Internet Governance Forum Fears Net Break-up
Posted: 11th Oct, 2006 By: MarkJ
Nitin Desai, chair of the UN based Internet Governance Forum (IGF), has spoken of how concerns over the net's future could lead to separation. Disagreements over domain names, security and regulation are some of the key problem areas:
The BBC News Online item gives some interesting examples of problems that are frequently overlooked, such as how Chinese users still have to type webpage addresses using Latin characters even when the pages were in Chinese.
Typically many people in China do not know the Latin alphabet, although in truth they probably just want more control over what people say. Either way the Internet of our future could be very different, but that remains to be seen.
"There are concerns over regulation as the internet, telephony and commerce come together," he said. "If I look at the internet in five years from now there are going to be very, very, very more internet users in Asia than Europe or America. There will be more Chinese web pages than English pages.
The types of uses for the internet in India and China are very different from western countries - they are not commerce or media; they are essentially public service applications. The internet was increasingly being shaped by companies and organisations at the "edges" and not by government, public sector bodies and regulators," he said.
This was concerning some countries who wanted more involvement in the development of the net. "These are the reasons these entities - government and private sector - feel they need to be reassured that the system they are relying on is secure, safe and reliable - that they cannot be suddenly thrown out of that system by some attack," said Mr Desai.
The types of uses for the internet in India and China are very different from western countries - they are not commerce or media; they are essentially public service applications. The internet was increasingly being shaped by companies and organisations at the "edges" and not by government, public sector bodies and regulators," he said.
This was concerning some countries who wanted more involvement in the development of the net. "These are the reasons these entities - government and private sector - feel they need to be reassured that the system they are relying on is secure, safe and reliable - that they cannot be suddenly thrown out of that system by some attack," said Mr Desai.
The BBC News Online item gives some interesting examples of problems that are frequently overlooked, such as how Chinese users still have to type webpage addresses using Latin characters even when the pages were in Chinese.
Typically many people in China do not know the Latin alphabet, although in truth they probably just want more control over what people say. Either way the Internet of our future could be very different, but that remains to be seen.
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