World Summit On The Internet And IT

eegad writes "The Seattle PI reports on the upcoming first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva on December 10-12. 192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet (a little late, eh?) including ways to deal with spam, a possible "digital solidarity fund" to help developing nations, and discussion of UN regulation. The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action". Some countries plan on asking for a UN commission to study new ways of running the Internet aimed at the 2005 phase. The official website will provide coverage of the event. How come I wasn't invited?" The Washington Times also has a piece on it, as well. We had covered this a bit before.

cross your fingers..

[grub]

192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet ... including ways to deal with spam

I hope Nigeria doesn't have any sort of veto power at this summit.

"a little late, eh?"

[musikit]

not really. considering it takes OUR government 10-20 years to recognize technology. i would say this is a rather fast turn around for a body of government set up by bodies of government.

Al Gore

[pdjohe]

I heard they are going to make Al Gore in charge of the whole meeting.

After all, he did create the thing, right? ;)

Gotta love the U.N.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the U.N. Watch them protect the Internet the same way they protected the safe havens in Bosnia.

Since they are just a debating society, watch them spend all their time debating about the Internet and doing nothing about it.

Wait. We have that already. It's called Slashdot!

You like-a 'da net?

[Anonymous Coward]

You like the internet just the way it is? Give control over to the UN. Look at their track record, they've never done anything but have meetings on when to have the next meeting. It's a powerless, functionless, purposeless body that exists only to put all the beggers seeking favor from the worlds rich democracies in one place.

It's like putting almost all the Mormons in Salt Lake city. If we didn't they'd be at your house all weekend, and you couldn't have a moment of peace in which to enjoy the game. Any game.

First Election

[tds67]

I can't wait until the first Information Minister is elected.

And it will probably be Darl McBribe.

analysis

[theMerovingian]

The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action".

Person 1: Sounds like it was created by an MBA.

Person 2: Actually, it was a committee.

Person 1: OK, a committee of MBA's.

Person 2: A committee of MBA's who work for the government!

Both: (run away and hide under cubicles)

1998 called...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and they'd like their joke back.

Re:First Election

[Mohammed Al-Sahaf]

Do not believe the lies my friend. There is only one man for this job. Make no mistake, when I am made Minister of the Information Society the blood of the spammers will flow like wine. Our low price septic tanks will be full of the corpses of the armies of slaughtered spammers. We shall strike them down like the dogs they are. They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone. And we shall destroy them.

Workshop on Free Software, Free Society

[Anonymous Coward]

The most promising and interesting for us is the thematic Working Group (WG) dealing with Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks (P.C.T) and related issues, within the framework of the Civil Society.

See the website of this group at http://www.wsis-pct.org/ [wsis-pct.org]

The Working Group is holding a workshop "Free Software, Free Society [fsfeurope.org]" with a group of top speakers, including Richard Stallman [stallman.org], founder of the GNU Project, and Lawrence Lessig [lessig.org].

Re:Bad idea?

[Marxist Commentary]

Well, a centralized authority in control of the internet, while possibly restricting some current freedoms could make tremendous positive impacts in others. For example:

Spam could be outlawed once and for all worldwide, with harsh penalties for violation.

An international agreement of standards for content could bring freedom of information to places where there is a lack of information.

Centralized taxation - an agreed upon method for providing revenue streams to the UN which would allow taxes to be paid across various countries.

Elimination of various objectively hateful websites from the internet, e.g., holocaust denial, neo-nazis, gun merchants.

This doesn't sound all bad to me, though admittedly there are some drawbacks. For example, the administrative costs might be fairly high, but these could be worked out I think. Perhaps an email tax on corporations?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:hunt down spammers

[spectrokid]

The U.S. should rightfully continue to refuse to agree to any treaty that has not been shown to be in the best interests of the citizens of the U.S

Wait until NY comes below sea level. Then we'll see what is best for US citizens.

Are you sure?

[Raven42rac]

Are you sure there are 192 nations participating, and not 192.168 nations? What about the 10.x or the 169.254 nations you insensitive clods?

html

[loconet]

They should start by banning frontpage as a tool to create webpages. Yes that would mean they'll have to recode their official website as well

Re:NYTimes has an article too...

[Hobbex]

Who needs the NYT when we have the esteemed publication of the Reverend Sun Moon!

Of course, how many of you knew this [mediachannel.org].

Re:Are you sure?

[Tackhead]

> Are you sure there are 192 nations participating, and not 192.168 nations? What about the 10.x or the 169.254 nations you insensitive clods?

Someone call the WTO! I'm a 192.168 nation! And those bastards in the rest of the world have embargoed me from trading with anyone but 10.x and 169.254 nations! End the blockade now! To the firewalls, mes amis!

Re:The UN is awash in money.

[m0rphin3]

Just for the sake of clearing this up, do you have any links to substantiate your claim?