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By Declan McCullagh, 16 November 2005 15:00

NEWS

The Bush administration and its critics at a United Nations summit in Tunis, Tunisia, have inked a broad agreement on global internet management that will preclude any dramatic showdown this week.

By signing the statement, the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an "Internet Governance Forum" that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the United Nations. The forum is meant to be a central point for global discussions of everything from computer security and online crime to spam and other "misuses of the internet".

What the agreement does not do is require the US to relinquish its unique influence over the internet's operations. The statement takes "no action regarding existing institutions", David Gross, an ambassador who is leading the US delegation, said on Wednesday. "It created no new international organisations."

The last-minute deal, reached just hours before the World Summit on the Information Society began, effectively postpones a long-simmering dispute over the future of internet management. China, Cuba, South Africa and other nations have argued the US and other wealthier nations must share power - complaints that will now be taken to the new UN forum.

Luisa Diogo, the prime minister of Mozambique, told the thousands of delegates who have gathered in Tunisia's capital city: "It is a matter of justice and legitimacy that all people must have a say in the way the internet is governed."

Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe offered a more ominous warning. The US and allies such as the United Kingdom unreasonably "insist on being world policemen on the management of the internet," and that must change, Mugabe said.

At issue in this dispute is the unique influence the US government wields over the master list of top-level domain names - such as dot-com, dot-org, and country codes including dot-uk and dot-jp - as a result of the network's historical origins. In addition, the internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the not-for-profit organisation created by the Clinton administration to oversee day-to-day management is located in Marina del Rey, California.

In June, the Bush administration announced it had no plans to relinquish its role as at least a symbolic guarantor of the stability of the internet. A statement published at the time backed the current Icann structure and said "no action" will be taken that could destabilise the internet.

Over the last few months, the administration's envoys have found themselves increasingly isolated in preliminary meetings leading up to the Tunisia summit.

The European Union, for instance, implicitly backed the creation of a stronger UN body that could even be granted regulatory powers. But as the official start of the summit on Wednesday neared, China and other critics chose to agree to the set of principles and instead take their complaints to the newly created UN forum during its first meeting next year, which is expected to take place in Greece.

Because the principles adopted this week are so broad, nearly everyone involved in the discussions can boast a political victory.

The United States stressed the UN forum will have no regulatory power. "It will have no oversight function, [remain] non-operational, and engage only in dialogue," Gross said, adding that the US has "no concerns that it would morph into something unsavoury".

Gross also pointed to language in the agreement saying the forum should be "subject to periodic review" - meaning, he said, it will not become a permanent bureaucracy.

Also included in the broad principles: the forum shall "identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public"; "facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting international public policies regarding the internet"; and discuss "issues relating to critical internet resources".

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, on the other hand, said the agreement highlights "the need for more international participation in discussions of internet governance issues. The question is how to achieve this. Let those discussions continue".

Annan said the US has exercised its internet oversight "fairly and honourably" but added that change has become necessary. The United Nations has no desire to "control or police the internet", Annan added.

That attitude seemed to be an effort to placate conservative groups and businesses, especially in the United States, who are alarmed at what some view as the prospect of a thoroughly corrupt and unaccountable bureaucracy seizing control of internet management.

A roster of tech companies, including Google, IBM and Microsoft, and members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, have stressed they supports a 'market-based solutions' approach rather than expanded UN control.

The summit has been marred by violence against journalists and human rights activists, including the stabbing of a French journalist, and an assault on a group of journalists and civil liberties activists by Tunisian police.

Declan McCullagh writes for CNET News.com