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ITU Phobia: Mueller on the WCIT

Milton Mueller offers an insightful take on the recently concluded WCIT. Mueller characterizes some of the extreme ITU criticism as “ITU phobia”, which he notes:

One notable feature of ITU phobia is that it takes the alternative internet institutions off the hook. They are inherently good – good by definition – because they are not the ITU. The ITU-phobic do not care whether alternative governance institutions perform well, and they cast a blind eye on the actions of states that are part of the anti-ITU cause. If the threat to the internet comes from the ITU, and not from a world of nation-states seeking more power for themselves, one needn’t worry about such things as ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, the US CyberCommand, Israeli cyberweapons, the British Cleanfeed system, data retention and graduated response in the European Union, the Wikileaks financial boycott, and so on.

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