By Chloe Albanesius – The United States said today (Dec 13, Thu) that it will not sign an international telecommunications treaty thanks to the inclusion of Internet-related provisions. According to the BBC, the U.K. and Canada have also pledged not … Continue reading
CONGRESS WATCH Boxer Praises VA Announcement of “GI Bill” Trademark, US Senate Senator Boxer’s Message on the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, Committee on Environment & Public Works/US Senate Senator Boxer’s Message on the UN Climate Conference in … Continue reading
By Joseph Menn – The 12-day conference of the International Telecommunications Union, a 147-year-old organization that’s now an arm of the United Nations, largely pits revenue-seeking developing countries and authoritarian regimes that want more control over Internet content against U.S. policymakers and private Net companies that prefer the status quo.
While specifics of some of the most contentious proposals remain secret, leaked drafts show that Russia is seeking rules giving individual countries broad permission to shape the content and structure of the Internet within their borders, while a group of Arab countries is advocating universal identification of Internet users. Some developing countries and telecom providers, meanwhile, want to make content providers pay for Internet transmission. more> http://tinyurl.com/ce97khe
By Larry Downes – 193 member nations and hundreds of non-voting private members will meet in Dubai for the World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT. The goal of the WCIT is to finalize changes to the International Telecommunications Regulations.
The last major revisions to the ITRs were ratified in 1988, long before the rise of the commercial Internet. But with months to go before proposed changes to the ITR are closed, member nations and private members of the ITU have already begun lobbying for a vast expansion of Internet powers, including new network taxes, mandatory censorship technologies disguised as security measures, and efforts to undermine the Internet’s longstanding engineering-based governance processes. more> http://tinyurl.com/8zgq93y
Posted in Broadband, Economy, Net, telecom
Tagged Broadband, Dubai, First Amendment, Internet, ITU, Telecommunication, United Nations, United States
Plaque on the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) head office, Del Rey, California, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Brid-Aine Parnell – The US has made it clear that it won’t be letting control of the internet slip out of ICANN‘s hands anytime soon.
The US Department of State released the country’s proposals for the World Conference on International Telecommunications on its website, where the threat of attempts by Russia and others to wrest the web from the US body was obliquely answered. Slipped in among its recommendations was that the “voluntary nature of compliance with ITU-T Recommendations [be maintained].” more> http://tinyurl.com/dyqqehg
