US web stranglehold challenged

A top UN official has called for changes to the way the internet is operated, taking aim at the US stranglehold on domain names and internet addresses.

Speaking at the opening of a four-day UN summit in Athens Yoshio Utsumi criticised the current rules for overseeing domain names and internet addresses, stressing that poorer nations are dissatisfied and are hoping that this week's meeting will erode US influence.

Utsumi, a lawyer and former government official who is the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, said: "No matter what technical experts argue is the best system, no matter what self-serving justifications are made that this is the only possible way to do things, there are no systems or technologies that can eternally claim they are the best."

Human rights groups, however, have warned that many of the nations most critical of the current arrangement – such as China and Iran - rank among the world's most repressive. The worry is that if those governments have their way, the current, virtually limitless amount of free expression on the internet may come to an end.

The Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders last week called reform proposals alarming and asked: "Do we really want the countries that censor the internet and jail cyber-dissidents to be in charge of the online flow of information?"

Similarly, Amnesty International has sent a delegation to the Internet Governance Forum in Athens to emphasise the need for protecting free speech. Steve Ballinger, part of Amnesty's delegation, said: "The Internet Governance Forum needs to know that the online community is bothered about free expression online and willing to stand up for it."

Declan McCullagh writes for News.com