The recent World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai has ended in a stalemate as a number of leading member countries, including The US, UK, Australia and Canada, have refused to sign an International Telecommunication Union treaty.
The conference was intended to create a new treaty for the International Telecommunications Union, (ITU) which all member countries would agree to in order to govern how the internet - and telecomunications in general - are governed in the near and more distant future.
The U.N were forced to deny allegations made by The E.U and Google accusing them of using the treaty as a way to effectively gain control over the internet. Although It would appear that an agreement is a long way off, 89 nations did sign the treaty, with a further 12 including Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the Czech Republic reserving the right to defer signing until a later date.
The new treaty is intended to replace the current one which was created in 1988 - before the internet even existed. But the United Nations have been heavily criticised from some corners - and in particular by the EU and Google - for using the treaty as a means of gaining control over the internet and online world.
But this announcement by the UN simply led many to claim that the treaty would simply enable much tighter restrictions to be introduced in the future, resulting in the UN gaining complete control of the internet and online world. Conspiracy or shrewd deduction, you decide.
The keyword here is "unsolicited". It is impossible to determine the content of a message without reading through it first, and therefore impossible to determine if said message was asked for or not. This would allow for any message sent to be read without any form of consent. The U.S said this violated the first amendment, which prohibits any laws that curtail freedom of speech.
U.S ambassador for the WCIT Terry Kramer had (amongst other things) this to say: "It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form,"
But nothing has been decided yet, as there are a further two conferences scheduled for 2013, at either of which changes to the treaty could be made to sway some of the 55 nations who, as yet, have refused to sign. But whatever may or may not happen, lets just hope that all countries keep the privacy of their citizens as their number one priority and not factors such as profit or control.
The conference was intended to create a new treaty for the International Telecommunications Union, (ITU) which all member countries would agree to in order to govern how the internet - and telecomunications in general - are governed in the near and more distant future.
The U.N were forced to deny allegations made by The E.U and Google accusing them of using the treaty as a way to effectively gain control over the internet. Although It would appear that an agreement is a long way off, 89 nations did sign the treaty, with a further 12 including Italy, Portugal, Sweden and the Czech Republic reserving the right to defer signing until a later date.
The new treaty is intended to replace the current one which was created in 1988 - before the internet even existed. But the United Nations have been heavily criticised from some corners - and in particular by the EU and Google - for using the treaty as a means of gaining control over the internet and online world.
But this announcement by the UN simply led many to claim that the treaty would simply enable much tighter restrictions to be introduced in the future, resulting in the UN gaining complete control of the internet and online world. Conspiracy or shrewd deduction, you decide.
The keyword here is "unsolicited". It is impossible to determine the content of a message without reading through it first, and therefore impossible to determine if said message was asked for or not. This would allow for any message sent to be read without any form of consent. The U.S said this violated the first amendment, which prohibits any laws that curtail freedom of speech.
U.S ambassador for the WCIT Terry Kramer had (amongst other things) this to say: "It's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form,"
But nothing has been decided yet, as there are a further two conferences scheduled for 2013, at either of which changes to the treaty could be made to sway some of the 55 nations who, as yet, have refused to sign. But whatever may or may not happen, lets just hope that all countries keep the privacy of their citizens as their number one priority and not factors such as profit or control.
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