OneWorld.net (U.S.)

The battle for Internet has begun and India is in the thick of it.

Over the next three days, Geneva is hosting a meeting of the Working Group on Internet governance (WGIG). At stake: Democracy in the cyber world, says India. Others, including American cyber gurus, argue that what India wants will allow censorship of the Internet and even government taxes on it.

If you have never heard of this fight, it is because this has been one of the quietest global confrontations ever. But when it is over, it will determine who has the last word on the rules of the game that govern the Internet.

Currently, this power rests with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation based in California. Of the many tasks that it oversees is the domain name system management. This lets you type the name of the website you want to look at, converts this name into numbers -- the corresponding Internet Protocol address -- and connects you to the desired website.

Much of the problem with ICANN, as India sees it, relates to the umbilical cord that links this body to the US government. ICANN has an MoU with the US Department of Commerce. The current MoU is till September 2006. Since ICANN is based in the US, it is governed by US law.

Source: The Hindustan Times