Later this year, for the first time in a quarter century, the United Nations will meet to revise international telecom rules. The participants are going to great lengths to suggest the gathering is a moderate bureaucratic exercise.
In reality, the future of a free and independent Internet hangs in the balance. Those of us who value the online liberty we have today, for the most part, must shine a light on the proceedings and keep the pressure on.
The proposals under consideration at the World Conference on International Telecommunications, which will be held this December in Dubai, were kept secret until a few weeks ago, when they were leaked and made public on WCITLeaks.org, a site created by me and my colleague Jerry Brito.
The details that emerged are troubling indeed.
For example, Russia, Iran and even some European telecom companies have proposed making international Web traffic more like the international phone system — where the caller ultimately pays a fee to the receiving country’s phone company. This would seriously affect American companies and organizations that serve a lot of content to international users. It risks fracturing the Internet on national boundaries.
Other proposals by China, Russia and several Arab states would bring problems like spam and cybercrime into a treaty that has always been, first and foremost, about uncontroversial technical matters that keep the phone system running. While abuses of the Internet are serious problems, they are best addressed outside of an international treaty — because the solutions can be broadly interpreted to justify spying and censorship.
Perhaps most worryingly, some proposals would set the stage for greater UN involvement in Internet governance. For example, Russia and several Arab governments have suggested allowing the UN to mandate how private networks can connect with each other. This change would undermine the voluntary organizations that currently oversee these affairs, eroding one of the very foundations of the Internet.
The primary motivation behind many, if not most, of these suggested revisions? Money. In many countries, the rise of free Web-based calling services like Skype has hit state-run telecom monopolies where it hurts. These countries are now going to extreme lengths to recover this revenue. A law under consideration in Ethiopia would send users of Skype’s Internet telephone service to jail for up to 15 years.
Others are motivated by political control. Proposals that purport to deal with spam and cybercrime could effectively legitimize the use of an Internet “kill switch,” the way Hosni Mubarak tried to cut his people off from the world in the final days of the Egyptian Revolution.
While a greater role for the UN is still a long way from it “taking over the Internet” as some fear, this is just the beginning. If this year’s meeting is successful, the countries that get their ideas adopted in the treaty will be even bolder at meetings already planned for 2013 and 2014, at which more aspects of
EXPERT COMMENTARY
Get the UN’s Hands Off the Internet
Later this year, for the first time in a quarter century, the United Nations will meet to revise international telecom rules. The participants are going to great lengths to suggest the gathering is a moderate bureaucratic exercise.
In reality, the future of a free and independent Internet hangs in the balance. Those of us who value the online liberty we have today, for the most part, must shine a light on the proceedings and keep the pressure on.
The proposals under consideration at the World Conference on International Telecommunications, which will be held this December in Dubai, were kept secret until a few weeks ago, when they were leaked and made public on WCITLeaks.org, a site created by me and my colleague Jerry Brito.
The details that emerged are troubling indeed.
For example, Russia, Iran and even some European telecom companies have proposed making international Web traffic more like the international phone system — where the caller ultimately pays a fee to the receiving country’s phone company. This would seriously affect American companies and organizations that serve a lot of content to international users. It risks fracturing the Internet on national boundaries.
Other proposals by China, Russia and several Arab states would bring problems like spam and cybercrime into a treaty that has always been, first and foremost, about uncontroversial technical matters that keep the phone system running. While abuses of the Internet are serious problems, they are best addressed outside of an international treaty — because the solutions can be broadly interpreted to justify spying and censorship.
Perhaps most worryingly, some proposals would set the stage for greater UN involvement in Internet governance. For example, Russia and several Arab governments have suggested allowing the UN to mandate how private networks can connect with each other. This change would undermine the voluntary organizations that currently oversee these affairs, eroding one of the very foundations of the Internet.
The primary motivation behind many, if not most, of these suggested revisions? Money. In many countries, the rise of free Web-based calling services like Skype has hit state-run telecom monopolies where it hurts. These countries are now going to extreme lengths to recover this revenue. A law under consideration in Ethiopia would send users of Skype’s Internet telephone service to jail for up to 15 years.
Others are motivated by political control. Proposals that purport to deal with spam and cybercrime could effectively legitimize the use of an Internet “kill switch,” the way Hosni Mubarak tried to cut his people off from the world in the final days of the Egyptian Revolution.
While a greater role for the UN is still a long way from it “taking over the Internet” as some fear, this is just the beginning. If this year’s meeting is successful, the countries that get their ideas adopted in the treaty will be even bolder at meetings already planned for 2013 and 2014, at which more aspects of