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If the Internet Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Control of the Internet is staying in American hands. That was the result of an agreement just prior to the start of the United Nations sponsored IT conference in Tunis. And why not? The Internet, say German commentators on Thursday, is working just fine.

Some had anticipated a bruising confrontation. But in the end, despite hopes on the European side of the Atlantic that control of the Internet might be wrested from American hands, it was decided at the United Nations sponsored IT conference in Tunisia that  America would stay in the driving seat.   The International Council for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), based in California and overseen by the US Chamber of Commerce, will be left in charge. For now. A shift to an international body is still expected, but likely won't happen for another five years. German commentators on Thursday took a closer look at the decision.

The economic daily Handelsblatt cites the American idiom, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," in arguing that the decision was the correct one. After pointing out that the attempt to lessen US control of the Web was led by countries like China and Iran, the paper argues that the "Internet doesn't lend itself to state control." Much of the criticism against US control, the commentator says, comes from a latent anti-Americanism. But as tempting as it may be to fall into that trap, the bottom line is, "as long as the Internet continues to function well under the control of ICANN, there is no reason to fiddle with the status quo. Politicizing the Internet would be its death. It is regrettable that the EU does not realize this."

The often anti-American, left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung is likewise of the opinion that leaving control of the Domain Name System -- the system that registers domain names and translates the series of numbers to recognizable names -- in the hands of ICANN was the right decision. "The technocrats in California," the commentator writes in reference to ICANN, "have done their jobs for the last 35 years … better than a government official ever could." Indeed, the argument about control was the wrong one from the start the paper argues. The real danger comes from attempts to control the Web by national governments. The author singles out Saudi Arabia and China for particular mention, but also the United States. After all, skepticism about US control of the Web only increased after the Bush Administration chose to hinder the introduction of the .xxx domain for pornography sites.

The conservative paper Die Welt gets nostalgic for a simpler world in which international bodies regulated telegrams, telephone calls, radio and television. But the Internet is different and asking how to control a communications system that is developing as quickly as the World Wide Web is the wrong question. The fact is, the US invented it and has control over it, the editorial says. Nobody is going to be able to take it away from them. Nor should they. After all, the Internet has developed into a bastion of freedom. "Ideas do not originate in state committees or NGOs," the commentator writes. "Rather they originate wherever people can work in freedom -- unhindered from state regulation."

The center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has chosen to ignore the controversy about who should control the Internet in its editorial. Instead, the paper has written about the topic the Tunis conference was scheduled to discuss in the first place: namely how to help the Internet spread to all corners of the globe. Indeed, the UN has set a goal of connecting every village in the world to the Internet by 2015. That, says the paper, is necessary. "The opportunities a country has to develop itself and improve living conditions are also dependent on the information that reaches its citizens." The paper welcomes the introduction of $100 dollar computers and other cheap computer models that will allow more people, from all over the world, to join the World Wide Web.

In addition to the Internet, Iraq is also once again on the minds of German commentators on Thursday. Specifically, the discovery of more than 160 Iraqi prisoners in a compound of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. Many of the detainees showed signs of having been tortured and some were allegedly malnourished. The overwhelming majority of them were Sunnis alleged to be part of the insurgency. The fact that their guards were all Shiites or Kurds has caused many to fear a further escalation of sectarian violence in Iraq.

Die Welt points out that Sunnis claim that the prison discovered on Sunday is only one of a number of such facilities spread out across the country. Even if the allegations haven't yet been proven, it seems clear that "the Shiites are apparently not quite as peaceful as those dreaming of an Arabian democracy had hoped." Rather, it appears that sectarian and tribal thinking still has the upper hand in Iraq.

Die Tageszeitung broadens the scope a bit and points not only to the torture allegations but also to the unpleasant admission by the US military that it used phosphorus in the fight against insurgents in Fallujah. The paper condemns both revelations. It points out that phosphorus, which burns the flesh of its victims, is hardly able to distinguish between civilian and military personnel. And it argues that the torture allegations lend credence to the rumors, which have been circulating in Iraq for weeks, that similar torture centers -- and even death squads -- are in operation in the country. The worst thing, though, is that the secret prisons will probably harden the fronts between the Sunnis and Shiites, making the prison "the perfect symbol for the approaching civil war."

Finally, the Süddeutsche Zeitung once again takes a slightly different path from the other papers on Thursday and focuses on two upcoming elections. The first is the general elections in Iraq scheduled for Dec. 15. The date "should, could and would" be a major milestone on the road to democracy in the country. But it probably won't be -- especially given the discovery of the torture prison on Sunday and the hurried analyses that see a Shiite revenge against the Sunni terrors executed under Saddam. The second election the paper mentions is the midterm congressional elections in the United States next autumn. Bush, the paper argues, is weakened and the Senate -- as shown by the recent congressional vote to require the Bush Administration to provide biannual updates on progress in Iraq -- is turning its backs on him. This is bad news for Iraq as Bush has another three years in the White House before his term runs out -- a long time to have a lame duck president. "Iraq's fate, though, will be decided long before."