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| Swede to EU: Leave US in charge of Internet |
| 2005-10-13 |
| EFL from IHT. Hard to believe we've so few friends in Europe a Swede has to stick up for rationality. I hoe Blair's got a good explanation for why he did this. Beyond the headlines, a critically important battle for control of the Internet is being played out. On the one side is the United States, which wants to retain supervision of the Internet and has managed to get the reluctant support of most of the global Internet community, which sees America as the least bad of the possible ultimate guardians of the system. On the other side is a collection of states keen on getting as much as control as possible in order to curtail the Internet's power to undermine their regimes. With the theocracy of Iran as the standard-bearer, this group brings together Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba and Venezuela. North Korea is probably keen to join in as well. The European Union seems to be in the middle, wavering back and forth - and in its wavering it has recently come down with a position that has brought it enthusiastic applause from Tehran, Beijing and Havana. This is not where Europe should be on these issues. The Internet is vital to our future, and we Europeans should be as keen as anyone to preserve the essence of a system that has worked amazingly well. If that entails leaving some ultimate safeguard powers in the hands of the United States, that's certainly better than having theocrats or autocrats around the world getting their hands on the levers of control. There is time for Europe to reconsider its proposal. I refuse to believe that José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, or Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, which currently holds the EU presidency, know what has been done in their name. But if the issue isn't high on their agenda, I can assure them that it is likely to be very high on Washington's agenda if things go wrong. He gets it! |
| Posted by:Mrs. Davis |
| #1 There's another way of looking at this. A separate internet could be a form of competition. In a competetive market, consumers emerge the winners. OTOH, this could go the way of Internet Relay Chat; a finite number of users split amongst hundreds of networks, creating smaller communities. Not a good thing. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-10-13 22:45 |