ITU and the Increasing Controversy Over Internet Governance

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ITU and the Increasing Controversy Over Internet Governance

Intellectual Property Watch

Nov 18, 2008 1:23 PM PDT
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The Council of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is set to talk Wednesday about the Union's contribution to follow-up of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the third Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

Turkey has tabled a resolution on strengthening the ITU's role in the IGF. The discussion comes at a time when a tense debate between the ITU and its critics has arisen over the best governance models for the internet. The debate culminated in a highly critical speech by ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Touré at a recent meeting in Cairo of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the other "multi-stakeholder" competitor to the ITU. Touré labelled the IGF as becoming "a waste of time sometimes" and criticised the participation of governments in ICANN's Government Advisory Committee (GAC) as being "cosmetic."

Read full story: Intellectual Property Watch

Related topics: ICANN, Internet Governance

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