Taxing, Regulating Internet on Agenda at U.N. Conference

The U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) holds a conference next month in which everything from new internet taxes, to new censorship rules — read “Defamation of Islam” — to new internet regulations will be in play.

The new regulations and taxes alone could force “websites like Google, Facebook, and Netflix to pay fees to network operators around the world.” And these fees will eventually be passed on to consumers, as businesses will seek ways to offset the new expenses in order to keep their books balanced.

This latest push by the ITU is a power grab pure and simple. Driven by the same groups which are seeking to implement the Arms Trade Treaty and other intrusive measures, the Dec. 3-14 meetings on new internet controls provide an opportunity to funnel more and more Western dollars into the waiting hands of the non-Western world. They will also provide opportunities for Islamist countries to set up censorship controls by which non-Islamist countries must abide. 

The conference will be held in Dubai, where an overarching goal will be to keep “the deliberations, proposals, and processes involved in the treaty conference” as secretive as possible.