Rou

The UN has recently been pushing the US to turn over control of the internet to the UN. The idea being that they don’t trust the US to run things like the domain controllers.

Now, let me start off by saying, I don’t particularly trust the US government with control of such systems either. There have been enough odd restrictions and unusual backdoors put into things like the phone system, that I can reasonably understand their concern. Other countries worry that if they built their economies on internet business, the US will retain the ability to pull the rug out from under them. They’re worried about their national security. So is the US.

However, the simple fact of the matter is that the UN has been one of the most incompetent bodies of the past 20 years. For all of its attempts to push policy on the international community, it has looked to the US to back it up. When faced with a show down with the US, the UN backed down. When asked to manage things like oil-for-food and UNICEF, it showed gross corruption and incompetence time and time again. I mean, this is the group that put Libya on the human rights commission!

For all the good it does it the world, the UN has not demonstrated sufficient reliability to take over such an important task. The UN offers no more protection than the US from corruption, and misuse. And for all the faults of the US, its administration of the internet to this point has been fairly exemplary. I probably shouldn’t mention that the US shouldered most of the developmental costs for the project. But I will, because my money went into it.

So why should the US turn over control? There is no incentive for us to give up our security just to make the rest of the world feel better. Normally, I’m all about globalization and such things, but in the case, I don’t think it’s the right time, and I’m not sure the UN has demonstrated that it’s the right place.