U.S. Retains Control of Internet Traffic

(Tunis, Tunisia) Some members of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society wanted to transfer control of Internet traffic from the United States to the United Nations. They failed.

From Reuters:

The United States will keep control of the domain-name system that guides online traffic under an agreement on Wednesday seen as a setback to efforts to internationalise one of the pillars of the Internet.

Negotiators at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society said they had agreed to set up a forum to discuss "spam" e-mail and other Internet issues and explore ways to narrow the technology gap between rich and poor countries.

But oversight of the domain-name system will remain with the United States, a setback for the European Union and other countries that had pushed for international control of one of the most important technical aspects of the Internet.

The European Union said in a statement that the agreement would lead to "further internationalisation of Internet governance, and enhanced intergovernmental cooperation to this end."

This is good news. I'm at a loss to even imagine what would happen if the UN or the EU were put in charge.