Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They
AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German
Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
Edition:
U.S.
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Home
Business
Business Home
Economy
Technology
Media
Small Business
Legal
Deals
Earnings
Social Pulse
Business Video
The Freeland File
Aerospace & Defense
Investing Simplified
Markets
Markets Home
U.S. Markets
European Markets
Asian Markets
Global Market Data
Indices
M&A
Stocks
Bonds
Currencies
Commodities
Futures
Funds
peHUB
Dividends
World
World Home
U.S.
Brazil
China
Euro Zone
Japan
Africa
Mexico
Russia
India Insight
World Video
Reuters Investigates
Decoder
Politics
Politics Home
Supreme Court
Politics Video
Tech
Technology Home
MediaFile
Science
Tech Video
Tech Tonic
Social Pulse
Opinion
Opinion Home
Chrystia Freeland
John Lloyd
Felix Salmon
Jack Shafer
David Rohde
Nader Mousavizadeh
Lucy P. Marcus
Nicholas Wapshott
Bethany McLean
Anatole Kaletsky
Zachary Karabell
Edward Hadas
Hugo Dixon
Ian Bremmer
Lawrence Summers
Susan Glasser
The Great Debate
Reihan Salam
Frederick Kempe
Mark Leonard
Steven Brill
Breakingviews
Equities
Credit
Private Equity
M&A
Macro & Markets
Politics
Breakingviews Video
Money
Money Home
Tax Break
Lipper Awards 2012
Global Investing
MuniLand
Unstructured Finance
Linda Stern
Mark Miller
John Wasik
James Saft
Analyst Research
Alerts
Watchlist
Portfolio
Stock Screener
Fund Screener
Personal Finance Video
Money Clip
Investing 201
Life
Health
Sports
Arts
Faithworld
Business Traveler
Entertainment
Oddly Enough
Lifestyle Video
Pictures
Pictures Home
Reuters Photographers
Full Focus
Video
Reuters TV
Reuters News
Article
Comments (1)
Follow Reuters
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
YouTube
Read
North Korea launches rocket - YTN reports
11 Dec 2012
North Korea's new leader burnishes credentials with rocket
2:23am EST
Gunman kills two at Oregon mall before taking own life
|
2:26am EST
Legendary Indian sitarist, composer Ravi Shankar dead at 92
1:38am EST
Fed set to expand its monetary stimulus
12:03am EST
Discussed
95
”Fiscal cliff” talks down to Obama and Republican Boehner
80
Obama says he’s ready to work with Republicans to avoid ”fiscal cliff”
78
Protesters to march on Michigan capitol over ”right-to-work” vote
Pictures
Reuters Photojournalism
Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption
Top tweets of 2012
Obama, Justin Bieber and Green Bay Packers' TJ Lang have garnered the highest number of retweets this year. Slideshow
Santa season
In the countdown to Christmas, Santa sightings are a common occurrence. Slideshow
Sponsored Links
Compromise emerges in global talks on Internet oversight
Tweet
Share this
Email
Print
Related News
RPT-Russia, China alliance wants greater govt voice in Internet oversight
Sun, Dec 9 2012
New net rules would hit digital economy: diplomat
Wed, Dec 5 2012
U.S. fails to win early limit on Net controls at global gathering
Tue, Dec 4 2012
Syria jets bombard rebel targets on airport road
Fri, Nov 30 2012
EU set to fight Internet tax and "spying" at global summit
Fri, Nov 30 2012
Analysis & Opinion
How the United Nations could ruin the Internet
Mark Thompson’s wise words
Related Topics
Tech »
United Nations »
By Matt Smith and Joseph Menn
DUBAI |
Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:13pm EST
DUBAI (Reuters) - Hopes rose on Tuesday for a compromise agreement that would keep intrusive government regulation of the Internet from being enshrined in a global treaty.
As a 12-day conference of the International Telecommunication Union drew near its Friday closing, the chairman of the gathering in Dubai circulated a draft that sidelined proposals from Russia, China and other countries that have been seeking the right to know where each piece of Internet traffic comes from.
"The United States believes it is the basis for any further progress toward reaching an agreement at this conference," said U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer, who had led Western opposition to the earlier proposals.
The new draft was greeted positively by a broad swath of delegates to the conference and came as a surprise to many who had been frustrated by the deadlock gripping the event over the weekend.
Hamaoun Touré, ITU secretary-general, told Reuters he had hosted discussions between the opposing parties and weary delegates seemed eager to resolve their differences as talks drag into the early hours each night.
A majority of the more than 150 countries represented at the conference had been willing to officially extend the mission of the United Nations agency to the Internet, while the Americans, most Europeans and some other advanced economies wanted to limit the ITU to oversight of international phone calls and other means of communication.
The issue is coming to a head now because the ITU is revamping its treaty for the first time since 1988, before the World Wide Web took shape and became an economic, cultural and political force usually free from international oversight.
The compromise-in-progress would move most Internet elements from the treaty itself to a separate, U.N.-style "resolution" that is not binding on the countries, delegates said.
A few matters that could govern the Internet remain in the main document and will be debated Wednesday, said Markus Kummer, vice president of the Internet Society, one of several nongovernmental groups that are involved in setting standards now and that sounded alarms about the Dubai conference.
Among the remaining provisions in the draft is a tentative assertion that countries could choose to "manage the naming, numbering, addressing and identification resources used within their territories for international telecommunications."
That could be interpreted as including the right to assign Web addresses, which is currently controlled by ICANN, a United States-based nonprofit under contract to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
"The Internet space as such isn't mentioned, but there are a few provisions that might go a little bit into the Internet space and that we need to look at carefully," Kummer said.
The nonbinding resolution, meanwhile, was further softened to allude to the roles of parties from outside government.
"All governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security and continuity of the existing Internet and its future development and of the future Internet, and that the need for development of public policy by governments in consultation with all stakeholders is also recognized," the draft states.
Most of the talks have been behind closed doors, and so far the key debate on whether the ITU has a mandate to set Internet-related regulations has not been held in public.
Conference Chairman Mohamed al-Ghanim, director-general of the United Arab Emirates' telecom regulator, has opted to hand over the more controversial issues to private sub-groups.
Open sessions are instead devoted to relatively minor issues, with much of Tuesday's final debate spent squabbling over when the next summit should be held.
When asked if member states had formed an agreement over the terms in which the Internet was referred to in the treaty, Touré said, "of course," but declined to give further details, saying it had yet to be formally approved.
Touré said the treaty would "absolutely not" cover Internet governance, but admitted some references to the Internet were likely to be included in the final text, which may be too much for the United States.
"It's normal to mention the Internet, it's not taboo, because we're all stakeholders of this Internet world," said Touré. "The Internet is one of the biggest issues here, so for me it was important that we resolve this issue. By Thursday we should be ready."
Though the Western camp was happy with Tuesday's negotiations, some of its opponents remained unappeased. A Russia-led coalition resubmitted a previously shelved proposal that calls for sweeping new governmental powers over the Internet.
The revised submission, now co-signed by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Bahrain, Iraq and the UAE, says countries should be able to block some Internet locations and take control of address allocation. The proposal also wants to allow states to track and direct Internet traffic and provides a definition of spam so broad it could potentially apply to almost any emailed message, which opponents warn could be used to curb online freedom of expression.
But this proposal has yet to be debated in the public sessions, and its recommendations may have little chance of being approved, especially following Touré's insistence that the treaty would not deal with Internet governance.
"The end result is very unlikely to have anything in it that would justify the amount of fear-mongering that led up to the conference," said Kieren McCarthy, a former ICANN official who runs .Nxt, an information service that specializes in Internet policy.
"But at the same time, there were several concerted efforts to increase government control over the Internet, so it's hard to tell what would have happened if people hadn't been so vociferous."
(Reporting by Matt Smith in Dubai and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Editing by M.D. Golan)
Tech
United Nations
Tweet this
Link this
Share this
Digg this
Email
Reprints
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (1)
kevin2ia wrote:
Edition:
U.S.
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Back to top
Reuters.com
Business
Markets
World
Politics
Technology
Opinion
Money
Pictures
Videos
Site Index
Legal
Bankruptcy Law
California Legal
New York Legal
Securities Law
Support & Contact
Support
Corrections
Connect with Reuters
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
RSS
Podcast
Newsletters
Mobile
About
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
AdChoices
Copyright
Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider
An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution
A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance
Our next generation legal research platform
Our global tax workstation
Thomsonreuters.com
About Thomson Reuters
Investor Relations
Careers
Contact Us
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.