[Infowarrior] - EU urges Internet governance revamp

[Richard Forno]

EU urges Internet governance revamp

Reuters
Monday, May 4, 2009 6:57 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/04/AR2009050400801_pf.html

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The body in charge of assigning  
Internet addresses such as .com and .net should be shorn of its U.S.  
government links from October and made fully independent, the European  
Union's information society chief said on Monday.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a  
not-for-profit organization set up in 1998 but operates under the  
aegis of the U.S. Department of Commerce, a set-up that raises  
concerns for some as the Internet is seen as belonging to a wider  
constituency.

Pressure in the past on ICANN from right-wing politicians to stop .xxx  
from becoming a domain name for pornography, worried some  
policymakers. ICANN's operating agreement with the U.S. government  
expires at the end of September.

"This opens the door for the full privatization of ICANN and it also  
raises the question of to whom ICANN should be accountable, as from 1  
October," EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a  
statement.

She urged U.S. President Barack Obama to agree to a "new, more  
accountable, more transparent, more democratic and more multilateral  
form of Internet governance."

ICANN decides on what names can be added to the Internet's top level  
domains (TLDs) such as .com but Reding wants it to become completely  
independent, overseen by an independent judicial body as well as a  
"G12 for Internet Governance" to discuss Internet and security issues.

"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," Reding said.

Such a "G12" would include two representatives from each North  
America, South America, Europe and Africa, three representatives from  
Asia and Australia, as well as the chairman of ICANN as a non-voting  
member.

The European Commission holds a public hearing on Wednesday in  
Brussels to debate future governance of the Internet.

Despite Dept of Commerce concerns, ICANN agreed last year to relax the  
rules on TLDs, the suffixes, such as the ubiquitous .com, .net  
and .org, among others.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by David Cowell)