Tunis (November 16, 2005) – The opening salvos in the battle over control of the Internet worldwide were fired this week at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society WSIS in Tunis, Tunisia, starting today. With full support of the UN bureaucracy, third world countries and the European Union will try to strip the US of control of the Internet it invented. On the frontline was ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a US-based non-profit organization, created on September 18, 1998. ICANN was contracted by the US Department of Commerce to perform a number of Internet-related tasks, like managing and operating the assignment of domain names and Internet Protocol IP addresses. This non-profit organization answers to elected representatives from the Internet community. At the WSIS in Tunis this week, third world countries like Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China and the European Union want to force through a proposal, which in effect would terminate the historic role of the US-based non-governmental organization in Internet oversight. It would instead place the UN bureaucrats in charge of Internet’s operations and future.Former Vice President Al Gore, who proclaimed that he had invented the Internet, announced his support for the UN push this morning. He has decided to donate “my intellectual child, the Internet” to the UN, effective immediately, so “they can do whatever they want with it,” Mr. Gore said.
