Rice Threatened EU to Retain US Control over Internet

by IMC Poster Monday, Dec. 05, 2005 at 9:15 PM

This letter was sent to the EU regarding global governance of the Internet.

One feature of the internet is the way domain names like "la.indymedia.org" get translated to specific addresses on the network. This feature is regulated and dominated by the USA, via a group called ICANN and the companies it selects to register the domain names. The EU was pushing for an intergovernmental agency to regulate this global resource.

Then Guttierez and Rice sent this letter to the EU, and the EU shut up about global cooperation.

Now, who said there ain't an American empire?

Some obnoxious things this "free market" of domain names has done:

- allowed small governments to sell their national domains to western companies, effectively dispossesing their people of their own domain name space (.tv .cc .to .am and .fm are national domains)

- limited the creation of a xxx domain for sex sites, and limited the number of top level domains (TLDs) in general

- created an English language bias in TLDs

- rendered ICANN as an insiders-club of industry bigwigs

--------------------------------------------------------

7 November 2005

To:

The Right Honourable Jack Straw MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, London

Dear Foreign Secretary,

The governance structure and continued stability and sustainability of the Internet are of paramount importance to the United States. The Internet has become an essential infrastructure for global communications, including for global trade and commerce, and therefore we firmly believe that support for the present structures for Internet governance is vital. These structures have proven to be a reliable foundation for the robust growth of the Internet we have seen over the course of the last decade.

As we approach the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), we should underscore the vast potential of the Internet for global economic expansion, poverty alleviation, and for improving health, education and other public services, particularly in the developing world where Internet access remain unacceptably low.

The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator for global economic expansion and development in an environment free from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions on Internet governance(i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United Kingdom, seems to propose just that - a new structure of intergovernmental control over the Internet.

The four principles the United States issues on June 30, 2005, reinforce the continuing U.S. commitment to the Internet’s security and stability, including through the historical U.S. role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file. At that time, we also expressed our support for ICANN as the appropriate private sector technical coordinator of the Internet’s domain name and addressing system. We believe that ICANN is dedicated to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities and to developing policy through consensus-based processes. We have also expressed our interest in working with the international community to address legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to country code top-level domains (ccTLD). We wish to underscore that, in our statement of June 30, we supported ongoing dialogue on issues related to Internet governance across international forums.

The United States and the European Union have long worked together toward the goal of global access to the Internet. The WSIS offers us the opportunity to reaffirm our partnership to spread the benefits of the Internet globally. At the same time, the security and stability of the Internet are essential to the United States, the European Union, and to the world. We firmly believe that the existing Internet system balances the stability and security we need with the innovation and dynamism that private sector leadership provides.

The history of the Internet’s extraordinary growth and adaptation , based on private-sector innovation and investment, offers compelling arguments against burdening the network with a new intergovernmental structure for oversight. It also suggests that a new intergovernmental structure would most likely become an obstacle to global Internet access for all our citizens. It is in this spirit that we ask the European Union to reconsider its new position on Internet governance and work together with us to bring the benefits of the Information Society to all.

Sincerely,

Carlos M. Guiterrez Secretary of Commerce

Condoleezza Rice Secretary of State

Original: Rice Threatened EU to Retain US Control over Internet