Eric Schmidt: UN Treaty a 'Disaster' For the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "Internet freedom and innovation are at risk of being stifled by a new United Nations treaty that aims to bring in more regulation, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has warned. In a question-and-answer session at Mobile World Congress 2012 on Tuesday, Schmidt said handing over control of things such as naming and DNS to the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) would divide the internet, allowing it to be further broken into pieces regulated in different ways. 'That would be a disaster... To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another,' Schmidt said. 'I cannot be more emphatic. Be very, very careful about moves which seem logical, but have the effect of balkanising the internet,' he added, urging everyone to strongly resist the moves."

I'll Be Damned!

[tgeek]

Here I thought the day I would ever agree with Eric Schmidt on something was long, long gone!

Re:Another reason

[Quiet_Desperation]

I love that the best about some anime and science fiction: how the UN suddenly becomes this competent and rational organization.

As for this issue, I'm of a mind to give the UN a taste of their own medicine and send them a *strongly* worded missive.

Re:Another reason

[elrous0]

In their defense, the UN has a very strict policy stating that everyone joining the Human Rights Council must clean the blood off their machetes before entering the Council chambers, and sign a pledge to reduce their raping by at least 50% while serving.

Re:Another reason

[SteveFoerster]

Also, their depiction of human-made technology, particularly computers, is completely fantastical: their technology is simply too reliable, instead of being filled with all kinds of dumb UI errors, bugs, various systems that are incompatible with each other, etc.

I can refute this part in two words: 1. Transporters. 2. Holodecks.