[cooperation-wg] 'European Commission calls for greater government control over Internet'

Hi Cooperation WG,

I came across http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-greater-government-control and decided it was a good enough reason for a first post to the list. 

'Among a long series of measures promoted in no less than six papers by the EC’s Information Society and Media Directorate-General are:

	• A government veto over any new Internet extensions
	• The creation of a list of names, drawn up by governments, that would be banned from registration
	• Significant structural changes at overseeing organization ICANN, including at Board level and in the crucial IANA contract
	• An obligation for ICANN to follow governments’ advice unless deemed illegal or damaging to the Internet’s stability
	• Two new bodies to oversee ICANN decision-making and finances

Combined together, the measures would provide governments with de facto control over the Internet’s naming systems and bring an end to the independent and autonomous approach that has defined the Internet’s domain name system since its inception.'

The papers 'are billed as “informal background papers” and have not yet been published.'

(For an 'analysis' see http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis: 'Together the papers represent a wholesale effort to put governments in charge of the Internet.')

I am not an ICANN-watcher myself, nor am I aware of the nitty-gritty details of DNS-related discussions that go on in different (EU) fora. So it is hard for me to judge the merits of these .nxt articles. And maybe it is indeed just 'informal background' stuff. But this does sound quite serious though and, if it is, it comes as a surprise that I haven't seen it being mentioned elsewhere a lot... 

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

--

Bastiaan Goslings
AMS-IX Governance and Policy Officer

AMS-IX B.V.				tel:	+31 (0)20 514 1712
Westeinde 12			fax:	+31 (0)20 305 8990
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http://www.ams-ix.net		bastiaan.goslings at ams-ix.net