WCIT – The spinning eye on the middle of the Perfect Storm

With less than two weeks to the WCIT (World Conference on International Telecommunications), and what that means for the internet (see “Is the Internet Facing a Perfect Storm”), the amount of coverage online is increasing rapidly.

Basically in one sentence, some Governments would like to see the ITU (a closed, top-down, Governmental organisation) take the lead in regulating the (open, collaborative, co-operative, bottom-up) Internet.

This video from the folks at accessnow.org explains it pretty well…

Lots of people I know have been working seriously hard in the background to educate those with a vote in the ITU, and keep the Internet based around open standards and collaborative governance.

Let’s face it, if the Internet wasn’t based around open standards, so many of the things which are part of our every day lives could be very different, or simply wouldn’t even exist.

Fortunately, as far as we know in the UK, our Government is still an advocate of the “light touch” and industry self-regulation when it comes to the Internet, but that doesn’t make what’s going to go on behind closed doors in Dubai in a couple of weeks any less of a concern.