UN to regulate the Internet? A VERY BAD IDEA

When I first read this I thought it was some kind of joke--

House to examine plan for United Nations to regulate the Internet - The Hill's Hillicon Valley: "House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet. The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet. . . . The Internet is currently governed under a “multi-stakeholder” approach that gives power to a host of nonprofits, rather than governments. Strickling said that system brings more ideas and flexibility to Internet policymaking. “We lose that when we turn this over to a group of just governments,” Strickling said. In an op-ed earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal, McDowell warned that “a top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net.” “Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body,” McDowell wrote. He said some governments feel excluded from Internet policymaking and want more control over the process. “And let's face it, strong-arm regimes are threatened by popular outcries for political freedom that are empowered by unfettered Internet connectivity,” McDowell wrote."

The idea of giving control of the internet to the UN is A VERY BAD IDEA.  It would be the end of internet freedom.  The United Nations is not competent to administer the internet.  The internet should be free. Its management should continue as it has--under a “multi-stakeholder” approach that gives power to a host of nonprofits, rather than governments.

Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin | Technology | The Guardian: "The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary." The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms."

Oh, I am sure every totalitarian government is lobbying for the "UN" to be given control of the internet. Why Congress is even considering this is unclear. If you care about internet freedom, tell your Senators and Congressman to vote "NO!"

Tweet    Follow @johnmpoole