The UN wants to regulate your ability to freely discuss this or any other topic

[Howzit]

http://news.yahoo.com/bitter-struggle-over-internet-regulation-dominate-global-summit-040702595--sector.html

The 12-day conference of the International Telecommunications Union, a 157-year-old organization that's now an arm of the United Nations, largely pits revenue-seeking developing countries and authoritarian regimes that want more control over Internet content against U.S. policymakers and private Net companies that prefer the status quo.

While specifics of some of the most contentious proposals remain secret, leaked drafts show that Russia is seeking rules giving individual countries broad permission to shape the content and structure of the Internet within their borders, while a group of Arab countries is advocating universal identification of Internet users. Some developing countries and telecom providers, meanwhile, want to make content providers pay for Internet transmission.

Fundamentally, most of the 193 countries in the ITU seem eager to enshrine the idea that the U.N. agency, rather than today's hodgepodge of private companies and nonprofit groups, should govern the Internet. The ITU meeting, which aims to update a longstanding treaty on how telecom companies interact across borders, will also tackle other topics such as extending wireless coverage into rural areas.

If a majority of the ITU countries approve U.N. dominion over the Internet along with onerous rules, a backlash could lead to battles in Western countries over whether to ratify the treaty, with tech companies rallying ordinary Internet users against it and some telecom carriers supporting it. In fact, dozens of countries including China, Russia and some Arab states, already restrict Internet access within their own borders, but those governments would have greater leverage over Internet content and service providers if the changes were backed up by international agreement

[leveymg]

1. Recced for visibility. The best world gov't governs the least, in this case.

[Howzit]

3. Won't any world government get drunk on its own power and be tempted to regulate to the max

because it can?

[bemildred]

2. Nations may do as they like within their own borders.

The management of The Internet is a highly technical matter, which ought not be meddled with by politicians of any stripe.

[Too Few]

4. UN reulation?

I am against it!