Bias against U.S. in Internet discussion?

The Independent reports on the U.N. discussion on the future of the Internet and provides some anti-U.S. bias in its summary of the situation.

Firstly, it claims that the Bush administration wants ICANN "on US soil and subject to US controls." OK, well, it already is on US soil and subject to US controls; and by US controls, I mean virtually none. ICANN has a laissez-faire attitude towards the internet, with very little in the way of regulations or content control.

The Independent also injects fear-mongering into the article by writing that "the unelected Californian corporation could...block access to entire country domain names", even though, in reality, ICANN lets all countries control their top level domain names without regulation. I could run out and kill people tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I should be locked up today when I've never had a history of violence.

The Independent article is a pathetic and blatant attempt at attacking the US position of laissez-faire control of the internet. The US has been managing the internet for years, with no indication that it has ever censored the free flow of information. As the old engineering adage goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The 'fix', giving control of the internet to the UN, can only make the internet worse off.