Icann? We All Can.

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media]
[Commentary] The European Union -- of 25 nations and over 450 million potential Internet users -- will speak with one voice in Tunis and set out a position that is clear, coherent and consistent. The EU advocates a free, stable, democratic Internet open to the world. We believe this view is shared by the vast majority of nations around the world, and certainly by our partners in the U.S. We believe governments should not have a say in the day-to-day management of the Internet. To involve them could result in unnecessarily burdensome structures and even endanger its stability. The EU therefore supports an approach to Internet governance that even further removes government control from Icann. For many years, we have understood that this objective was also shared by the U.S. administration. The next step, therefore, should be to complete the privatization process of the day-to-day management of the Internet by phasing out the oversight functions of the U.S. Department of Commerce over Icann. We also believe that on important policy issues concerning the functioning of the Internet -- spam, cybercrime, and ensuring access by all citizens to the freedoms offered by the Web -- we need a new "cooperation model," a light and transparent mechanism for deliberations between governments. To do so, we certainly don't need to establish any new structures nor call in the U.N. Let's build on the existing structures and Icann in particular. If governments are really serious about safeguarding the free, stable and open Internet we have today, convening under the auspices of Icann's Governmental Advisory Committee in order to put this much needed "cooperation model" into practice could be one of a number of concrete steps open to us. Tunis can mark an important step forward on the long evolution of the Internet toward freedom from government control and increased internationalization of its governance structures. We are almost there with two-thirds of the final package already agreed. A political agreement in Tunis is within our grasp. It would be an important and much-needed signal that democratic nations are genuinely committed to overcome the growing digital divide and build a truly open and inclusive global information society.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113210601472798463.html?mod=todays_us_op...
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