For a free, open web
Dubai, at present, is playing host to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, a 11-day conference at which governments of 193 nations will discuss and possibly shape the future of the Internet and hope to revise the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), one that has not been updated since 1988!
At the meeting, each of the nations can propose regulatory changes focusing on issues such as Web security and expanding Internet services in developing countries. While the conference seems like a good thing, the web’s high profile companies such as Google and Microsoft are opposing it, fearing it could provide an opportunity for repressive governments to remove user anonymity and curb Internet freedom.
Google’s main concern is that a few of the proposals will allow governments to censor free speech on the internet or maybe even cut off internet access at will. It also cried bitter about the fact that only governments are allowed to have a say at the conference, and doesn’t involve the companies and people that build the web on a daily basis.
Google has left no stone unturned in campaigning for unrestricted, free web. At the beginning of the conference, Google’s vice president and ‘father of the Internet’ Vint Cerf had a straightforward appeal to the Union - keep the Internet free and open. He had said, “A state-controlled system of regulation is not only unnecessary, it would almost invariably raise costs and prices and interfere with the rapid and organic growth of the internet we have seen since its commercial emergence in the 1990s.” Google even started a separate website for the campaign (freeandopenweb.com) and even a hash tag on twitter #freeandopenweb, inviting netizens to voice their support. At present, over a million people have supported the campaign and it only seems to be on the rise.
By December 14, we’ll know if the conference will lead to the end of the World Wide Web as we know it, or if it was just-another-Internet-conference.
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