Nothing But Net!

Larry Kudlow comments on the good news we received today regarding "control" of the Internet. Notice how people are characterizing the importance of the Internet/World Wide Web. I remember saying similar things back in 1994 to executives at Merrill Lynch who responded with blank faces and geniune disinterest.

Control of Internet Remains Safe in American Hands
By Larry Kudlow

Negotiators from around the globe threw in the towel and agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet's addressing system known as ICANN, averting an international showdown at this week's U.N. technology summit.

The deal means the United States will continue its day-to-day control of the quasi-independent body responsible for the main computers that control traffic on the Internet. An international forum will be created to address concerns. It will have no binding authority on the U.S.

The outcome was never really in doubt. The U.S. government did the right thing and made it clear all along that it would not go along with any major change to the Internet’s status quo.

Sounds good to me. After all, it was American sweat and ingenuity that created the Internet in the first place. It’s our baby. And a quick glance around the globe at anti-democratic, totalitarian countries like China and Iran, where repressive governments do anything and everything within their power to suppress ideas makes the idea of turning over ICANN appear ridiculous.

As media mogul Rupert Murdoch said earlier this week: “[T]he Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, ‘It's the biggest thing since Gutenberg,’ and then someone else said, ‘No, it's the biggest thing since the invention of writing.’

Whatever the case is, there’s nothing to be gained and everything to lose by giving up Internet governance and helping countries like China in their doomed efforts to put the cat back in the bag.