Wednesday, November 21, 2012

"Google warns telecom treaty proposals threaten to 'regulate the Internet'" (GOOG)

Uh oh.
It's one thing when a nut-job conspiracy theorist talks about the U.N power-grabbing the www and installing an internet "kill switch" but when The GOOG ("Don't be too evil") warns it is time to pay attention.
From The Hill's Hillicon Valley blog:
Google unveiled an online advocacy campaign on Tuesday raising concerns with proposals to be considered at an international telecom treaty conference in Dubai next month — warning that some governments are using the upcoming treaty negotiations "to regulate the Internet."

On the "Take Action" web page for its online campaign, Google says that some of the proposed changes that countries have suggested "could increase censorship and threaten innovation."
To help thwart that threat, the search giant asks people to sign an online pledge to signify their support "of the free and open Internet."

"A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet. Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future," the pledge reads. "The billions of people around the globe who use the Internet should have a voice."

The 193 member countries of the United Nation's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will meet in early December at a conference in Dubai to update the International Telecommunications Regulations treaty for the first time since 1988....MORE