Nerd world conference spells end of the world as we know it

Yet among the other most important issues being debated are: Should the United States continue, through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in California, to control the Internet? The not-for-profit organization reports directly to the US government's Department of Commerce, after all.

Do countries have the right to control their online territories? Will telecom companies be able to wrest bigger profits by charging major-bandwidth companies like Google and Facebook more? Should we accept a deep-packet inspection standard that improves snooping capabilities and facilitates interception of encrypted information?

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There is a pervasive feeling among most of the parties that the United Nations wants to take over the Internet.

This sentiment was parried in the US with a historic 397-0 vote in the US House of Representatives, sending a unanimous message: "Don't mess with our Internet."

At the European Parliament, too, there was 27-member full house vote to oppose UN supervision.

Google trotted out Vint Cerf - the "father of ICANN" - to say that WCIT-12 signals a "fundamental shift" in Net governance, while a Stanford Law panel went one step further and called it "the end of the Internet".

The conference is managed by the UN's International Telecommunication Union, which dates back to 1865.

"The brutal truth is that the Internet remains largely the rich world's privilege," insisted the ITU secretary-general Dr Hamadoun Toure.

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"ITU wants to change that."

Since the ITU is essentially painting itself as a watchdog with no teeth and swears blind that it has no interest in controlling the Internet, I will take the path of least resistance and believe it when I don't see it.

For me, the conference signifies the importance of the Internet, its political and economic sway, and how it functions as a repository for the largest gathering of people ever.

I think the fighting over it has just started in earnest.

Contact the writer at julesquartly@chinadaily.com.cn.