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Dec 1st 2012 | from the print edition
THE rules of the internet decide its speed, safety, accessibility, flexibility
and unity. They therefore matter not just to computer enthusiasts, but to
everyone with a stake in the modern world. On December 3rd officials from more
than 150 countries, plus do-gooders, geeks and other interested parties, will
meet in Dubai to argue about how to run the network and fight over who should
control it.
Since the internet s creation, a ragtag bunch of academics, engineers, firms
and non-profit outfits have been in charge. That delights innovators but has
been a nightmare for the tidy-minded, and especially for authoritarian
governments. They would like the net to be run like the world s telephone
system, with tight standards and clearly set charges. The Dubai meeting brings
the chance to write new rules, with a review of an elderly treaty: the
International Telecommunication Regulations.
America, the European Union and other Western countries are trying to defend
the chaotic status quo. Against them are Russia, China and many African and
Arab states which claim that the internet undermines national laws while
enriching American firms. The meeting s host is the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), a sluggish UN affiliate founded in 1865 to
regulate telegrams, but which now deals with satellite flight-paths and radio
frequencies. Its influence has waned since telecoms liberalisation.
Some think it obsolete. Certainly its opaque and bureaucratic style dismays
those steeped in the internet s open culture. Larry Downes, a commentator who
blogs for Forbes, says the ITU's press releases read like weird dispatches
from Dickensian England . It has published only a few draft documents for Dubai
and has yet to vote on whether the public can attend any of the discussions.
Though the ITU s president, Hamadoun Tour , dismisses the notion of a takeover
of the internet as ridiculous, some governments, including Russia, would like
the body to play a bigger role. In particular, they would like it to run the
internet s address system, in place of ICANN, an unusual charity registered in
California and supervised from a distance by America s commerce department.
Critics think this gives the American authorities unjustified powers, for
example to boot undesirable websites off the internet. Mr Tour says such
matters are outside the Dubai meeting s scope, but he has little power to stop
delegates raising them.
America wants to shield the net from the treaty, but its diplomats fear that a
broad coalition is taking shape against them. They hope to fend off most of the
450 or so proposed amendments. Many seem innocuous, or even worthwhile: for
example, calling for international co-operation against fraud, child abuse or
spam. But Terry Kramer, the head of America s 122-strong delegation, says that
some of these hide attempts to facilitate or legitimise censorship of political
speech. America decries any wording, however mealy-mouthed, that could increase
governments control over content.
A fiercer row is brewing about the rules for online businesses. High charges
for international phone calls once helped funnel cash from rich countries to
state-owned networks in developing ones. Much of that traffic is now on the
internet, hitting national operators profits and governments foreign-exchange
reserves. An alliance of poor countries and network operators wants businesses
that depend on broadband networks, such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, to
pay towards their construction and upkeep.
Not joining the dots
One proposal is that the most popular websites, such as YouTube or Facebook,
should be billed for the data they send, as if they were making phone calls. At
the moment an American web firm pays no more to serve data to customers in
Dhaka than in Detroit. But if the cost of serving users varied by location, web
firms might start to shun far-flung customers, says Karen Mulberry of the
Internet Society, which represents the network s engineers.
Meanwhile a group of Europe s big telecoms firms, the European
Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO), is demanding that
governments outlaw the introduction of network neutrality rules, which are
already in force in countries such as the Netherlands and Chile. These rules
require operators to grant equal priority to all internet traffic, and prevent
them from charging higher prices for fast lanes and other premium services.
Luigi Gambardella, ETNO s chairman, says operators cannot continue to invest in
broadband infrastructure without a fairer share of the revenues it generates.
Advocates of network neutrality worry that this is an attempt to erect
tollbooths on the internet. They say network-neutrality rules are needed to
ensure that the internet provides a level playing field for innovative
start-ups, and is not simply run in a way that maximises profits for incumbent
network operators. Geoff Huston, a network scientist, thinks former telephone
monopolies exaggerate their importance to the web. They are dinosaurs fighting
over the last water in the swamp, he says.
Fears of an anti-Western putsch in Dubai, handing control of the internet to
authoritarian governments, are overblown. Though in theory the ITU works by
majority vote, in practice agreements are almost always reached by consensus.
Moreover, the ITU has no power to foist rules on governments that refuse to
bargain. A bigger danger is therefore deadlock. That might encourage a large
pack of nations to set up their own internet regime, making communication with
the rest of the world more costly and more complicated.
from the print edition | International