Low-key coup ends American control of internet
`You’d expect an announcement that will change the face of the internet to be a grand affair.
But unless you knew where he was sitting, all you got was David Hendon’s slightly apprehensive voice through a plastic earpiece. The words were measured and unexciting, but their implications will be felt for generations.
Mr Hendon, the director of business relations at Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry, was in Geneva representing the British Government and European Union at the third and final preparatory meeting for next month’s world summit on the information society. He had just announced a coup over the running of the internet.
Representatives from Britain and the US sat near each other but looked straight ahead as Mr Hendon said the EU had decided to end the US government’s unilateral control of the internet and put in place a new body.’
