Countries Question U.S. Control of Internet
A growing number of countries, including China, Brazil, India and Cuba -- as well as the European Union -- are questioning U.S. control over the Internet.
The Internet is managed by a nonprofit private organization called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, set up by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1998 and based in Marina del Rey, Calif. Icann has an international advisory body, but the U.S. government retains veto power over all decisions -- such as the creation of new Web domains.
Icann oversees domain names, a database of Web addresses and other standards. Such measures ensure, for example, that a user plugging in a Web address will connect to a single Web site with that name. Though arcane and out-of-view of users, the procedures are critical to making the Internet work.
THINKING GLOBAL
Read Frederick Kempe's take on what's behind the trans-Atlantic dispute over Internet governance.But several countries, led by developing nations, now argue that since the Internet is a global tool, no one country should control it. They contend that decisions should fall under the jurisdiction of an international body, such as the United Nations. Their argument received an unexpected boost late last month when an EU commissioner proposed removing U.S. oversight of Icann, reversing the EU's support of the current arrangement.
The proposal was met by a storm of criticism from surprised U.S. officials, as well as from some European companies that worried such a change would politicize the Internet, add bureaucracy and hinder its innovative nature.
"We look at the Internet's success and want to make sure we keep the recipe for it," said David Gross, the lead U.S. negotiator on the matter, in an interview. "If you modify it, the risk is that you come out with something far worse."
Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for Internet and media affairs who made the proposal, told the BBC in a recent interview: "There must not be any government involvement in the day-to-day management of the Internet, neither one of the U.S. government nor by any other government."
A U.N. information society summit to take place in Tunis, Tunisia, in mid-November will address the issue.
Experts place the current tiff in the context of other nations' discomfort with the U.S. as the world's only superpower, unafraid of taking unilateral action. In June, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a statement that the U.S. would retain control over the governing of the Internet, at least for the foreseeable future. Previously, the U.S. had indicated that it would sever any government connection to Icann.
The matter intensified in August, when the U.S. government asked Icann to table an initiative to add a new domain name for pornography Web sites. Icann had tentatively approved the new domain name, called .xxx, several months earlier, but at the last moment the Department of Commerce removed its support, after it said it received thousands of letters of complaint from conservative Christian groups and others.
Regardless of the merits of the decision, the move was proof to critics of Icann that it is controlled by the U.S., said Lee McKnight, an associate professor for information studies at Syracuse University. "Until August, the U.S. had not done anything to upset other governments," said Mr. McKnight. "Then just before these meetings, it did do something unilaterally."
The original idea behind Icann was to keep decisions about the Internet's architecture in the private sector and largely free of government meddling.
"Governments have not really understood the inner workings of the Internet," said Mr. McKnight. In the past two years, "they have gotten educated and now they want to get their hands on the levers."
Such rethinking about the Internet has arisen in part because of its global growth and growing importance in many areas. Widely available to the public and for commercial purposes only in the past decade or so, the Internet now has close to a billion users, estimates the Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. In that time, the Internet has become a critical means for conducting business, as well as for receiving other services, such as video and phoning.
Few expect any immediate changes to the current structure from the U.N. summit, since the U.S. government would need to approve them.
But as some countries are beginning to understand, they do have some leverage in how the Internet works -- with potentially huge ramifications.
For instance, governments can assert control over the Internet network used in their respective countries, blocking certain types of Web sites and other information. China, for example, has been mostly successful in keeping Web sites advocating democracy, among other topics considered taboo by the Communist Party, off the personal computers of Chinese Internet surfers.
Experts such as Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance at Oxford University, fear that if such "cantonization" increases, the value of the Internet as a global, interoperable tool diminishes.
That's because the economic and social strength of the Internet derives from its open and decentralized architecture, enabling access to users anywhere in the world. If governments began to create their own distinct Internets, that would undermine the essence of what makes the Internet so powerful.
"There has been a misconception -- and a helpful one -- among many government bureaucrats that the Internet is a non-geographic phenomenon," said Mr. Zittrain. "But it can be reworked to correspond to national jurisdictions and boundaries."
美国独掌互联网控制大权引发他国争议
越来越多的国家开始质疑美国对互联网的控制，其中包括中国、巴西、印度、古巴，还有欧盟。
互联网由一家名为互联网名称与数字地址分配机构(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 简称：Icann)的非营利性私营机构管理。它于1998年由美国商务部建立。Icann顾问团的成员来自世界各地，但是美国政府对Icann的所有决定──比如设立新的域名，拥有否决权。
Icann负责监管域名、网址数据库及其他标准的执行。这样做是为了确保当用户输入一个网址后，他就能通过互联网连接到一个相应的网站。虽然这听起来很神秘而且互联网用户也看不到这个过程，但这些步骤对互联网的正常运转至关重要。
然而现在以发展中国家为首的一些国家主张，既然互联网是一种世界性的工具，那么就不应该受某个国家的控制。他们认为应该由一个国际组织，比如联合国行使控制权。他们的意见在上个月月末得到了不曾预料到的支持，一位欧盟委员提议取消美国对Icann的监管，这和欧盟之前表示支持目前状况的表态大相径庭。
欧盟委员的这项提议让美国官员大吃一惊，他们纷纷指责欧盟，一些欧洲公司也站在美国一边，因为他们担心改变目前的情况会导致互联网的政治化，助长官僚主义以及妨碍互联网创新本质的体现。
负责此事的美国谈判代表戴维?格罗斯(David Gross)表示，“我们见证了互联网的成功，我们想确保自己保有这个秘诀。如果你更改了它，风险就是你拿出来的东西比现在的要糟糕得多。”
欧盟负责互联网和媒体事务的委员维维亚娜?雷丁(Viviane Reding)日前接受英国广播公司(BBC)采访时表示，“不应有任何一个政府参与互联网事务的日常管理，美国政府不可以，其他国家的政府也如是。”
今年11月中旬将在突尼斯举行的联合国信息社会峰会将讨论这一议题。
专家们认为，眼下的这场争端源于其他国家对美国的不安，美国是世界上唯一的超级大国而且对采取单边行动毫不顾忌。今年6月，美国商务部(Department of Commerce)发表声明说，至少在可预见的未来，美国将继续负责互联网的管理。而此前美国曾表示将中断美国政府和Icann的联系。
这场争端在8月份愈演愈烈，当时美国政府要求Icann提出一个为色情网站创设新域名的计划，。几个月后，Icann暂时通过了新域名.xxx，不过在最后一刻，商务部不再支持这项计划，说保守的基督教团体及个人给他们写了成千上万封抗议信。
锡拉丘兹大学(Syracuse University)的信息学副教授李?麦克奈特(Lee McKnight)表示，不论这个决定是否明智，这给那些Icann的批评者们提供了证据，表明Icann确实是被美国控制的。麦克奈特说，“在8月之前，美国并没做什么让其他政府不安的事，而恰恰就在联合国峰会之前，美国确实自作主张了。”
建立Icann的本意是将关于互联网建设的讨论限制在民间范围内，免除政府的干预。
麦克奈特说，“政府根本不懂互联网的内部运作方式，”但在过去两年，“他们接受了这方面的知识，现在他们想插手了。”
人们对互联网的兴趣之所以大增，部分原因是互联网在全球的快速发展以及它在许多领域的重要性日益提高。虽然互联网进入大众生活以及被用作商业用途不过10年左右的时间，但据经济合作与发展组织(Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development)的估计，如今的互联网用户已接近10亿。互联网已经成为商业运作的重要手段，也成为得到视频和电话等其他服务的重要手段。
没有什么人预计在此次联合国峰会上就能实现对互联网当前管理结构的调整，因为这需要得到美国政府的同意。
然而一些国家逐渐意识到，凭借自己所控制的互联网资源，他们确实可以对互联网的运作方式施加某些影响。
举例来说，政府可以控制自己国家的互联网络，屏蔽某一类型的网站和信息。中国就成功地让宣传民主的网站──以及其他被中国政府列为禁忌的内容，从中国互联网用户的个人电脑上消失。
牛津大学(Oxford University)互联网管理教授乔纳森?吉特仁(Jonathan Zittrain)等学者担心，如果这种“画地为牢”的做法继续发展下去，将会损害互联网作为一种全球性共用工具的价值。
这么说是因为互联网在经济和社会方面的力量来自它开放和分散的结构，来自于世界各地的每个人都可以上网冲浪。如果各个政府开始建立属于自己的互联网，那就会削弱互联网力量的根基。
吉特仁说，“许多政府官僚有这样一种误解──这也是件好事，那就是互联网是没有国界的。但互联网实际上可以根据国家的管辖权和疆域重新构造。”
