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The Internet

Journal Timex's Journal: The Internet, the EU, and the UN 21

Journal by Timex

So. It's come to this.

The EU wants partial control of the Internet, and the UN wants complete control.

I'll make this as simple as I possibly can:

  • The Internet is an American creation. It was created with American taxpayer's money.
  • Other people (even those in other countries) saw the Internet as a "neat thing" when it was released to the public at large (fitting, considering its origins), and decided to participate. Nobody forced them to join the Internet.

According to the quoted article, some countries are complaining that all the addresses were "sucked up" by Americans and Europeans. Haven't they ever heard of NAT? Haven't they heard about IPv6? Perhaps they should stick to AOL, or whatever they happen to have in their neck of the woods.

Similar ideas have existed, and have even been successful. The French MiniTel is an example. Don't tell me it can't be done.

The Chinese government is the last group I expect to hear from on this matter. They would be perfectly happy to split from the Internet, I think, except that there are some things (obviously not political in nature) that they might miss, like "Desperate Housewives" or something.

Personally, I think that if any country wants control over the Internet, they should focus on what happens within their own country. That includes the United States. Leave the protocol standardization to those that actually know what they're doing-- politicians have no business sticking their grubby paws where they don't belong. Interaction between these different networks can (and should) be left to the businesses that form the backbones of the Internet. As long as the different nations are using the same protocols, there shouldn't be any problems. Addressing schemes, such as IPv6 provides, should allow different countries some freedom in address allocation.

As for the concern of some that certain domains would be locked off in certain areas, well such is life. My firewall already locks off some domains, simply because I don't pay for Internet access just so I can be swamped with adverts from some perv. If people (or even some countries) prevent access to certain domains, that's purely an internal matter, and should be taken up with the parties responsible for locking off the domain(s).

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The Internet, the EU, and the UN More

The Internet, the EU, and the UN

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  • We (the US) build it, it's ours, and everyone else should be thankful we were magnanimous enough to let you all play in our virtual sandbox.

    Don't like it? Go roll your own.

    As far as the UN... screw the UN.

    • Maybe we should consider revoking our magnanimousfulnessity. Spammers and malware creators should have to risk propagating their disease within our jurisdiction.
    • Correction: the Internet started in the US, but nowadays it's a global thing.

      At least my German ISP would be a bit surprised to hear that its network is American.

      And while we're at it, maybe all those foreign companies that fund and own American telecom infrastructure should take their ball and go home, hey?

      Or CERN [www.cern.ch] should take back the WWW...

      Cheers,

      Ethelred

      • Correction: the Internet started in the US, but nowadays it's a global thing.

        Only because DARPANet got opened up.

        As far as CERN: http, the basis for the world wide web, is a protocol. A better one certainly could be devised, since adhereing to the standard appears to be difficult (for example: Slashdot. nyuk nyuk nyuk).

        And why do foreign companies buy into American telecom? Cause it sucks less than the others.

        • Only because DARPANet got opened up.

          Uh, yes, but had it not been opened up, neither you nor I would be having this stimulating conversation.

          As far as CERN: http, the basis for the world wide web, is a protocol. A better one certainly could be devised, since adhereing to the standard appears to be difficult (for example: Slashdot. nyuk nyuk nyuk).

          As far as America: TCP/IP, the basis for the Internet, is a protocol. A better one could certainly be devised...etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam.

          And why do fo

          • Oooh, a softball.

            How odd, then why do American companies buy into European telecoms?

            To use American ingenuity and expertise to lower the cost of doing business in order to increase profit and make a healthy ROI.

            *whack*

            Home run! 330 feet, out to right center. ;)

            • To use American ingenuity and expertise to lower the cost of doing business in order to increase profit and make a healthy ROI.

              Or maybe the Europeans are using their ingenuity and expertise to lower the cost of doing business in America in order to increase profit and make a healthy ROI.

              You can't have it both ways. (Oh, by the way, America's cellular market only really began to take off once Europeans such as T-Mobile and Vodafone started buying into it and introducing their expertise and technology...

              • Eth,
                I must confess - I'm just having a bit of fun with you. The reason I would not want the UN to control the internet is that the list of UN Successes is pretty slim, even slimmer when you take out the ones that were primarily run by America. The UN does not have a good track record at doing much right, and would be an extremely poor choice to "run" the Internet.

                Everything else was a parody of the "bogeyman" that I appear to be to some people around here; which quite honestly made me chuckle as I was ty

                • I must confess - I'm just having a bit of fun with you.

                  I'm also aware that we have an audience, and I'm addressing that audience as much as I am you.

                  At any rate, the regulation of things like the Internet is one area where the UN does just fine. The ITU [itu.int] (the group within the UN [unsystem.org] which presumably would take over ICANN's role -- which, by the way, is all that the EU is calling for, a long shot from "running the Internet") has done just fine regulating international telecoms since its inception.

                  The UN is

    • As far as the UN... screw the UN.

      Hey! That's my line! ;)
  • We own the root [root-servers.org] la la de do, we own the root [root-servers.org], giggity-giggity-goo

  • Moo (Score:2)

    by Chacham ( 981 ) *
    The UN is evil [slashdot.org]. Is the EU evil too?

    They should definitely not be in charge of the Internet. Sheesh, it's fine the way it is, albeit not perfect. Giveing it more governmental oversight is the way to kill it.

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