[Ecommerce] Wall Street Journal: EU, Developing Nations Challenge U.S. Control of Internet

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

EU, Developing Nations
Challenge U.S. Control of Internet

By *CHRISTOPHER RHOADS*
*Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL*
October 25, 2005; Page B1

A growing number of countries, including China, Brazil, India and Cuba
-- as well as the European Union -- are questioning U.S. control over
the Internet.

The Internet is managed by a nonprofit private organization called the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, set up by
the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1998 and based in Marina del Rey,
Calif. Icann has an international advisory body, but the U.S. government
retains veto power over all decisions -- such as the creation of new Web
domains.

Icann oversees domain names, a database of Web addresses and other
standards. Such measures ensure, for example, that a user plugging in a
Web address will connect to a single Web site with that name. Though
arcane and out-of-view of users, the procedures are critical to making
the Internet work.

But several countries, led by developing nations, now argue that since
the Internet is a global tool, no one country should control it. They
contend that decisions should fall under the jurisdiction of an
international body, such as the United Nations. Their argument received
an unexpected boost late last month when an EU commissioner proposed
removing U.S. oversight of Icann, reversing the EU's support of the
current arrangement.

The proposal was met by a storm of criticism from surprised U.S.
officials, as well as from some European companies that worried such a
change would politicize the Internet, add bureaucracy and hinder its
innovative nature.

"We look at the Internet's success and want to make sure we keep the
recipe for it," said David Gross, the lead U.S. negotiator on the
matter, in an interview. "If you modify it, the risk is that you come
out with something far worse."

Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for Internet and media affairs who
made the proposal, told the BBC in a recent interview: "There must not
be any government involvement in the day-to-day management of the
Internet, neither one of the U.S. government nor by any other government."

A U.N. information society summit to take place in Tunis, Tunisia, in
mid-November will address the issue.

Experts place the current tiff in the context of other nations'
discomfort with the U.S. as the world's only superpower, unafraid of
taking unilateral action. In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce
released a statement that the U.S. would retain control over the
governing of the Internet, at least for the foreseeable future.
Previously, the U.S. had indicated that it would sever any government
connection to Icann.

The matter intensified in August, when the U.S. government asked Icann
to table an initiative to add a new domain name for pornography Web
sites. Icann had tentatively approved the new domain name, called .xxx,
several months earlier, but at the last moment the Department of
Commerce removed its support, after it said it received thousands of
letters of complaint from conservative Christian groups and others.

Regardless of the merits of the decision, the move was proof to critics
of Icann that it is controlled by the U.S., said Lee McKnight, an
associate professor for information studies at Syracuse University.
"Until August, the U.S. had not done anything to upset other
governments," said Mr. McKnight. "Then just before these meetings, it
did do something unilaterally."

The original idea behind Icann was to keep decisions about the
Internet's architecture in the private sector and largely free of
government meddling.

"Governments have not really understood the inner workings of the
Internet," said Mr. McKnight. In the past two years, "they have gotten
educated and now they want to get their hands on the levers."

Such rethinking about the Internet has arisen in part because of its
global growth and growing importance in many areas. Widely available to
the public and for commercial purposes only in the past decade or so,
the Internet now has close to a billion users, estimates the Paris-based
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. In that time, the
Internet has become a critical means for conducting business, as well as
for receiving other services, such as video and phoning.

Few expect any immediate changes to the current structure from the U.N.
summit, since the U.S. government would need to approve them.

But as some countries are beginning to understand, they do have some
leverage in how the Internet works -- with potentially huge ramifications.

For instance, governments can assert control over the Internet network
used in their respective countries, blocking certain types of Web sites
and other information. China, for example, has been mostly successful in
keeping Web sites advocating democracy, among other topics considered
taboo by the Communist Party, off the personal computers of Chinese
Internet surfers.

Experts such as Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance at
Oxford University, fear that if such "cantonization" increases, the
value of the Internet as a global, interoperable tool diminishes.

That's because the economic and social strength of the Internet derives
from its open and decentralized architecture, enabling access to users
anywhere in the world. If governments began to create their own distinct
Internets, that would undermine the essence of what makes the Internet
so powerful.

"There has been a misconception -- and a helpful one -- among many
government bureaucrats that the Internet is a non-geographic
phenomenon," said Mr. Zittrain. "But it can be reworked to correspond to
national jurisdictions and boundaries."

*Write to *Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com
<mailto:christopher.rhoads@wsj.com>^3

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