Spinning the Web Forward.(Vinton Cerf)(Interview)

Byline: Michael Hastings

Vinton Cerf has been dubbed the father of the Internet, a label the 62-year-old Connecticut native rejects. "There are lots of fathers of the Internet," says the legendary computer scientist who worked on the original Department of Defense project in 1973. He now holds the title of Google's chief Internet evangelist and chairs ICANN--the main organization responsible for assigning Internet domain names. ICANN, which is overseen by the U.S. Commerce Department, was subject to much debate at last week's U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, during which several nations pushed to take control away from the United States. NEWSWEEK's Michael Hastings asked Cerf for his thoughts on where the Web is headed. Excerpts:

HASTINGS: What's your take on what happened in Tunis?

CERF: Or maybe what didn't happen, in some sense. The boat hasn't destabilized. The situation is still ripe in the sense that the arrangement for a forum [for countries to discuss the issues further], which is not fully worked out, at least is on the table. There was a sense among some governments that they weren't participating satisfactorily or adequately from their points of view. I've encouraged the governmental advisory committee to address this question and try to help ICANN reach out to those countries.

What's at stake here?

What is at stake, in a sense, is a place in the online environment. I think governments recognize how important this is to them economically and sociologically and in every other sense. They want very much to feel they have some say and some stake in how this all evolves. With regard to the technical decision making that goes on and the specific tasks that ICANN has to do, I think it would be quite detrimental to the Internet's operation were they to become politicized.

Critics say the U.S. government basically controls the Internet.