U.N. agency says it's ready to govern the Net

By Reuters

Published: September 30, 2005, 1:13 PM PDT

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The United Nations' International Telecommunications Union is ready to take over the governance of the Internet from the United States, ITU head Yoshio Utsumi said on Friday.

The United States has clashed with the European Union and much of the rest of the world over the future of the Internet. It currently manages the global information system through a partnership with California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, better known as ICANN.

"We could do it if we were asked to," Utsumi told a news conference. The U.N. agency's experience in communications, its structure and its cooperation with private and public bodies made it best-placed to take on the role, he said.

Washington has made clear that it would oppose any such move, despite widespread demands for changes in the current system.

"We will not agree to the United Nations taking over management of the Internet," said David Gross, a U.S. Department of State official attending a two-week conference preparing for a U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in November.

The United States, where the Department of Commerce oversees ICANN, says it would never take any action that would affect the working of the Internet. But countries like Iran say they fear that Washington could pull the plug on them any time.

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The issue could sour the Tunis meeting, which begins Nov. 16.

The summit aims to approve a plan for extending use of the Internet and other forms of advanced communications in order to help poorer countries achieve U.N. development goals by 2015.

The EU says it is proposing a "cooperative model" to run the Internet and the way domain names are assigned.

But Gross, speaking to reporters on Thursday, described the plan as a "shocking and profound change" of the EU's earlier stance that opened the way for control by governments--some of whom already censor what their citizens can read on the Net.

EU spokesman David Hendon described this as "misrepresentation."

Although many EU nations are happy with what ICANN is doing, many countries "just cannot accept that the Americans have control of the Internet in their countries," he said.

The EU proposal would bring the Internet and ICANN under international law rather than under U.S. law.

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