House Passes Net Governance Bill

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation reinforcing its support for a broad, multi-stakeholder Internet governance system. Authored by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, the bill would reinforce Congress’s position that the Internet is a global resource that cannot be regulated by international governmental entities, such as the United Nations. Specifically, the bill would make it U.S. policy to "promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet."

Late last year, the House and Senate unanimously passed a resolution expressing the same sentiment prior to the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai. At that meeting, several countries proposed Internet regulation under a decades-old international treaty. Congress’s action leading up to Dubai undermined the efforts of the other nations and their proposal received only a little traction at that conference.