U.S. Fights Critiques of How Web Is Managed

by Drew FitzGerald, The Wall Street Journal

U.S. officials are tackling opposition from countries over how the Internet is overseen. At the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) conference in South Korea, which began last week, more than 190 nations are debating whether the ITU’s mandate on “information and communication technology” includes the Internet, which U.S. officials and their allies want to keep separate.

The charter for the ITU, the United Nations agency in charge of radio and telephone standards, doesn’t specifically cover the Internet, and U.S. delegates to the conference say Internet governance is best handled by organizations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which do not answer to any government. However, some countries, including Russia and several Arab states, want the ITU to have more say in Internet governance.

Although the debate has been ongoing for more than 10 years, the issue intensified following the reports of widespread U.S. National Security Agency network surveillance. Some Western diplomats worry giving the ITU authority over the Internet could give authoritative governments increased control over the Internet beyond their borders, while U.S. officials are concerned the issues under discussion at the ITU conference could influence the way smaller countries create laws about privacy and censorship.  See WSJ for full report.