>Internet Control Questioned: Cede, Retain, Ignore?

There is a big conference of Internet developers in Brazil going down. And among the items on the agenda is whether the United States should retain control of the Internet's Governance.

Arguments Pro range from "Bush is an idiot" to "A distributed network was the goal all along."

Arguments Con sound something like "We made it, we paid for it, we should get to keep it". This argument is interesting because it's being widely dismissed by the Pro faction as being childish.

All of the Pro arguments have one thing in common: They make zero shreds of sense. And the Pro faction fails to demonstrate how it would allow change and development. Thats because ceding control of the Internet to the UN or to independent nations would in fact place a choke-hold on innovation. Instead of trying to talk one agency into making a change, you would then have 300. Effectivley you end up with a flash frozen Internet until you can get one state/organization to control it again.

We have not heard from the proponents of change, just what they have in mind. Just that they don't want the US in command anymore. I love changing things up as much as the next guy (more so even I would say) but all I see now is a proposal for a rudderless net that nobody would benefit from.

Give me some meat I can chew on, and then let's talk!