Lest you think a U.N. meeting to discuss the future of the Web would be a ponderous, low-key affair, consider that remarkable tale. Back in 2003, when the U.N. held just such an event in Geneva, the delegates unexpectedly decided to close the meeting to nongovernmental officials and to eject a handful of attendees. One of them was Paul Twomey — president of the Net Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers [ICANN], a private, nonprofit company that oversees technical aspects of the Internet’s address system — who was escorted by guards to the exit.

The surprising turn of events underscored the simmering resentment felt by many nations, particularly in the developing world, by the governance of the Net. They had been vexed for years about what they perceived as a lack of voice in how the Net was run — and by the continued U.S. ownership of key World Wide Web resources. Some said that excluding ICANN, which

works under contract to the U.S. government, was a fitting lesson in powerlessness for an organization that had enjoyed sweeping control since its founding in 1998.

Under Twomey’s leadership, ICANN has spent the past five years trying to address the issues raised in that meeting. But making the Net more global is proving far more difficult than anyone could have imagined, say some of the 1,900 government representatives and other stakeholders attending an ICANN conference in Paris, which runs June 23-26.

Limitless Domain Names?

A key issue on the agenda is finding a way for ICANN to extract itself finally from oversight by the U.S. Commerce Dept., a move that even some of the U.S.’s closest allies, including Canada and Italy, now support. A contract with the U.S. governmental agency expires in 2009, so a roadmap is now being hammered out for a more independent future. “What we…

Orginal post by Top Tech News