Truck and Barter: UN To Ghettoize the Internet

July 14, 2005

UN To Ghettoize the Internet

By Ian

As we've mentioned before here at T&B, the UN is frustrated at their lack of control over the functioning of the internet.

While the formal proposal from a U.N. working group will be released July 18, it's already clear what it will contain. A preliminary summary of governmental views claims there's a "convergence of views" supporting a new organization to oversee crucial Internet functions, most likely under the aegis of the United Nations or the International Telecommunications Union.
At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organization include Internet surveillance, "consumer protection," and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for "universal access."

Aside from the sheer horror I feel at giving the UN any ability to have even the remotest say whatsoever in "consumer protection", it drained the blood from my face to think that the UN could be in control of domain functionality.

If you consider, as I most often do, the UN in the form of a negotiating-cost-reduction system for what can be viewed as international lobbyists for a multitude of special interests, the potential to subject the internet to every political whim of 190+ nations is staggering. As the article mentions, China would have considerable weight in deciding how domains are structured and allocated. China's current attempts to filter the internet would be a cute side project in comparison to being able to fragment the system to the point where the only sites Chinese people could see were the ones on approve top-level-domains, awarded to those whose content has been approved by the ruling body.

The article linked to above likes the word "Balkanized", but I think the more appropriate term would have to be "ghettoized". The issue goes beyond subdivision, and into isolation. Balkanization would be problem enough, creating small fiefdoms through a fragmented root structure. The true potential (for places like China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, etc.) is complete separation from the rest of the world at the whim of the government.

Posted at July 14, 2005 01:59 PM

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