U.N. to control use of Internet? Developing countries want global body to govern cyberspace

Leaders of a U.N. Internet panel yesterday said they hope to set up a global system where cyberspace would be under the control of the United Nations. The committee, which was set up in December 2003, is laying the groundwork for the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society where a final decision on the control of the Net will be determined, stated a Reuters report. The summit will take place in Tunis in November. The panel is considering such problems as cyber-crime and e-mail spam. ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, currently is the most recognizable Internet governing body, but developing countries want a U.N. agency, such as the International Telecommunication Union, to have control over domain names and other issues. "There is an issue that is out there and that needs to be resolved," Nitin Desai, chairman of the panel and special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told Reuters. Incorporated in 1998, ICANN oversees management of the Internet's addressing system, which matches numerical addresses to website addresses. Critics claim ICANN is subject to U.S. political influence. [more]