A battle has been going on over who governs the Internet, with America deman

A battle has been going on over who governs the Internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped create and other countries demanding more control. The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the Internet will spilt apart.
    At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the Internet’s address structure, called the domain name system(DNS), which enables communication between the world’s computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(Icann) under contract to the US department of commerce.
    A meeting of officials in Geneva last month was meant to formulate a way of sharing Internet governance which politicians could unveil at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. A European Union plan that goes a long way to meeting the demands of developing countries to make the governance more open collapsed in the face of US opposition.
    Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed; countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the Internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear. The US argues that many of the states demanding a more open Internet are no fans of freedom of expression.
The US government, which funded the development of the Internet in the 60s, said in June it intended to retain its role overseeing Icann, reneging on a pledge made during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Since Icann was created, the US commerce department has not once disturbed with its decisions.