UN Faces Resistance in Calls for Regulation of Internet
Google Slams Government Monopoly on Governance
The United Nations is facing a growing call from a number of nations, including such censorship enthusiasts as China and Saudi Arabia, to establish a world government body to “police” the Internet, with many citing the WikiLeaks releases as the impetus for tighter control.
The “working group” that would be established would include only government officials, and would discuss how to engage in their “international public policy” with regards to the Internet.
The idea does not sit well with a number of privacy activists, as well some high profile businessmen. Vint Cerf, one of Google’s top employees and, decades ago, one of the program managers behind the development of the TCP/IP standard on which the Internet operates, slammed the plan.
“We don’t believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance,” insisted Cerf, adding that the current, open approach simply works much better and is protecting users from “vested interests.”
To that end Google is said to be supporting a petition calling on the United Nations to back off these attempts at top-down regulation of the Internet and instead support an open, inclusive system.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz
- US Slams Russia's Missile Sales to Syria - May 17th, 2013
- Nine Killed, 70 Wounded in Bombings Near Kandahar - May 17th, 2013
- Envoy: Russia May Deploy Troops to Tajik-Afghan Border - May 17th, 2013
- Pentagon in Afghan Budget Crisis, Seeks to Shift $10 Billion in Funds - May 17th, 2013
- Nigeria Launching Massive Offensive Against Boko Haram - May 17th, 2013
Matt
December 17th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
UN has no business regulating the internet.
MichaelKenny
December 18th, 2010 at 6:16 am
Esentially, the internet needs to be regulated, as part of breaking the US stranglehold on it. European hate speech laws, for example, are frequently avoided by basing hate sites in the US. Thus, it is not just a question of censorship, which itself begs the question of how "free" the US-controlled internet really is. Just look at how the US government was able to deprive Wikileaks of its webhost and to force US companies like Paypal and the credit card companies to stop dealing with it. Google itself has a very bad reputation in Europe for breaches of privacy and is in trouble with several European governments. That it would favour thr present US-controlled system is unsurprising.
Johnny_Warbucks
December 18th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Here's the good news: if the UN does as good a good of policing the Internets as it has done of policing Israel, we have absolutely nothing to fear. In fact, we should all try to get 'em to do so in order to have more freedom to do as we please.
John V. Walsh
December 18th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
I find it strange that this article calls out China and Saudi Arabia as being foes of freedom on the internet when the US is omitted at the very time it is doing all it can to shut down Wikileaks.
And that bit was not linked to a URL.
This is the second time in the last few days that I have been disappointed in a piece on AW.C, the first being the one by Ivan Eland the other day calling for US domination of Afghanistan by use of bribes rather than force.
Be careful. The culture of Empire runs deep.