Internet governance too US-centric, says European commission
Internet governance too US-centric, says European
commission
Commission says NSA revelations call into question US
role in internet governance, which should be more global
Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, Wednesday 12 February 2014 11.56 EST
The mass surveillance carried out by the US National
Security Agency means that governance of the internet has to be made more
international and less dominated by America, the European Union's executive has
declared.
Setting out proposals on how the world wide web should
function and be regulated, the European commission called for a shift away from
the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(Icann), which is subject to US law, is contracted by the US administration and
is empowered to supervise how digital traffic operates.
"Recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have
called into question the stewardship of the US when it comes to internet
governance," said the commission.
"Given the US-centric model of internet governance
currently in place, it is necessary to broker a smooth transition to a more
global model while at the same time protecting the underlying values of open multi-stakeholder
governance …
"Large-scale surveillance and intelligence
activities have led to a loss of confidence in the internet and its present
governance arrangements."
Besides criticising US domination of how the internet and
digital traffic are organised, including the allocation and determination of
domain names, the Brussels institution also warned against increasing
governmental attempts to control the internet, as in China, Russia, Iran and
increasingly Turkey, which passed a stringent law last week curbing online
freedoms.
"Governments have a crucial role to play, but
top-down approaches are not the right answer. We must strengthen the
multi-stakeholder model," said Neelie Kroes, the commissioner for digital
affairs. "Our fundamental freedoms and human rights are not negotiable.
They must be protected online."
She spoke out against giving the United Nations the power
to organise and supervise the internet or to grant such authority to the
International Telecommunications Union, voicing fears that it would confer too
much power on governments.
The commission called for a clear timeline for diluting
US authority over Icann and making it more "global"; for agreement on
"a set of principles of internet governance to safeguard the open and
unfragmented nature of the internet"; and a mediation body that would
scrutinise conflicts arising from contradictory national jurisdictions over the
internet.
Decisions over domain names and IP addresses should also
be globalised, Brussels said. "The next two years will be critical in
redrawing the global map of internet governance," said Kroes.
Brussels is to take its proposals to an international
conference on the issue in Brazil in April. Brazil, angered by the NSA
revelations, has been highly critical of the US role in internet governance.
"Nearly every person has an interest in keeping the
internet open, whether this is an economic, social or human rights
interest," said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP who sits on an
international body examining internet governance.
"Governments are trying to bring the internet under
national control. States like Russia and China use the argument of increasing
cyber-security to increase control over their own population. Organisations
such as Icann, which registers domain names worldwide, currently function under
US law. That has to change."
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