
Do you remember the original robber barons? No, they were not the great American industrialists/philanthropists of the late 19th century—men who were unfairly tagged with the moniker. I mean the originals: the German barons of the 13th century who controlled the Rhine River, which was the primary channel of commerce and communications for central Europe. Their castles overlooked the river, and they exacted tribute from every passing ship.
The
barons ignored customary "just" tolls, charged whatever the commerce
would bear, exacted payment "in kind" from cargoes, and exercised power
by controlling strategic territory. These Raubritter provided no real service other than the extortion implicit in allowing safe passage past their own weapons.
The
world may see history repeat itself with the Internet, and the
unintended consequences are likely to be profound. The United Nations
has long craved the power to tax, and the Obama administration's
decision to give up U.S. oversight of the domain-name system and the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, may end
up giving the U.N. that power.
As far back as 2001, a U.N. report,
"Financing the Global Sharing Economy," proposed that the U.N. be given
the authority to levy a tax on "speculative currency transactions" with a
projected revenue stream north of $150 billion. Should the U.N. get
control of the Internet and the global commerce it carries, that figure
will be chump change.
There are
political and strategic issues—involving security, privacy and
censorship—associated with international control of the Internet. Should
the U.N. end up in charge, it would have a chokehold on the global
economy and a vast stream of revenue that would make it even more
unaccountable than it already is.
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