Internet Regulation Debated at UN Conference: Google and Governments Weigh In on Censorship and Net Neutrality

A United Nations meeting in Dubai may determine who controls the regulation of the internet, and government officials and tech company representatives are arguing over what actions to take.

The meeting of the United Nations International Telecommunications Union was supposed to be rather simple, with delegates from 193 UN member states as well as non-governmental organizations discussing the potential to apply international oversight to the governance of the internet.

"The overall objective is to ensure universal access to the benefits of information and communication technology, including the two thirds of the world's population currently not online," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. "We must continue to work together and find a consensus on how to most effectively keep cyberspace open, accessible, affordable and secure," he said.

But internet companies and activists claim the meeting is a guise for increased regulation of the internet, citing proposals from authoritarian countries that could results in censorship of internet content and fees to access certain kinds of data.

"Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech -- or even cut off Internet access," said Bill Echikson, Google's head of Free Expression in Europe, Middle East and Africa in a statement.

"Several authoritarian regimes reportedly propose to ban anonymity from the web, making it easier to find and arrest dissidents," said Vinton Cerf, chief internet evangelist for Google.

"Others have proposed moving the responsibilities of the private sector system that manages domain names and internet addresses to the United Nations. Yet other proposals would require any internet content provider, small or large, to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders."

But representatives of the ITU deny these claims.

"This whole idea there would be some kind of restriction on freedom of expression, it just doesn't fly with what the ITU has stood for," said Gary Fowlie, head of the ITU liaison Office .

For us, at the highest level, the Internet is the most powerful tool for economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability," he said. "Nobody wants to compromise that."

"I find it a very cheap way of attacking" the conference, said Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General of the ITU. "Nothing can stop the freedom of expression in the world today, and nothing in this conference will be about it," he said. "I have not mentioned anything about controlling the Internet."

Center for Democracy and Technology policy analyst Ellery Roberts Biddle is wary of the changes being discussed at the meeting. "Through extending the regulatory framework of the ITRs to the Internet, the ITU Member States will mitigate the Internet's growth and inhibit the Internet's impact on economies and societies around the globe," she said.

There is an odd mix at work on both sides of the argument. While it seems the ITU is genuinely trying to adapt current regulations to the new realities of an online world, there is little doubt authoritarian governments will try to mold those regulations to increase their abilities to censor or surveil internet activity.

And while free internet activists are right to be wary of any effort to regulate an open internet, some tech companies, as well as the United States government, which already has a virtual monopoly on the assignment of internet addresses, are likely to promote the status quo, simply because they do not want to lose an of their current influence.

Ah, diplomacy.