As the EU Observer reports, Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding has called on President Obama to fully privatize the California based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the web address system for the internet, and build a “multilateral forum for governments to discuss general internet governance policy and security issues.” The international group would in turn “make recommendations” with regards to global internet governance.
Reding is anticipating the expiration of the ICANN contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce in September of 2009, calling for a separation of ICANN from its U.S. ties, making ICANN an international organization. Reding states,
“The expiry of the agreement between ICANN and the US government “opens the door for the full privatisation of ICANN, and it also raises the question of to whom ICANN should be accountable.”
“In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world,” Reding said.
Reding’s comments provide a window into a wider agenda to transform the internet. Reding stated in October of 2008 that, “The Internet of the future will radically change our society.” Ultimately, according to Reding, the EU is aiming to “lead the way” in the transformation to “Web 3.0.”
Media Kingpin Rupert Murdoch recently announced that “The current days of the internet will soon be over,” indicating the establishment’s move to radically transform the internet away from its current form. Paul Joseph Watson writes, “The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an environment of corporate lies and spin.”
Watson continues,
The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power, which is why they are aggressively supporting moves to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with “Internet 2,” a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.”
The future of the internet, according to author and “web critic” Andrew Keen, will be monitored by “gatekeepers” to verify the accuracy of information posted on the web. The “Outlook 2009″ report from the November-December issue of The Futurist reports that,
“Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen believes that the anonymity of today’s internet 2.0 will give way to a more open internet 3.0 in which third party gatekeepers monitor the information posted on Web sites to verify its accuracy.”
Keen stated during his early 2008 interview with The Futurist that the internet, in its current form, has undermined mainline media and empowered untrustworthy “amateurs”, two trends that he - and the establishment that he represents - wants reversed. “Rather than the empowerment of the amateur, Web 3.0 will show the resurgence of the professional,” states Keen.
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