The internet could be broken up in future by cultural differences between
nations, according to one leading expert.
Nitin Desai, chair of the
Internet
Governance Forum (IGF), says ignoring whole countries and regions could
lead to a
"Balkanisation"
of the net. He cited the concerns of Chinese net users who do not use the Latin
alphabet, who want to be able to access web pages using Chinese characters.
He said: "If I look at the internet in five years from now there are going to
be many more internet users in Asia than in Europe or America.
"There's a point at which the Chinese will say, sorry, we have to have domain
names in Chinese characters, and they will set up an independent system."
He said that could lead to other regions setting up their own networks,
without connections to the rest of the internet.
Mr Desai made the remarks at a London conference discussing the future of the
internet,
organised
by Nominet, which registers all UK domain names. He said that the
forthcoming meetings of the IGF, which meets shortly, will be the place to
discuss these potential problems.
Emily Taylor, director of legal and policy for Nominet, told Computeractive
that the internet's governing bodies recognised the need to cater for users in
the developing world.
However, she said that previous attempts to set up alternative networks had
failed, because they didn't allow users to communicate with other internet
users.
She said: "My view is that if this 'Balkanisation' were to occur it would be
so inconvenient for users that they would vote with their feet and come back to
the internet."
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