Commission proposes reply to US government's Green Paper on Internet governance
The European Commission has proposed a draft reply on behalf of the EU and its Member States to the US government's recent Green Paper on Internet governance. The Commission is concerned that the US paper does not take sufficient account of the need to implement an international approach. It fears that these US proposals, if implemented, could mean that the US government would effectively have permanent jurisdiction over the Internet. The Commission aims to ensure that the process of developing Internet regulation takes into account the views of all countries, as well as the private sector. Three key issues in the US paper have been identified by the Commission as incompatible with the preferred European approach. These central aspects of the Internet are vital for the network to function efficiently at global level, and the Commission wants to see them governed internationally. The three areas are: - The assignment of blocks of numerical addresses to regional registries; - Managing the root of the domain name system and the creation of new top level domain names; - Management of the allocation of a variety of Internet protocol parameters. In its proposed reply, the Commission wants to take steps to ensure that European governments and industry, including users, participate fully at all relevant levels of the development process. In particular, the Commission is concerned that the US paper makes no reference to ongoing voluntary regulation development in the field. For example, in 1997, considerable achievements in the regulation of domain names were made by the International Ad Hoc Committee, and some 88 registries have joined this system.