The world is taking the internet back from the US

Like a dog shaking away the clinging pond water it just emerged from, ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and many other organisations, have all pledged to end the United States' strong arming of the world's interenet and to push forward the globalisation of the technology, to allow all governments of the world to participate in its future developments.

This disdain for US internet policy was perhaps most highlighted by the president of ICANN, Fadi Chehadi, convening a meeting with Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, who has been critical of the NSA's spying tactics, at which he suggested she, “elevate her leadership to a new level, to ensure that we can all get together around a new model of governance in which all are equal.”

This has led to the creation of an event set to take place in April 2014, where organisations like ICANN and W3C can come together outside of the US sphere of influence and discuss the ongoing development of the internet and its practices around the world.

That's ICANN, the organisation that needed an acronym because it's real name is so boring

Not only does this mean that the US will have less influence over these groups, but it potentially means its seat at the world's table could be far smaller than it ever would have been, had this power been ceded voluntarily. Instead, like any bully, it's set to be ignored by the world at large, signalling perhaps a big change in the way the internet can be used by many organisations – potentially even lobby groups like the MPAA.

As InternetGovernance points out, this is a major event to take place in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, that suggests there are people in high places that don't want a world where government organisations – specifically those in the US – are leering over our shoulder every time we go online. This is a view shared by some US politicians, one in particular who is looking to change the very legislation that the NSA and other groups used to give them legal rights to perform their surveillance in the first place: the Patriot Act and FISA.

KitGuru Says: April 2014 could mark a very interesting change in the way the internet is run, especially if we have governments coming on board that are far more free speech and privacy focused than has been traditionally championed by the obviously swayed morals of the US authorities. 

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