World wants control of Internet

October 26, 2005

Countries including Brazil and Iran want an international body to oversee the addressing system that guides traffic across the Internet, which is currently overseen by a California nonprofit body that answers to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The European Union withdrew its support of the current system last month, and the issue is expected to come to a head at a U.N. summit meeting in Tunisia in November.

The Bush administration has made clear that it intends to maintain control.

If a settlement is not reached, Internet users in different parts of the globe could potentially wind up at different Web sites when they type an address into their browsers.

In a perfect world, control of Internet address space should be under international control. For now, though, the present system of assigning Internet addresses should be maintained, because it works very well and has received little meddling from the U.S. Government. The United Nations has not demonstrated that they are able to provide even-handed oversight of much of anything.

Dave, saying hands off ICANN.

Posted by Dave | Filed Under Technology