By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer
A senior U.S. official rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to
take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the
Internet, reiterating U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as
the medium's principal overseer.
"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the
Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for
international communications and information policy at the State
Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."
Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly
concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role
in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its
early development.
Gross was in Geneva for the last preparatory meeting ahead of
November's U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia.
Some negotiators from other countries said there was a growing sense
that a compromise had to be reached and that no single country ought
to be the ultimate authority over such a vital part of the global
economy.
But Gross said that while progress was being made on a number of
issues necessary for producing a finalized text for Tunis, the
question of Internet governance remained contentious.
A stalemate over who should serve as the principal traffic cops for
Internet routing and addressing could derail the summit, which aims to
ensure a fair sharing of the Internet for the benefit of the whole
world.
Some countries have been frustrated that the United States and
European countries that got on the Internet first gobbled up most of
the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving
developing nations with a limited supply to share.
They also want greater assurance that as they come to rely on the
Internet more for governmental and other services, their plans won't
get derailed by some future U.S. policy.
One proposal that countries have been discussing would wrest control
of domain names from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and place it with an intergovernmental
group, possibly under the United Nations.
Gross dismissed it as unacceptable.
"We've been very, very clear throughout the process that there are
certain things we can agree to and certain things we can't agree to,"
Gross told reporters at U.N. offices in Geneva. "It's not a
negotiating issue. This is a matter of national policy."
He said the United States was "deeply disappointed" with the European
Union's proposal Wednesday advocating a "new cooperation model," which
would involve governments in questions of naming, numbering and
addressing on the Internet.
In 1998, the U.S. Commerce Department selected ICANN to oversees the
Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail
programs how to direct traffic. Internet users around the world
interact with them everyday, likely without knowing it.
Although ICANN is a private organization with international board
members, Commerce ultimately retains veto power. Policy decisions
could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix
essentially unreachable. Other decisions could affect the
availability of domain names in non-English characters or ones
dedicated to special interests such as pornography.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For the life of me, I do not understand
why United States insists on keeping total control of Internet for
itself, rather than at least sharing control with other countries. I
do not think other countries could make any more of a mess out of
Internet than ICANN and Vint Cerf have already made. I mean, just
consider how much spam, scam, illegitimate advertising, viruses,
spyware, etc -- in aggregate total about half of the internet -- ICANN
has fostered since its inception. Since ICANN refuses to do anything
about it at all, maybe the Europeans could do better. PAT]
Bradley S. Klapper (