Eric Schmidt: UN Treaty a 'Disaster' For the Internet 346
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."
Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason why we have to question why we're in the United Nations in the first place. (Let alone funding the whole Keystone Kops outfit)
Re:psot frist (Score:4, Insightful)
People hate free neighbors (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone loves to be free. But everyone is also impacted by the actions of their neighbors. Therefore, everyone has an incentive to prevent their neighbors from taking actions that one dislikes. So, everyone has an incentive to deny freedom to their neighbors.
The Internet is a shining example of great freedom, and hence great resistence.
Should you be free to murder me? Obviously not.
Should you be free to post lies about me, visible to the entire world, which motivate people to act in a way that harms me? Probably not. But that rule is *very* hard to enforce without also infringing on other things you *should* be free to do (whether I like it or not).
Re:Difference to now? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least I can complain to my own government and vote out politicians. Where do I go to complain against the UNs policies?
Consolidation (Score:4, Insightful)
Like any political entity, the primary goal of the UN is to consolidate and centralize power into the hands of the few, rather than decentralize power into the hands of the many.
Let's put it this way. There is X amount of political power available in the world, and Y amount of individuals holding that political power. The UN's goal is to lessen Y while maintaining the same value of X. If you like the sound of that, then you'll be glad to know that they have already made significant progress.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Difference to now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite the US's flaws, the first amendment is the strongest protection of free expression in the world. It's an achievement of mankind which the rest of the world is actually just not good enough to appreciate. The Internet is in truth something better than what we humans in our current state of evolution deserve. If you hand it over to the UN, it will become something we actually deserve at this moment in time...and that's not a pretty thing.
We accidentally stumbled upon the Internet as it is today. If people had seen it coming, it would never have been allowed to become what it is. But now that it's here, we have to protect it and treasure it because we've been blessed with something that's too good for us. The UN will reverse that and make it just average since all over unevolved countries will have a say in it.
If it ain't broke... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear United Nations,
The internet is not broken. Please do not fix it.
Thank you.
Re:Another reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Glad to learn we have not had any wars since the founding of the UN -
(please ignore the 140 plus wars since it was founded in 1945)
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
No to mention all the rapes and corruption and underhanded deals and crazy ass countires that are alowed to be on the "Human Rights Council". LOL
The UN has more in common with the Legion of Doom than it does an actual peace organisation.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
At least we haven't had any World Wars since the UN was founded. There have been also a dramatic decrease in wars between countries. Getting involved in civil wars wasn't the UN's original purpose, but its mission has expended since it has been so successful in preventing other kinds of wars.
Re:Difference to now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where do I go to complain against the UNs policies?
Arms dealers.
Re:psot frist (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has watched as youtube, controlled by google last I heard, has slowly whittled away at these supposed freedoms (this birdsong is copyright douchebag corp, your video offends a muslim in malaysia and has been taken offline, your video offends the catholic clergy and has been removed, etc), I find this deliciously ironic.
Clean up your own house first, Schmidt.
Re:Damaging Legislation (Score:5, Insightful)
"Damage will be routed around"
I know that's the going idea, but let's not push the point too far. The Internet isn't P2P over air yet. You still need the resources of major telcos to make it work and major telcos can be bought or controlled. For all that we would like to pretend that's not the case, this is still the Age of the Nation-State.
It may not be the Internet that we know and love today, but an Internet can be controlled or more accurately killed by "gates" being dropped at access points all over the world. It could then be reanimated into a dismembered zombie under the control of governments and major providers.
The reason only places like China and Iran do that today is that no one else has a reason to do it right now, but just wait.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
BINGO! World War I started, in part, because in July 1914 Europe had in place an antiquated diplomatic framework that was not up to the task of solving a multilateral crisis. An entire month elapsed between the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of war. Until about the last week of that month, when the Russians mobilized, world war was eminently preventable through diplomacy. The UN and the Washington-Moscow hotline both serve as essential backstops to preventing another World War.
As a general rule... (Score:2, Insightful)
...this is true: "UN Treaty a Disaster"
Power elitists win, everyone else loses.
Re:Difference to now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, we here in the US often aren't good enough to appreciate the first amendment either.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN's post World War I precursor the League of Nations collapsed in complete failure as the Axis powers walked out one by one in the 1930's and it was moth balled when World War II started. The UN inherited many of its agencies and is for all practical purposed the same agency with a new name and a new home. The only reason the UN can claim no world wars on its watch is becaused they changed the name after there was a world war on its watch.
The primary reason there haven't been any world wars since the UN was founded is because there have been nuclear weapons since before the UN was founded, and everyone has a vested interest in not letting wars escalate to the point that they would annihalate civilization as we know it.
All things considered your statement is nonsense.
Re:Everybody wants to rule the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
What a horribly naive and ignorant statement. European research funding and a Brit invented the web, does that mean they should control the web?
What's debt got to do with anything anyway? It's the US and nations most closely aligned to it that hold far and away the majority of the world's debt whilst those nations in the UN whom the US sees as enemies such as China that hold far and away the largest surpluses. Bringing debt into it makes no sense as the US has far more than anyone else. Sorry if these facts upset your ignorant nationalist world view though.
Re:Another reason (Score:2, Insightful)
Glad to learn we have not had any wars since the founding of the UN -
(please ignore the 140 plus wars since it was founded in 1945)
The US has been in war in every decade since the 2nd world war.
Why should the US have a monopoly on the DNS system? Why should american politics and american secret agencies having access and control over what the whole world can or can't see on the web?
Aside from that I only see FUD about the UN ... where is the proposal to move DNS to the ITU? Who is proposing it? I don't think it'll happen.
possibly (Score:4, Insightful)
The ultimate threat to the Internet is not governments, it's corporations. If a government tries to twist or shape or censor the Internet, there will always be ways around it and in the end, citizens and even other countries and their citizens will bring down the plans of such regimes.
But when corporations take something over, it's gone for good. There will be no Tor, no darknet.
Even with their armies and weapons, governments are much weaker than corporations. Because ultimately, those armies are made up of people, and the ones holding those weapons are people. But there are no tools for people to fight off or take down corporations once they have reached a certain level of power. Finally, the decisions in a corporation are made not by the people who work for the corporation, or even the owners, but by the legal virtual entity that is required to only seek greater shareholder value. Even if the shareholders, or board of directors, or C-level officers decide they want to assign some social good a slightly greater weight in the corporate decision-making process, the corporation is designed to ignore them and only to seek greater shareholder value. No "free market" mechanisms exist that allow for the power of corporations to be reigned in. And now we have shares of corporations owned by other corporations, so there are layers and layers of decision gates that only respond to greater share value. We have corporations that are worth more than all but about 10% of world governments. What possible defense does a country, even a democracy, have against such a single-minded golem that only knows how to feed endlessly.
Greater regulation may well be the last line of defense against a corporate takeover of the Internet. Really, of the world. But it's a small window that's closing. And the wealth of those corporations is being used to obfuscate, confuse, disarm and distract.
It's a shame the United Nations is so weak. So corrupt. The solution is not to regulate the Internet, but to regulate the corporations.
Once And For All: The UN Doesn't Represent People! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said this before and I'll say it again, because people really need to wake up, smell the coffee, and internalize this:
The UN doesn't represent YOU, or any other PERSON. It represents GOVERNMENTS. Governments are their constituents, not humaity.
Let me repeat that: The UN's constituents are GOVERNMENTS, not humanity. If you understand that, you will understand UN policy and why they do things that otherwise seem bizarr or incompetent.
And from the point of view of virtually every government, no matter how "benign" it may appear, the Internet is most certainly broken. Why? Because they cannot easily control it, control the content on it, or control what the people using it see and say. This impacts their ability to govern the way they would like to (and the way they used to) by feeding an official line to the media and have it echoed into every home and automobile, often without much question.
What humanity sees as a working, functioning internet that has democratized information and allowed an unprecedented level of collaboration, cooperation, and exchange of ideas, our governments one and all see as their biggest threat. What better way to reign in that threat than to turn control over to the UN, then agree by treaty how it is to be "governend". What they tried with SOPA and ACTA they'll be able to easily achieve through a simple UN governance mandate.
Sianara Internet, sianara freedom of communication. Welcome your new overlords, same as the olds ones, but with less compunction about smacking you down into place. With perfect political cover to the ostensibly liberal western democracies: to the public: "we regret the UN's decision to implement X, but are bound by treaty to abide their decision. This minor erosion of internet expression won't impact our fundamental freedoms any, and we'll learn to cope", to the Koch brothers (or Soros if you're on the other side of the aisle): "Problem solved. Can I count on your campaign contribution to my superpac next season?" Multiply across every politician, in every political system, in every government, and diversify by whatever means is appropriate to the local political climate, wether it's campaign contributions, secret tribunals, or shells raining down on opposition cities.
Re:People hate free neighbors (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another reason (Score:4, Insightful)
The roots of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 of course then go way back to the The Napoleonic Wars of 1803 to 1815.
Re:Difference to now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the U.S. is currently seizing domain names on a regular basis, shutting down web sites and free speech, with absolutely no due process, and was recently well on its way to codifying this practice in law with SOPA/PIPA. They were killed but the DHS is still seizing domains like they were law.
The U.S. is also aggressively push ACTA on governments around the globe, often using blackmail, which can also be used to suppress free speech.
Especially since 9/11 the U.S. simply hasn't been the bastion of free speech you are trying to make it sound like.
Turning the Internet over to the UN would probably be bad for a host of reasons, but its quite obvious that the U.S. isn't even remotely trust worthy any more thanks to America's two pronged obsessions stopping piracy at all costs, including basic civil liberties, and to a lesser extent obsessing over Islamic extremism and terrorism.
All things considered I would prefer Internet control were passed to a country like Switzerland with a strong history of neutrality, resonable though not perfect free speech laws and a track record of supporting international agencies. It would be a better choice than either the U.S. or the U.N.
Re:Another reason (Score:1, Insightful)
I disagree:
Imagine if Saudi Arabia gets to set pornography laws throughout the world, Burma gets to set political discourse laws throughout the world, and the United States gets to set copyright laws throughout the world.
The world would be pure bliss.
Re:psot frist (Score:5, Insightful)
So - because there are valid issues with how Google manages it's business, we should completely ignore the valid points Schmidt makes, and let the UN have the internet?
Re:Another reason (Score:3, Insightful)
The US doesn't have a monopoly on the DNS system. You, your city, your government, your children could all start their own DNS system and encourage the rest of us to use it.
The mere fact that the most popular DNS registries are governed by the US Government is there good fortune for building it to begin with - and us mere users valuing it ever since.
Stop whining and build your own.
Re:psot frist (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has watched as youtube, controlled by google last I heard, has slowly whittled away at these supposed freedoms (this birdsong is copyright douchebag corp, your video offends a muslim in malaysia and has been taken offline, your video offends the catholic clergy and has been removed, etc), I find this deliciously ironic.
Clean up your own house first, Schmidt.
I agree with your point, but I think you have it backwards.
Google is a global private company. The simple fact that Google is "forced" to obey the laws of China if it wishes to operate there is actually a perfect example of Schmidt's point. Currently China has power over Google, but little power over the global internet itself.
He's basically trying to prevent the internet from following in Toutube's footsteps.
Re:Difference to now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or perhaps it's quite fashionable to bash the US right now, especially among self-identified intellectuals.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. We use it to exert our will over every other nation on earth and then we punish them with sanctions and war if they violate any of the resolutions. When other nations try to use the U.N. to exert their influence over us or hold us to prior agreements, we just ignore them with virtually no consequences. It's a pretty sweet deal.
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN definitely isn't the reason for no world wars - not even close. For the most part, the NYC-based org is nothing more than a bureaucratic nightmare held together and run by the US and a few other vested interests.
The real reason there haven't been any World Wars since 1945 is that at least two of the world's biggest (and stable) powers/nations has had nuclear weapons (starting in 1947). Notice that the United States hasn't declared war on any country since then? Yes, the US has invaded a few countries in the name of "freedom", but we've never gone toe-to-toe with a nuclear power, and neither has any other nation. Us and the Soviets/Russians? Nope - just a lot of Cold War crap. India/Pakistan? Nothing major since they got into the nuclear club. China? Nothing since Korea (and subsequently getting nukes). Europe - a place of constant wars between first world nations for millenia - is now mostly silent, outside of the occasional, internal racial purge (Balkans, etc.).
Wars today are usually either over oil, religion, race, or about freedom - inside of small, punk regimes with crazy men at the helm.
Now if an UNSTABLE power ever obtained hydrogen bombs, that could change everything, but that's another story. And no UN action is going to stop THEM...
Re:Another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good fantasy. Look at Star Trek: The Next Generation, for instance. Usually called "science fiction", and derided as "fantasy" as some "hard sci-fi" fans because it has FTL travel and other such technologies, the REAL reason TNG is "fantasy" is not because of its depiction of technology, which is perfectly reasonable if you don't believe that we primitive humans who've barely even left our own planet can possibly understand the laws of physics well enough to know what is and isn't possible. No, the reason TNG is fantasy is because it shows humans (and other similar, humanoid beings) in a society where most people do what they're supposed to, are highly competent at their jobs, and aren't constantly stabbing each other in the back. The people running Starfleet, for instance, mostly seem to do a very good job, instead of bankrupting the Federation on massively overpriced weapons systems in exchange for bribes or "campaign contributions" or pushy positions at the defense contractors. The captain and first officer of the ship are extremely competent, and save the ship (not to mention various populations of beings on planets, and sometimes the entire Federation) from hairy situations time and time again, rather than making blundering errors and causing catastrophe. 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. Such technology is certainly physically possible, but the idea of humans making that technology is utterly ridiculous.
But all this is why it's so fun to watch this show: it shows human society as we wish it would be, rather than as it really is. The reality is simply too depressing, and it's nice to shift your mind into an escapist fantasy where people work for the common good, where technological items are well-designed and work properly all the time, where human organizations mostly work well instead of being completely mired in corruption, and where people aren't generally incompetent and lazy. Because in the real world we live in, nothing works that way. Computers are always having some kind of annoying problem, you can't go to any retail shopping place without running into tons of incompetent morons, and the leadership of all human societies is generally corrupt or incompetent or both.
Re:Another reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Which pretty much shows, that it is impossible to "stop" any large scale conflict by figuring out who is responsible and blaming them. Because the blame game can be played on and on and on, until we reach the beginning of history.
It took WWII to have most of the participants (at least in Europe) realize that putting an end to a conflict is more important than figuring out who is responsible for the conflict. ( And I fear the middle east will only realize that after an equally big bang. )