The United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is ready to take over the internet's governance from the U.S., ITU head Yoshio Utsumi said on Friday, a day after the U.S. clashed with much of the world at a two-week conference preparing for a U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, in Tunisia, in November, reports Reuters. The U.S. now manages the internet via the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), overseen by the Commerce Department.

"We will not agree to the United Nations taking over management of the internet," said David Gross, a U.S. Department of State official. The U.S. says it would not take actions that would affect the working of the internet, but countries such as Iran say Washington could disconnect them whenever it wants.

As a way out of the impasse, the European Union is proposing a "cooperative model" by bringing the internet and ICANN under international law rather than under U.S. law, but Gross on Thursday described that plan as a "shocking and profound change" of the EU's stance and said it paves the way for governments, some of which censor what their citizens can do on the web, to unduly influence the internet.

"I think the U.S. is overreacting," said David Hendon, a spokesman for the EU delegation is quoted by the International Herald Tribune as saying. "But I think it's a tactical overreaction for the negotiations," he added. "It is unreasonable to leave in the hands of the U.S. the power to decide what happens with the internet in other countries."

According to a 1998 memorandum of understanding, ICANN was to have become independent of the Commerce Department by September 2006, but the Bush administration said in July that the U.S. would "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file."