The European Commission has proposed a key reform to dilute US influence in managing and running the internet, in the wake of last year’s snooping activities exposed by Edward Snowden.
The European Union’s executive division demanded transparency and less US influence over the organisations managing internet mechanisms, including assigning web domain names.
Currently, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) operates under a contract with the US government and manages assigning new internet addresses.
In near future, the internet would see addition of several hundreds of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) including .london or .sex, offering beginners with more choice of location online.
European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said the next two years will be critical in redrawing the global map of internet governance.
"Europe must contribute to a credible way forward for global internet governance," Kroes added.
"Europe must play a strong role in defining what the net of the future looks like."
The EU also called for a ‘multi-stakeholder’ approach to governance, which is now backed by the US and industry, facilitating non-governmental organisations, countries, academics and the private sector to team up on the network’s operation.
"Some are calling for the International Telecommunications Union to take control of key Internet functions," Kroes said.
"I agree that governments have a crucial role to play, but top-down approaches are not the right answer.
"We must strengthen the multi-stakeholder model to preserve the internet as a fast engine for innovation."
The EU has also committed to creating a set of principles of internet governance to protect the open and unfragmented nature of the internet.
In response to the EU’s proposals on Internet Governance, US commerce for communications and information assistant secretary and NTIA administrator Lawrence Strickling said that the US government welcomes the strong and continued commitment of the European Commission to the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.
"We will work with the Commission and other internet stakeholders to make multistakeholder governance more inclusive, especially to support the engagement of countries in the developing world,"
"We have long encouraged the further globalisation of ICANN as reflected in our work the last five years to improve the accountability and transparency of ICANN to all nations and stakeholders," Strickling said.
Executives from top tech firms including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer have cautioned the US President Barack Obama that the NSA snooping could lead to fragmentation of the Internet, forcing countries to adopt their own private internets in a bid to thwart snooping.
