The new head of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Hamadoun Toure has no new plans to change the oversight of the Internet.
He currently supports the two major agencies ICANN and the ITU that govern the Internet. He says his focus will be on cyber security and closing the “digital divide” between rich and poor countries.
“We all must work together, each agency has its role to play. We must come to a better cooperation… and avoid setting up a superstructure which would be very controversial and very difficult to put into effect,” Toure said at a news conference on Friday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the Internet’s domain name addressing system.
They report to the US Commerce Department who said last September they would continue their role for three more years.
Some countries are critical of ICANN believing that the US government has too much control over the agency. Iran and Brazil would like to see an international organization have control of the Internet.
“It is not my intention to take over the governance of Internet. I don’t think it is in the mandate of ITU and as secretary-general I will continue to contribute to the debate over Internet governance and continue to provide technical support,” said Toure, an electrical engineer from Mali.
Toure’s main focus seems to be on the security side of things. If this is true maybe his agency and ICANN can work on reducing the number of non-sanctioned registrants.
As one blogger writes,” Perhaps what Toure’s agency – and ICANN – should consider is taking another look at the registrant side of the web. If ICANN is the final word in IP address assignments then why are there so many fly-by-night registrants who are not sanctioned by ICANN? Godaddy and other legitimate ICANN sanctioned registrants have voiced that complaint – both in Europe and here in the U.S., but it seems to fall on deaf ears.”
There have been two ITU summits. One in 2003 and 2005 that were focused on expanding telephone access to at least half of the world’s population by 2012.
The meetings struggled with the issue of Internet governance but reach a resolution.
Some countries have said they would set up their own infrastructure for the Internet that could lead to multiple incompatibility.”We have to avoid a ‘cyberwar’ between governments,” Toure said.
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Mike is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
