Blogs

TPP press conferenceLa Asociación Peruana de Consumidores y Usuarios (ASPEC) participó en la conferencia de prensa en la que diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil de los más variados sectores –laborales, comunicadores, consumidores, medioambientales, etc- nacionales y extranjeras, expresaron sus objeciones en relación al acuerdo comercial que se viene negociando denominado Tratado Trans Pacífico (TPP por sus siglas en inglés) cuya XVII Ronda de Negociación se ha iniciado en Lima y se extenderá hasta el 24 de mayo.

ITUThis week Consumers International is representing the consumer movement at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum and the ITU's World Telecommunications Policy Forum (WTPF). The ITU is one of two institutions (along with the TPP, which also has a meeting this week) that we have been targetting with advocacy for improvement of its openness and transparency.

USTR logoThe 16th round of negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership wrapped up in Singapore this week, and according to the official press release the intellectual property chapter is one of a small number of chapters (along with competition and environment) that remain unresolved, and will be the focus of the remaining negotiating rounds.

AnonymousLast year's ITU WCIT conference inflamed the community's fears of the extension of intergovernmental control over the Internet. Whilst this fear was legitimate, an over-emphasis on the ITU can obscure the fact that the Internet is already controlled in undemocratic ways - often by governments, through both national and global processes, but also by corporate interests. It also obscures the fact that government action is sometimes necessary to uphold the rights of Internet users, just as government inaction can sometimes support their freedoms.

FreemasonryIn the wake of the anti-climatic conclusion to the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) earlier this month, readers could be forgiven for being confused about whether all the hype about the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) staging a UN takeover of the Internet had ever represented a real threat, or had ju