Will U.S. policy fracture the Net?
Power grab could split the Net, By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com, October 3, 2005.
This week’s column by McCullagh ask the
question “Will the U.N./Bush administration split the Net?”
In a worst case scenario, “we could end up with a Balkanized Internet in which the U.S. attempts to retain control of its root servers and a large portion of the world veers in an incompatible direction.”
McCullagh is no fan of the United Nations and doesn’t offer a solution, but
he does describe the problem of the “autocratic, bellicose Bush administration”
and the problems it is creating with its lack of dipolmacy.
For the first time in its history, the Internet is running a real risk of fracturing into multiple and perhaps even incompatible networks.
At a meeting in Geneva last week, the Bush administration objected to the idea of the United Nations running the top-level servers that direct traffic to the master databases of all domain names.
That’s not new, of course–the administration has been humming this tune since June. What’s changed in the last few months is the response from the rest of the world.
Instead of acquiescing to the Bush administration’s position, the European Union cried foul last week and embraced greater U.N. control. A spokesman said that the EU is “very firm on this position.”