The Internet does not need to be "governed" thank you very much.

There was a time when it was possible that AOL or some other gigantic service provider might buy out everyone else and become the de-facto monopolist on internetworking. But thankfully it never happened.

Today as a practical matter nobody "owns" the Internet. It is a decentralized collection of independent networks that all agree to talk to each other (the word "Internet" comes from the term "inter-network"). The only centralization on the Internet is at the root DNS nameservers. These suffer ICANN only by the grace of their respective independent owners.

The transnational progressives and lefty social engineers can chit-chat all they want at their UN workshops about how they want to govern the Internet. But they will pry my cold dead hands from my keyboard before that will happen.

Exactly what is the problem with the internet that needs to be solved here? Or is this just a bureaucracy in search of a nice comfy mission?

People demand power. You can browse around the world of Indymedia for a lesson in how they view the WSIS and the potential it has for a power grab AGAINST private enterprise.

Anti-globalisation forces have been mounting an attack and in fact plan to demonstrate at this conference to apply social and political pressure to remove private enterprise from managing the infrastructure of the Internet. As usual, they play the broken record "private ownership is bad for democracy" on the phonograph.

Pop into the Indymedia IRC server at irc.indymedia.org and join #indymedia. Mention WSIS and get your lollerskates out for the fun.

When the UN creates a tool as revolutionary and important as the internet, it can regulate it all it wants. Until then, shut yer yob you stupid git.

Exactly how does a group of countries that doesn't include the US propose to regulate the Internet? Magic?

“The Internet does not need to be "governed" thank you very much.”

This is absolutely false. I strongly encourage everyone to read Lawrence Lessig’s wonderful book, Code. The Internet does need to be governed to prohibit spam and regulate the inevitable legitimate disputes between countries. We should, though, make sure that such a governing body does far more good than harm. It should not be devising rules simply to bash the United States and the capitalist world.

I always consider the United Nations types guilty until proven innocent. Their past record is abysmal and therefore they should not expect our unearned trust. Sometimes they indeed do good things. However, as a general rule---these folks are scoundrels and envious of America’s greatness. They are mostly motivated by purely jealousey.

Information Society? I loved those guys. Didn't know they were still around.

I know that running synths takes some technical aptitude, but don't know that they'd be that great at running the entire internet.

Also not sure what they'd be doing at a "World Music" Conference. Thought that they were more 'techno'.

But hey, best of luck to them.

The irony is, the Chinese interest here, I am sure, has a lot to do with shutting down the ability of private citizens to speak freely on the internet. I'd bet there's no Indymedia-Beijing, now, is there?

Um, the same way the ITU led to horrible things in international telecommunications, such as censoring chinese telephone calls?

This is really about a bunch of US organizations having a hammerlock on international standards.

There was a time back in the 1980s when the Europe and the ITU tried to replace the Internet TCP/IP communicaton protocol standards with something called OSI/TP4 and X.25. Basically it was an attempt by wrest control of the Internet out of the hands of the US.

The ITU is basically in the pockets of the PTT (Postal, Telephone and Telegraph) government monopolies, especially in the 3rd world. The ITU is a big reason why phone calls to 3rd world countries are so ridiculously expensive. Their bureaucracy is terrible. The OSI documents are written in uncomprehensible legalese and you must pay through the nose just to see them.

If the EU/ITU/UN had successfully took over the Internet 20 years ago, today instead of paying $19.95/month you would be paying $1.99 per minute to the World Network Bureau.

Kind of left me hanging.

So, you think ICANN is adequate? I agree with your points on the UN, but what about some ideas on ICANN, or even alternatives?

"The ITU is a big reason why phone calls to 3rd world countries are so ridiculously expensive."

No, that'd be because 3rd world state-owned telephone companies are corrupt bureaucracies.