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IPFS News Link • United Nations

UN Already Moving In To Take Control Over Internet

• Technocracy News

An international business trade association, which includes as its members law firms and major multinational companies, released a statement on Tuesday pressing the U.S. government to keep a lid on a foray into internet governance from a United Nations agency that develops global telecommunications standards.

The U.S. Council of International Business released its statement ahead of the World Telecommunications Standardizations Assembly, which will convene from Oct. 25 through Nov. 3 in Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia, to determine the trajectory of the International Telecommunications Union's Telecommunications Standardization Sector, or ITU-T, for the next four years. While the USCIB acknowledged the "important role" of the U.N. branch in developing international standards that promote the interoperability of global telecommunication networks, the trade group expressed concerns about the ITU-T's efforts to expand its authority to regulate internet policy.

"We urge the U.S. government to push back strongly on efforts by some member states to use the WTSA review of the ITU-T's work program as an opportunity to expand the ITU's jurisdiction to include various internet governance issues," the USCIB said. "A multistakeholder framework has proved far more effective in addressing internet policy matters against a dynamic technological backdrop than binding rules developed by an intergovernmental organization."

The USCIB, which is made up of more than 300 multinational companies, law firms and business associations from a range of industries, counts among its board members executives from Oracle Corp., General Electric Company and AT&T Inc.

According to the trade group's statement, an ITU conference in 2014 featured "sometimes heated discussions" about proposals that would have expanded the U.N. unit's role in international internet governance. While the USCIB said it was pleased that the U.S. government and other like-minded countries pushed back against these efforts, the trade group noted that since that conference, many ITU-T study groups have actively worked on internet policy issues.

These issues include "over-the-top" services that are app-based, such as iMessage or WhatsApp, internet protocol-based networks, interconnected devices known as the internet of things, or IoT, and cybercrime. The USCIB noted that it has already expressed concern about how the ITU-T's potential governance role "expands the scope of the ITU's work to a worrisome degree."


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