Politech: United Nations wants a big piece of the Internet [fs][priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5179694.html

United Nations ponders Net's future
March 26, 2004
By Declan McCullagh

UNITED NATIONS--The United Nations wants a big piece of the Internet.

At a summit here this week, delegates from around the world gathered to 
take a preliminary step toward U.N. involvement in some of the areas 
that are bedeviling Internet users and governments alike, including 
spam, network security, privacy and the regulation of the technical 
underpinnings that control the sprawling global network.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan set the tone in a speech Thursday, 
criticizing the current system through which Internet standards are set 
and domain names are handled, a process currently dominated by the 
United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. Such structures "must be made 
accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people," Annan 
said.
On Friday, the summit will hear recommendations from five different U.N. 
working groups on topics including everything from domain names to root 
server operation to free speech and intellectual property to privacy.
Although the U.N. process is still in its early stages, the result could 
dramatically reshape the way the Internet is run and put an end to some 
of the informal, collaborative processes that exist today. The master 
"root servers" that serve up addresses for country codes and all other 
top-level domains, for instance, are operated in part by volunteers 
instead of through a U.N.-style apparatus.
Dozens of delegates from developing nations echoed Annan's remarks 
throughout the rest of the day, arguing that their governments do not 
have a voice in the way the Internet is operated and that more money and 
investment from richer nations is the only way to end the so-called 
digital divide. Khalid Saeed, the secretary of Pakistan's Ministry of 
Information Technology, said his country must "play an active role in 
all layers" of organizations that control the operation of the modern 
Internet.
[...]
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