The UN And Your Business: Why ITU Dubai Loss Is Your Gain

Do you want bureaucrats to be able to read every text, image, tune, text, spreadsheet, or whatever you send or receive? Do you want your business communications snooped on by unknown entities?

Under a resolution made on December 4, 2012 by representatives of Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates at the current ITU meeting, this would be internationally legitimate. (The motion was withdrawn on December 12. Another motion, by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan, to give equal rights to naming and numbering to all countries was shelved.)

source: IOC

You may recall Sir Tim Berners-Lee tweeting about the Web at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games: “This is for everyone,” he said. The ITU is responding, “Not quite.”

The Internet Society, stated that it's “extremely important that this treaty not extend to content, or implicitly or explicitly undermine the principles that have made the Internet so beneficial." Vint Cerf, a "father of the Internet", said: "The free and open net is under threat."

So what is the ITU, and why would these proposals have been so damaging to business? Read on!

Who Are these ITU People, Anyway?

From 1885 through December 1949, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU, originally the “T” stood for Telegraph) was directed by a Swiss citizen. Since 1950, the ITU has been governed by a “Secretary General,” with a nominal term of four years.

Indeed, the Russian representative referred to “our dear Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré.” (He is a graduate of Leningrad and Moscow and had a pre-Dubai meeting with Putin, who “reminded” him of Russia's involvement in the formation of the ITU, even though it had none).

Created in 1969, the Internet has grown from four sites to a billion users. It has become an indispensable tool for human communication and for business.

But as the Internet has grown, it has acquired enemies. As the fax became a liberating tool at the time of Tienamen Square (June 1989), the Internet became one during the recent uprisings in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

The meeting, "the World Conference on International Telecommunications," (WCIT) was held in Dubai, UAE, from December 3 thru 14. Representatives from 193 countries attended.

Much of the discussion concerned the “openness” of the Internet and the aspiration of many governments to be able to control it. Said Terry Kramer, the U.S. ambassador to WCIT:

There have been proposals that have suggested that the ITU should enter the Internet governance business. There have been active recommendations that there be an invasive approach of governments in managing the internet, in managing the content that goes via the internet, what people are looking at, what they're saying. These fundamentally violate everything that we believe in in terms of democracy and opportunities for individuals, and we're going to vigorously oppose any proposals of that nature.

While the proposal from Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan calling for equal rights for all governments to manage "internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources" was eventually shelved, on December 13, the U.S., the UK, Australia, and Canada refused to sign the new treaty.

Representatives from Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Kenya were more diplomatic, saying they would need to consult with their national governments, so would also not be able to sign the treaty.

Bad for the ITU, but Good for Business

This is a major setback for the ITU, but not for commerce.

One of the benefits of the Internet for small businesses is that the Internet creates a competitive marketplace in which they have the opportunity to grow as much as larger companies. Revealing plans and intentions would disrupt this, as national governments have been known to feed competitive information from surveillance to home-grown businesses.

A key benefit of the Internet for business in general is the potential for customer growth. Enterprises conducting business on the Internet have the potential to gain customers from around the world because Internet companies are open 24/7.

Yet another benefit of the Internet includes the availability to network with other people and organizations. This friction-free interchange often helps businesses grow.

The proposed treaty was a land-grab, moving the ITU into the Internet and the content it conveys. Individual countries—Russia, the UAE, Mali, India—may chose to observe it, bestowing power unto themselves. But this was always possible, as was shown when China blocked Google services in November 2012.

For now, the Internet remains just as we've known it over the past decades. But we must stay wary of countries intercepting and reading business communications.

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Peter H. Salus is an historian of science and technology, among whose works are (1994) and (2008).