WCIT documents leak; government press concerns over Net powergrab

Controversy over the WCIT meeting in Dubai in December continued unabated. The meeting will revise a treaty covering international telecommunications rules that was originally agreed in 1988.

Previously confidential documents on the process were leaked and then published on a new website called WCITleaks.org. Relatively little controversy resulted from the actual contents of the documents, with a number of Internet organizations having already highlighted changes that concern them with regard to the Internet.

In the meantime, the working group overseeing the process met again in Geneva in an effort to produce a final document for the process. They were unsuccessful. There are too many pages of content and so a further meeting will be required, most likely in October.

The most unsettling moment in the multi-day meeting was the refusal of the chair of the process to identify whether a key proposal was intended to include the Internet. The entire controversy of the WCIT meeting revolves around whether it will be used as way for the ITU to involve itself directly in Internet matters.