UN treaty conference in Dubai highlights divisions on governance of Internet

A United Nations treaty conference in Dubai highlighted divisions among countries on how the Internet and content that flows over it should be governed. The United States fought against treaty proposals that sought to give the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and national governments a greater role in overseeing the Internet. That stance pitted U.S. delegates against Russia, China and a group of countries from Africa and the Middle East, which submitted a proposal to the conference record this week that called for governments to have equal rights over managing the Internet. Although the conference ended, some observers say the battle over how the Internet should be run is just starting to heat up.