From: The Hill
By Simon Rosenberg and Jonathan Spalter
This week, as the world’s Internet diplomats descend on Busan, South Korea for the important global gathering of the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU), they would do well to do a quick status update on the health and well-being of the Internet and the future of global communications.
For the truth is that this remarkable thing we call the Internet may be much more fragile than it appears.
Cyber-criminals, rogue states and adversaries are making the Internet far less safe for consumers through the persistent and escalating theft of personal data.
Autocratic governments are making a major effort to bring the day-to-day governance of the Internet under their control.
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Defend the current multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance – The American delegation should re-affirm our nation’s principled commitment to the current multi-stakeholder approach which limits the ability of authoritarian governments to exert undue influence. It also must reiterate that the proposed transition of certain Internet domain name functions, known as IANA, from the U.S. government to the global multistakeholder community through a process convened by ICANN (the organization responsible for technical coordination of the domain name system ) must satisfy all applicable conditions before it comes into effect, and be clearly understood to be undertaken as a means to reinforce the integrity and viability of the current system.
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