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August 02, 2005

get kofi outta m' icann

The UN is a worldwide democratic body mainly comprised of the most brutal, bloodthirsty, power-grabbing people on the planet. They seldom all agree on anything, but today the general concensus seems to be that the Internet is shiny, and they want it. Please don't take that the wrong way. The UN is worse than useless for many things, but good for certain other things. For instance, I believe a UN controlled Internet governing body could be trusted to keep the net safe for predatory porn sites and unscrupulous spammers.

While the pretentiously named Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) could not agree on the precise means they'd like to use to suck the life out of the online community, they did manage to issue a report which contained four options, which in turn contained a net total of one idea: "gimme." Here are our options (source: BBC):

• Option One - create a UN body known as the Global Internet Council that draws its members from governments and "other stakeholders" and takes over the US oversight role of Icann.

In otherwords, Godaddy.com isn't user-friendly enough. Registering a domain name should involve phone calls to Botswana.

• Option Two - no changes apart from strengthening ICANN's (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Governmental Advisory Committee to become a forum for official debate on net issues.

In otherwords, China and North Korea don't appreciate all this secretive imperialist stuff going on over here, like so-called "chat" and other hegimonist activities like blogging without official government-media outlet oversight.

• Option Three - relegate Icann to a narrow technical role and set up an International Internet Council that sits outside the UN. US loses oversight of Icann.

In otherwords, IP's and domain names are boring. But let's have an agency heavily influenced by the world's dictators in charge of every other aspect of the Internet.

• Option Four - create three new bodies. One to take over from Icann and look after the net's addressing system. One to be a debating chamber for governments, businesses and the public; and one to co-ordinate work on "internet-related public policy issues".

In otherwords, let's grab the IP's and the domain names, build a shiny skyscraper with Uday-style penthouse offices for every dictator's porn-crazed nephew (web address coming soon!) and finally, get some people who can legislate the crap out of the internet until you can't send grandma an Internet Message without violating nine international treaties and activating arrest warrants from the World Court.

Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn) is right to say "none of the above" in response to this baldly avaricious grope by the UN's techno...um, I was going to say "elite," but these people barely know what they're talking about (Kofi: "Internet, Internet...you mean like my Blackberry?") This is the bunch that fudged the oil-for-food contracts, kluged Kosovo, raped the Congo and doesn't dein to deal with Darfur. If the developing nations like our Internet, let 'em build one like it. It isn't going to help anybody to put Communist China in charge of blocking spam.

Posted by joel at August 2, 2005 05:25 PM

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