EU internet governance plan gains US support
With only a day left for the U.N. world summit on information to kick off in Tunis, a European Union compromise proposal on how to govern the internet is gaining international support, Brussels says.
Roughly 15,000 delegates and more than 50 heads of state are due to attend the three-day long summit in the Tunisian capital, with the ambition of ending five years of negotiations on the high stakes topic.
“Our proposal has been applauded by countries like the U.S. and Saudi-Arabia,” a European Commission spokesperson said on Tuesday, hinting that a final agreement might be in sight.
The EU proposal aims at internationalising the governance of the internet, finding a formula under which governments share control over issues like spam, cyber crime and world wide access, without setting up new bureaucratic institutions.
Up until now the world wide web has been governed by the California-based organisation Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (Icann), which has the power to suspend whole countries’ internet services at will. Icann itself is overseen by the U.S.’ commerce department. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives said in October that the U.S. should resist international pressure to give up authority over key internet functions. U.S. officials explained that because of the internet’s importance to the world economy, the governance system had to “remain stable and secure,” insisting that the U.S. maintain its historic role. The EU has argued that, for the same reasons, the internet should be more democratic, calling for “the establishment of an arbitration and dispute resolution mechanism based on international law in case of disputes.”
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