Groups Say ITU’s Transparency Efforts Aren’t Enough - lokencarturestry85

The United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) still isn't transparent enough, even though the organization has secure to give the public more information about a December treaty-penning meeting, representatives of two digital rights groups same Monday.

The ITU's governing body, the Council, announced Friday that it would put out the main conference preparatory written document for the upcoming World Conference Connected International Telecommunications on the ITU website and allow the public to comment on the papers.

The announcements were "extremely modest archetypical steps, and don't really go nearly Army for the Liberation of Rwanda plenty to create the kind of opened, inclusive and sheer litigate we believe necessarily to take place," said Cynthia Wong, director of the Center for Commonwealth and Technology's Project on World Net Freedom.

The ITU's Friday announcement was the first move by the ITU to publish selective information about proposals made past member countries, although the site WCITleaks.org has published several leaked documents.

Many U.S. watchers of the ITU have raised concerns that the December merging will include proposals to cut back the Internet or to revamp Internet governance. ITU observers in the U.S. say they expect proposals that will create new taxes in the constitute of Cyberspace dealings expiration fees and efforts to transfer Internet government activity from the Internet Potbelly for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and other organizations to the U.N.

One proposal, from Russia, Belarus and other countries, would make Internet traffic and its termination a thermostated telecommunications service, possibly leading to termination fees similar to ones changed between conventional phonation carriers. That marriage offer was published by WCITleaks on June 15.

While developing countries may see termination fee proposals American Samoa a fashio to investment company their band infrastructure, the fees Crataegus laevigata be counterproductive, said David Sohn, CDT's general counsel. "You create a system where all kinds of placid providers obtain it expensive and possibly exorbitant to serve less developed countries," he said. "You really go down the roadworthy toward a balkanized, less global Net."

ITU representatives didn't immediately respond to a asking for comments on criticisms soft Monday by CDT and Public Knowledge.

Representatives of the two digital rights groups said they remain concerned that the ITU process limits participation aside groups not on-line to phallus governments. "The ITU process is fairly union and quite government centrical," Wong said during a press briefing.

Internet users wait a voice in policy debates, every bit evidenced by public activism in the past yr over controversial copyright enforcement bills the Stop Online Piracy Act on and the Protect IP Act in the U.S. and concluded the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Wong said.

"In that location's now this beamy and growing base of users and political unit society groups who no longer think IT's acceptable for governments to go behind closed doors and make long-lasting decisions about how we all use the Internet," she said.

The ITU is the unjust venue for dealing with Internet establishment issues, because it lacks transparency and limits participation from groups external government, Wong said. The ITU as wel lacks expertise happening human rights and civil liberties concerns, she aforesaid.

The ITU has worked on telecom and satellite communications issues, but has largely stayed away from Internet regulation until forthwith, added Sherwin Siy, frailty president of juristic affairs at Public Knowledge. The ITU is a "bad fit" for Internet government activity, he said.

CDT called on governments to solicit comments and ideas about ITU proposals from their residents.

"A country doesn't owe CDT an explanation of what it's doing," aforesaid Leslie Harris, CDT's president and CEO. "It does owe its own citizens and civil society representatives and industry."

Grant Gross covers engineering science and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Avail. Surveil Grant happening Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/459902/groups_say_itus_transparency_efforts_arent_enough.html

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