Internet: Politics of Control
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At a PrepCom meeting for the WSIS II summit, the European Union reportedly changed its position and now advocates for formal international oversight of ICANN. The rhetoric has shifted as well: Several news reports (some of them by quoting government officials) present the story as a question about “who controls the Internet,” suggesting that currently the U.S. is in control of the Internet. John Palfrey has a chrisp response to such a misleading notion of control. It seems to me that this recent switch in the EU’s position contributes to the “politics of control” sections of courses like this one — using the term “politics” in a slightly different interpretation, though.
BTW, some of you might want to take a (second) look into Herbert Burkert‘s ICANN piece “About a Different Kind of Water,” discussing some approaches to the problem from a European perspective.
