so disgustingly weak on the world stage.

[cgin]

01:39 AM on 12/19/2010

Total control by any one entity, regardless of whether it's government or powerful vested interests, is the dreaded antithesis to the ideals of a free internet. Each need one another to keep the other honest.

[rotorhead1871]

11:40 PM on 12/18/2010

its coming....and so is fragmentation. Its just the beginning. the internet is like a brand new model T, about to undergo its first "upgrade'......MANY more to come.....regulations that is....your life is changing.....

[Middle Blue]

02:19 PM on 12/19/2010

You give government in the US too much credit -- with some exceptions, state and government employees work about 2 hours per day and even then they're uncaring with their duties, so there won't be change any direction.

[Dantee]

11:35 PM on 12/18/2010

Police State World-Wide? I don't think so! We Americans have a lot of influence, but we're rapidly running out of ready cash.

[jozzie]

11:10 PM on 12/18/2010

It is comforting to note that the U.N. is so inept it will never get around to doing anything like this.

[noob1]

08:51 PM on 12/18/2010

Did they already solve the world's problems that they are ready to "fix" the net? Slow down kids.

[Erkan Tarik]

08:41 PM on 12/18/2010

what do they want to do a global censorship?

[shekarm]

06:37 PM on 12/18/2010

Yeah right. The UN will do a good job of regulating internet like they do with loads of other things (world health, preventing genocide, land grabs, wars, poverty, famines, clean water, etc.). This is a thinly disguised way to curtail freedom of speech and dissemination of information.

May be these UN leaders should worry about their DNA and credit cards numbers being stolen.

[Afi Keita James]

02:53 PM on 12/19/2010

Since when the UN is a good organization, they are a disgraceful organization and sinister.

[gp Idaho]

06:33 PM on 12/18/2010

"The current bottoms-up, open approach works--protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let's fight to keep it that way," Cerf wrote.

You want to fix much of the economic and financial problems we Americans face? This is how you do it; by a bottom-ups approach and massively improve consumer rights. The right to freely, un-policed information is a start

[f0rTyLeGz]

06:07 PM on 12/18/2010

Can't we quit this silly waste of time and money?

[JasonJM]

06:04 PM on 12/18/2010

Just what we need is MORE regulation!