India to challenge US dominance of the Internet.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW DELHI: In a somewhat bizarre, but potentially game-changing move, India plans to introduce a proposal that would change the name of the Internet to the “Equinet.”
According to a report by The Hindu, India will announce the proposal at the upcoming Global Multi-Stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Governance, a two-day event in Sao Paulo that gets underway on April 23. The reason for this is to end the US domination on Internet control, and to allow the international community at-large to have a say in how the web is governed and secured.
Some 180 nations are expected to attend the Sao Paulo summit, and India apparently already has some serious allies in its quest to divide up rule of the Internet. The report states that China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, and Iran are expected to back India’s proposal. Brazil is an especially significant ally; in addition to the being the host country for the summit, its government was the one that spearheaded operations to investigate the NSA’s spying of foreign leaders after the Edward Snowden revelations last year.
India has already drafted an initial note to the organizers of the summit, also known as NETmundial, in which they outline what the contents of their proposal will entail. Among other things, the note specifically says “New cyber jurisprudence needs to be evolved to deal with cybercrime, without being limited by political boundaries and cyber justice can be delivered in near real time.”
This is not the first overture India has made for globalizing Internet administration and policing. Earlier this year, India called on the international community to assist in the creation of an inter-government Internet watchdog agency, which would establish universal guidelines for Internet use and have its own task force to deal with cyber crimes and security threats.
The US has come under harsh criticism over the last year after the Snowden fiasco showed the world that the US was tapping into the networks of several high-ranking officials in governments around the world, both friend and foe. India was one of the countries that the US was looking into, prompting outrage from the Indian Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), and the release of the Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy report.
“All stakeholders need to facilitate the transfer of information technology and capacity building to developing countries, in order to help them take measures to improve cybersecurity, develop technical skills and enact legislation, strategies and regulatory frameworks to fulfill their responsibilities,” the aforementioned note also says.