Internet freedom and innovation are at risk of being stifled by a new United Nations treaty that aims to bring in more regulation, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt warned in a question-and-answer session at Mobile World Congress 2012 reported ZDNet.

According to the ZDNet report, Schmidt said handing over control of things such as naming and DNS to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) would divide the internet, allowing it to be further broken into pieces regulated in different ways.

“That would be a disaster… To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you’ll find it shipped away for one good reason after another,” Schmidt said.

“I cannot be more emphatic. Be very, very careful about moves which seem logical, but have the effect of balkanising the internet,” he added, urging everyone to strongly resist the moves.

To read the ZDNet report in full, see:
www.zdnet.co.uk/news/regulation/2012/02/29/schmidt-un-treaty-a-disaster-for-the-internet-40095155/

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