Watson Coleman: “on July 14 the United Nations' Working Group on Internet Governance, WGIG, issued its final report. WGIG was formed…”

“on July 14 the United Nations' Working Group on Internet Governance, WGIG, issued its final report. WGIG was formed following the December 2003 U.N. World Summit on Information Policy with the intention of simply developing a consensus definition for ``intent governance'' and identifying relevant public policy issues. Ultimately the task force exceeded its mandate and laid out four policy recommendations for the future of Internet governance. One unifying theme for all these options is that there should be ``a further internationalization of Internet governance arrangements'' because of WGIG's belief that ``no single government should have a pre- eminent role in relation to international Internet governance''. In other words, this U.N. task force report suggests that the historic role of the United States in overseeing the Internet's growth and shepherding its development should be terminated and that Internet governance should be politicized under U.N. auspices. The most extreme of the options laid out by the WGIG would transfer the authority and functions of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, a respected nonprofit organization which is currently overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce, to a new body linked to and controlled by the United Nations. This would put international bureaucrats in charge of the Internet and relegate the private sector to a mere advisory role.…”