Randoph J. May writes: In a coauthored essay in Re/code titled “Protecting the Internet from Government Control,” Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) argue that the United States must not hand over Internet governance to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), controlled by 193 nations, or a similar international organization.
In no uncertain terms, the essay’s authors, a foursome of committee chairs and ranking members, assert: Handing over the reins of Internet governance to a body like the ITU would imperil the Internet at a time when its dynamism and innovation are benefitting more people around the globe than ever before. It is critical that, on issues of Internet governance, the ITU-member states refrain from changing the current, well-functioning system. For continued advancement of the Internet, the world must maintain multi-stakeholder governance and reject efforts to recast the ITU or any other similar intergovernmental entity as an international Internet regulator
There are a few lines buried in the essay well worth highlighting, especially in light of President Obama’s recent statement explicitly asking the supposedly independent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt burdensome new net neutrality mandates by classifying Internet service providers as “telecommunications” providers under Title II of the Communications Act.
What the ITU regulates, by the very terms of its operative agreement, is “telecommunications,” and the agreement recognizes the right of each country to regulate telecommunications as it sees fit.
Title II telecommunications designation by the FCC will have real-world impacts far more consequential than merely ironical. The effect of the FCC’s regulation of Internet providers as telecommunications providers is likely to be just what Messrs. Upton, Waxman, Royce and Engel claim they wish to avoid — that is, the action will make it more likely that other countries will succeed in their quest to put Internet governance under government control.
