

EU Parliament Passes Resolution Against ITU Asserting Control Over Internet - mtgx
http://falkvinge.net/2012/11/22/european-parliament-unanimously-passed-resolution-against-itu-asserting-control-over-internet/

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A1kmm
I think the types of things ITU would want to assert control over are
centralised functions around standards development and name allocation that
are currently carried out by ISOC and its parts (IAB / IESG / IETF) and by
ICANN and its parts. Both the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers are not-for-profit organisations that are not
directly under the control of any government (but which are incorporated in
the United States, and so are subject to US law).

From a purely democratic perspective, ITU, a public body that forms part of
the United Nations, and ultimately controlled by governments worldwide (many
of which are democratically elected) could be viewed as a more appropriate
body to handle the centralised functions than private bodies in one particular
country.

In practice, however, international government can be a very bad place to
start from when it comes to standardisation, because politics can get involved
to a much greater extent, and everything gets slowed down by excessive
governance process which becomes a burden - ITU standards are being superseded
at a faster rate than ITU can produce them.

Obviously, the EU / Pirate Party might also be concerned that the ITU would
want to assert control over more than ISOC / ICANN currently do.

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noselasd
In all the articles I've read so far on this issue, I'm only being told that
the ITU wants to control the Internet.

Can anyone point me to any actual information from ITU itself on what it wants
to do ?

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andyjohnson0
The context for this is the World Conference on International
Telecommunications 2012 [1] to be held inn Dubai in December. A major purpose
of the meeting is to consider updating the ITU's International
Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) [2,3] to include an internet governance
role for the ITU.

Its not very clear what the detail of the proposed changes actually is, but
the Internet Society have a summary [4] that suggests a takeover of technical
standardisation efforts (e.g IETF and maybe W3C processes), the regulatory
functions of ICANN/IANA, and maybe oversight of the regional IP registries.

One point of view is that this is a power grab by the ITU, who see this as a
last chance to remain relevant as the networks they used to regulate
(traditional voice and data comms) are absorbed by the Internet. Behind it are
various ITU member states (principally China and Russia) who hope to use an
enlarged ITU as a proxy to control the Internet to further their domestic and
international agendas.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29)

[2] <http://www.itu.int/oth/T3F01000001>

[3]
[https://fileshare.tools.isoc.org/groups/comms/public/Publica...](https://fileshare.tools.isoc.org/groups/comms/public/Publications/bp-
itrbackground/bp-itrbackground-201108-en.pdf)

[4] <http://www.internetsociety.org/wcit>

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subsystem
If you like corridors you can watch Amelia's web series showing some of her
work in the EP.

<http://www.youtube.com/user/piratpartiet?feature=watch> Latest episode:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqY983gRScA>

