Daily Caller

[Commentary] Two big decisions -- one American and one European -- accelerated the de-Americanization of the Internet. Edward Snowden’s revelations catalyzed both.

The US government just chose to hand over its master key to the Internet -- the “root-zone-file” -- to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a multi-stakeholder non-profit organization, in October of 2015. America will no longer effectively control how the Internet changes or evolves. Anyone who thinks transferring ownership of the Internet’s proverbial rudder won’t alter the Internet’s long-term trajectory does not understand this change.

America’s stewardship of the Internet for the last twenty years fostered its commercial potential. Consequently, it is no surprise America’s Silicon Valley effectively dominates most every commercial and behavioral aspect of the Internet. The priorities of a multistakeholder, not-for-profit organization that’s un-tethered from, and unaccountable to, sovereign or commercial interests will prove to have very different priorities than America’s as it tries to incorporate the rest of the world’s conflicting priorities.

What does this mean? Over time the Internet will become much less American, much more diverse, and vastly more political, both internally and geopolitically. And expect a less American Internet to naturally become less commercial, less Silicon Valley-centric, and less friendly to property.

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly for much stronger data protection (privacy) laws, the first such change since 1995. It also overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling for the suspension of the US-EU data protection Safe Harbor that lets US firms self-certify as being in compliance with EU privacy law. This seminal new data protection law could be a game changer for much of the Internet. While much more remains to be worked out, the EU’s new post-Snowden trajectory is clear.

Essentially, the EU is asserting sovereignty over the European Internet so European data will be subject to EU law and stored in the EU. The law also grants EU citizens the right to demand erasure of their online data for the first time. To simplify, the EU is calling for a more consumer-centric, opt-in privacy model in stark contrast to America’s ecommerce-centric, opt-out privacy model. This is a frontal assault on Silicon Valley’s privacy-hostile, dominant advertising business model.

[Cleland is Chairman of NetCompetition, a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests]