HOWZAT

"We ask the EU to reconsider its new position on Internet governance and work together with us to bring the benefits of the information society to all," the letter said.

It is against this seemingly intractable backdrop that hundreds of international officials are in Tunis trying to negotiate a compromise solution. And early reports from the summit indicate that agreement is still a long way off.

Emily Taylor, the director of policy and legal affairs at Nominet, the British internet registry that controls ".co.uk" web addresses, is in Tunis and told Times Online that the chances of a resolution before the conference ends on Saturday are limited.

"Negotiations drone on with people repeating their entrenched positions," Ms Taylor said. "The EU came out with helpful words this morning but when the proposal went off into drafting committee the countries that want UN oversight tried to make amendments that were objected to by countries favouring the status quo objected.

"I can’t see how the two positions can possibly co-exist."

Ms Taylor, who is at the conference as an official observer, told Times Online that much of the opposition to American control appears ideologically motivated.

"What is primarily a technical function is being politicised - most people objecting to the status quo have no complaints about how the US has exercised its function - but they balk at the idea of the country having such control. This has to be seen in the wider context of reaction to recent US foreign policy."

Lawrence Lessig, a professor of law at Stanford Law School and a columnist for Wired magazine agrees. In a recent interview with the American Foreign Policy magazine he said the main cause of the rift was European distrust of the United States.

"The dispute is not particularly related to the internet," he said. "The Europeans are eager to stand up to the Americans, and that I think has been produced by the last five years of US foreign policy. It’s not really a cyberlaw problem."

"What’s interesting is, in 1998, there was no question of the Europeans taking over because there wasn’t the level of scepticism of the US government, even though there was a lot of scepticism about ICANN at the time.

Ms Taylor says that if there is no agreement the status quo may run for a while.

"That would not be a disaster," she said. "The system has worked robustly for the last 30 years."

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