This Vote Could Change the Course of Internet History

A US State Department candidate is up against a Russian challenger in an election for the leadership of one of the most important international technology bodies.

Depending on who wins, the internet may become centralized into the hands of nation-states and state-run companies that want control over what their citizens see and do on the internet. The race for secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union has not received much attention.

The American is a former Commerce Department expert on telecommunications who joined the ITU in the 1990s. The former deputy minister for Russia's telecommunications ministry is facing off against her.

The platform of the two candidates states that they want to connect every person in the world to the internet and cellphone service by the year 2030. Both candidates have different visions for the future of the internet. The track record of Bodgan-Martin was the focus of her campaign. He invoked his candidacy as a way to reject Americandominance online by promising a "humanization" of telecommunications infrastructure.

According to Gran Marby, head of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the stakes couldn't be higher: "People around the world might not be able to connect to one single internet."

The United Nations oversees the ITU today. The world's major deliberative bodypredates it by 80 years.

The International Telecommunication Union is responsible for creating standards and interoperability between an array of services and technologies and expanding access to modern communications platforms.

Interoperability is an important job. Ensuring that all countries can agree on allocating space on the radio frequency spectrum is one of the tasks the ITU needs to accomplish. The reason a Japanese cellphone can still work in Dakar is the same as the reason a Japanese cellphone can't.

190 nation-states, as well as 900 corporations, research bodies, and NGOs, are members of the International Telecommunication Union. Nations can only vote in leadership elections. The Secretary-General has been leading the organization for the past eight years, since he left the Chinese telecommunications ministry.

The most important UN agency you have never heard of is the UN's International Telecommunication Union. She said that decisions made at the international body have a huge impact on the everyday lives of Americans.

China and other authoritarian states have increased their interest and activism in the International Telecommunication Union, leading to concerns that their influence in standards setting may lead to the bifurcation of the internet. The time at the helm of the organization has seen highly favorable comments and decisions in support of Chinese companies. The companies have increased their involvement in the UN agency. Some 2,000 new standards proposals have been submitted byHuawei.