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October 23, 2005

Who will run the Internet?

The US conception of security seems to be mostly military and mostly national. Yet, one of the most debated issue about security today concerns the control of the Internet.

Foreign Affairs runs a detailed article titled "Who will control the Internet?". We're approaching the second phase of the UN's World Summit on the Information Society and the controversy over who control the Internet has never been so heated.

"The Internet is now coordinated by a private-sector nonprofit organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which was set up by the United States in 1998. [...] Many governments feel that, like the phone network, the Internet should be administered under a multilateral treaty. ICANN, in their view, is an instrument of American hegemony over cyberspace."

Also, many governments are bothered that such a vital resource exists outside their control. China, for example, has recently tightened its restrictions for news media on the Internet. Everyone understands that the Internet is a crucial resource not only for the functioning of economy, society and government but also for the spreading of democracy. It could be interesting starting to compare the attitudes of different countries on the Internet regulations, since they are always interrelated with personal freedom. To get more information about this, we could start looking at "Censorship" and "Internet access" on the Wikipedia.

Posted October 23, 2005 01:36 PM

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