[governance] Report Public Hearing

[Ian Peter]

Good to see Fox News continuing its normal balanced reporting...


On 5/05/09 6:16 PM, "William Drake" <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
wrote:

> Also interesting is the display of diplomatic finesse that has made Reding a
> beloved figure in DC.
>>> 
>>>  "I trust that President Obama will have the courage, the wisdom and the
>>> respect for the global nature of the internet to pave the way in September
>>> for a new, more accountable, more transparent, more democratic and more
>>> multilateral form of Internet Governance," said EU Commissioner Viviane
>>> Reding in her Internet video message this morning. "The time to act is now.
>>> And Europe will be ready to support President Obama in his efforts."
> 
> So presumably if he doesn't follow her instructions and buy into a G12 etc, he
> lacks courage, wisdom, and respect for the Internet's global nature.
> 
> The framing and carefully laid political groundwork (reminiscent of the
> "cooperation at the level of principles" announcement WSIS II Prepcom 3)
> undoubtedly will help make it easy on NTIA or anyone else in DC trying to
> argue for ICANN's independence and globalization...And I'm sure right wingers
> in the US won't take notice...oops, wait...Fox News has it covered.  More to
> come...
> 
> 
> Europeans: U.S. Should Give Up Control of Internet
> 
> http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,518808,00.html
>  
> 
>  
> Monday, May 04, 2009
>  
> 
>  
> STRASBOURG, France ‹  The United States has too much control over the Internet
> and needs to give it up, a European Union bureaucrat declared Monday.
>  
> 
>  
> EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, a Luxembourgian, called
> for "full privatization" of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
> Numbers (ICANN), demanding that it be removed from the supervision of the U.S.
> Department of Commerce when its operating agreement expires on Sept. 30.
>  
> 
>  
> "In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only
> one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of
> millions of people in countries all over the world," said Reding in a
> statement.
>  
> 
>  
> She purports to be calling for less, not more, government involvement in the
> Internet, using a free-market argument against the Commerce Department's
> control of ICANN.
>  
> 
>  
> Longtime Euroskeptics may be surprised by that approach, as the European
> Commission normally sees fit to issue binding regulations governing all
> aspects of public life on all member states, right down to the sizes of apples
> and oranges in street markets.
>  
> 
>  
> ICANN is a non-profit organization based in Marina del Rey, Calif., which
> among other tasks supervises the top-level domains of the Internet, such as
> ".com" and ".net," as well as country-code domains such as ".fr" and ".uk."
>  
> 
>  
> The U.S. military and defense-research labs at universities across the country
> built the Internet in the 1970s, and ever since then it's essentially been
> controlled by the U.S. government.
>  
> 
>  
> This has upset other countries' governments. In 2005, a U.N. body tried to
> persuade the U.S. to hand over control, arguing that no one nation should run
> such a vital means of communication.
>  
> 
>  
> The U.S. successfully quashed that attempt, partly by pointing out that it's
> been a very hands-off landlord and mostly lets ICANN do whatever it wants.
>  
> 
>  
> One exception to that trend involved ICANN's proposed ".xxx" domain for
> pornographic Web sites, which would have kept online porn in its own sector.
>  
> 
>  
> Pressure from American politicians killed the idea two years ago, causing
> consternation among their less prudish European counterparts.
>  
> 
>  
> Yet Reding may have undermined her own free-market argument by simultaneously
> proposing a new international body, a "G12 for Internet Governance" that would
> oversee ICANN and be made up of voting representatives from around the world.
>  
> 
>  
> Like the 2005 plan, that would essentially be handing over Internet control
> not to the free market, but to the same creaky collection of international
> bureaucrats who control the EU and the U.N. ‹ which might mean a lot more
> government involvement in day-to-day Internet operations.
>  
> 
>  
> The European Commission plans to hold a series of public hearings on the issue
> beginning Wednesday in Brussels.
>  
> 
>  
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
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