United Nations calls for US net pull out

UK Inquirer | July 15 2005

THE UNITED Nations has said that the US must hand over control of the Interweb to an international body.

The US initially said it would go along with the plan, but recently said that it wanted to keep control of the Interweb. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the UN Working Group on Internet Governance, which was created to recommend how the internet should be run in the future, agreed that no single country should dominate.

In a report, the UN panel outlined four possible options for the future of internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information Society" summit.

One of the options includes keeping the current system intact, with a US-based non-profit organisation, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, continuing to handle basic policies over internet addresses.

Another option is for the United Nations will take over. The report stresses that it was not meant as an attack on the United States or a direct response to the US Department of Commerce statement that it intends to keep ultimate authority for authorising changes to the list of internet suffixes, such as ".com."

"The group as a whole recognises that it is clear the US has played a beneficial role," the report said.

But some committee members have expressed concerns that ICANN remains too close to the US government. Developing countries have been frustrated that Western countries got most of the available addresses required for computers to connect, leaving them with a limited supply. Others want domain names in non-English characters.