Controlling the Internet - Solution at WSIS Saves Internet from UN

As I pointed out in my original post, Controlling the Internet - The US, ICANN, and the UN, the international community already controls almost 40% of the Internet. But that was not good enough. Some parts of the world (China, Iran, Tunisia, and others) are not satisfied with controlling the Internet within their own country, they want to get control on what the rest of us can post and see. Their plan for doing this was to take the Organization that manages the addresses of the Internet, ICANN, and put the Register of addresses under an organization under UN control.

Take the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. He spoke during the opening of the World Summit on Information Society, WSIS in Tunis:

Addressing delegates at the second phase of the WSIS, Mugabe said the summit is supposed to empower all countries in their development endeavours and engender confidence in internet users outside Europe and North America.

He said this can be done by allowing for a more transparent and multilateral approach to internet governance.

"We challenge the still undemocratic issue of internet governance, where one or two countries insist on being world policemen on the management and administration of the internet," said Mugabe. - Mail and Guardian

Yes President Mugabe, this is why youe Citizens don't have access to the Internet. How about getting an Internet address ending in .zw which is the Internet country code for Zimbabwe? Sorry, your probably out of luck:

Although no registry Web site is shown in the IANA whois listing, at least .co.zw registrations are presently being taken by the Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) whose charter claims that one of the purposes of the organization's founding was to oversee the .zw domain. It is unclear who is overseeing registration under other second-level domains or how to register them. - Wikipedia

ZISPA has a note on their website that this was an organization created by ISPs in-country to manage the country's domain. There is another note that the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) had put out a tender for management of the .zw domain. I cannot tell how old the information is but their website appears to be dated, mentioning that there will be updates coming, in 2001 and to check back in September to see their new site. I have to say that their website is much better than that of POTRAZ is a dissappointing 1 page.

It would be one thing if President Mugabe was speaking with a country code domain to be proud of. After all the .zw domain is controlled by zimbabwe, not the US. So I suggest that the President of Zimbabwe first worry about problems at home. Actually, perhaps the best thing for Zimbabwe is to send the president to head some UN post somewhere.

Oh yes, at the summit, they agreed to basically keep management of the Internet as before.

ICANN, for now - OSM

Controlling the Internet - The US, ICANN, and the UN - FFI

Keep your U.N. off my Internet. – Opinion Journal
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) – UN
Workshop on Internet Governance - ITU (Chairman’s Report, PDF Document)
UN: World Summit on the Information Society - Tunis Stupidity - AI
Mugabe attacks US at WSIS opening - Mail and Guardian

ICANN

ZISPA

Google Search for .zw websites - Yes there are working .zw sites