Yesterday, in a video podcast, the European Commissioner for Information Society, Commissioner Reding called for ICANN to be restructured. ICANN is the entity that basically governs the internet, it decides the endings of web-addresses (eg. .com, .be) and it under the notional auspices of the US governmnet. European anxiety about this arose when teh proposed .xxx doman failed under political pressure from religious groups in the US.
Commissioner Reding has called for “a new, more accountable, more transparent, more democratic and more multilateral form of internet governance”. She calls this a “G12 for Internet Governance”, a global body that could monitor the openess and security of the Internet (though one would wonder if countries like China would prioritise an open ineternet).