US Refuses To Sign ITU Treaty Over Internet Provisions

An anonymous reader writes "The United States said today that it will not sign an international telecommunications treaty thanks to the inclusion of Internet-related provisions. According to the BBC, the U.K. and Canada have also pledged not to sign the treaty in its current form, while delegates from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Kenya also have reservations."

Re:Disappointing lack of conviction

[Rockoon]

Too bad the U.S. is acting by inaction, instead of proposing a proper treaty that spells out our position, we just refuse to sign one that we don't like.

An opinion based on the unfounded assumption that there needs to be a treaty.

Why did the ITU propose a treaty that nobody noteworthy is willing to sign? To quote one article on this, the ITU Director General said that he was "surprised" by the dissent. The lesson we can take from this is that the ITU is obliviously out of touch.

Re:Treaties

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what an amalgam of off-topic wrong. We aren't signing the treaty. So it doesn't matter about anything else you said - as wrong as what you said was. We (and several other countries) don't want to give Iran, North Korea, China, etc. the ability to use the UN to censor the internet. This is a GOOD THING that the US, UK, Australia, Norway, etc. are doing by not validating this treaty.

So go buy your own!

[pla]

FTA: "In particular many attendees believed it was an anachronism that the US government got to decide which body should regulate the net's address system as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core."

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, I can't imagine why the US didn't sign. "Hey, that thing you paid for, developed, and turned into a thriving platform for social and commercial activity? We don't like that you own it and we don't, so would you mind handing it over?".

Didn't we BUILD the damn thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the US give up control of the Internet? We built it, it's ours.

Don't forget kids, we are all here having fun on a network who's foundations were laid by the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT!
It's all likely been a sneaky way to spy on everyone in the world by getting them to voluntarily give out information on themselves.

Re:Treaties

[whitroth]

Every "anti-American" platitude? Even if it's true?

The US signed over 500 treaties with the Native Americans , and didn't keep a single one.

Platitude? Or maybe you should just go back to where your ancestors came from, and hand the country back to the Real Americans?

As a part-Native American friend used to have as a sigfile, "the Native Americans had really *bad* immigration laws".

                mark