Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Who will rule the net?
Washington Post: The Internet at Risk
The Washington Post has an editorial supporting continued U.S. control over domain names and internet governance in general. Their argument is based on the efficiency of a centrally controlled system. They also argue that nations that wish to limit internet access can do so already through other means than the control over domain names. Sovereignty is important but a working, open internet is more important according to the Post. They fear that international politics and the attempts to censor the web by authoritarian regimes would be risky for the freedom and efficiency of the internet.
The Washington Post has an editorial supporting continued U.S. control over domain names and internet governance in general. Their argument is based on the efficiency of a centrally controlled system. They also argue that nations that wish to limit internet access can do so already through other means than the control over domain names. Sovereignty is important but a working, open internet is more important according to the Post. They fear that international politics and the attempts to censor the web by authoritarian regimes would be risky for the freedom and efficiency of the internet.
The reformers' argument is attractive in theory and dangerous in practice. In an ideal world, unilateralism should be avoided. But in an imperfect world, unilateral solutions that run efficiently can be better than multilateral ones that don't. It may be theoretically undesirable that the United States provides most of the security in global shipping lanes, but in practice this allows commerce to get done. Scrapping the U.S. Navy in favor of a naval police led by the United Nations would be unlikely to help anyone.The Post has a healthy fear of the disorder of international governance. But the U.S.'s preference for unilateral control will not last forever. Can the U.S. remain the world's policeman enforcing order and stability in cyberspace as it has tried to do in the middle east? It is time to start a slow transition towards a more democratic control while still emphasizing the priority of efficiency, cost and civil liberties.
The same is true of the Internet. The job of assigning domain names offers huge opportunities for abuse. Whoever controls this function can decide to keep certain types of individuals or organizations offline (dissidents or opposition political groups, for example). Or it can allow them on in exchange for large fees.
The striking feature of U.S. oversight of the Internet is that such abuses have not occurred. Any organization that wants to register a domain name can do so, provided that the name hasn't already been claimed. Opportunistic cyber-squatting has been brought under control. The cost of registering a Web address has fallen.
