A consortia of leading tech companies are urging Congress to hand over the keys of the Internet back to the international community. A new report by Reuters showed that some of the most known tech companies such Facebook, Google and Twitter have signed a strong worded letter to Congress addressing the issue.
So far, the US Commerce Department has been controlling the Internet ever since it was born back in the day in the United States. However, many countries feel this gives the US an unfair advantage and a plan was brought up for some time for the US to give the power of the Internet to a non profit organization.
The non profit organization which would receive the global Internet would be the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Congress (ICANN). The irony is that the ICANN headquarters are located in Los Angeles, California, but they believe that the control would still be in international control.
However, not every Congressman support the idea, with the Republican leaders staunchly opposing the plan, noting that it would give countries such as China an undue influence over the global Internet. Senator Ted Cruz wrote about his opposition to the plan to the Department of Commerce and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, that the proposal to shift power of the Internet to ICANN would give the hostile foreign government an increase in power over the Internet.
However, some of the leading tech companies have come out arguing that the move to change power is imperative, according to the report done by Reuters. In the letter that Reuters managed to get, the group comprising of Google, and Facebook said that the global and interoperable and stable Internet was good for the economic and the national security.
It also notes that the group is also committed to the completion of power change over for over twenty years. The change to the multi stakeholder model would best serve the interests of the US, the letter goes on to say. Other companies including Yahoo, CloudFlare and Amazon are also signatories of the letter as well.
The number of organizations which are coming out in support of the Internet freedom noting that no single country was entitled to the control of the future of the Internet. Michael Beckerman, the president and the CEO of the Internet Association group, an Internet freedom group, said that the industry was evaluating ways for a transition plan to preserve a multi stakeholder governance which would also out strong accountability measures and controls.
Congress is expected to hold a hearing on the issue on Wednesday, and will expectedly vote on it by October 1.
