Friday, November 16, 2007

Should U.S. Share Internet Governance?

View 1: The U.S. government and domestic companies started and successfully oversaw the expansion of the Internet to become today's reliable and relatively open marketplace for ideas and commerce. Therefore, the U.S. and ICANN should continue to see it expand into more of an international resource.

View 2: The Net continues to be dominated by the English language, and developing nations have not seen as great a participation in the benefits of the Internet because of U.S.-centric policies.

Which view is right?

At an international panel on the Internet, people from around the globe called for an end to the U.S.' internet hegemony, asking instead for a international oversight agency.

It is true that U.S. marketers have benefited more than others in the Internet's growth, but the world is catching up, and there are plenty of jobs and e-commerce taking place from Mumbai to Sao Paulo.

Perhaps the best solution would be more power sharing. Let ICANN remain in the U.S., but create an international delegation to handle the creation of new domain names for languages other than English. Having English as a common thread has been helpful. But allowing more domains in other languages will help developing nations to share more in the benefits to commerce and democracy.

Posted By John Gartner at 08:00 AM
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