The European Commission has announced that it believes that American influence over the internet needs to be lessened.

Of course a lot of this has to do with the spying being done by the United States government, which was brought to the world’s attention by Edward Snowden. There is still a lot of debate on how this should be carried out and the EU has already turned down the idea of government’s having more control over the internet, which countries like Russia and China are interested in.

“I agree that governments have a crucial role to play, but top-down approaches are not the right answer,” said Neelie Kroes, the  European Commission’s Vice President. “We must strengthen the multi-stakeholder model to preserve the internet as a fast engine for innovation.”

Part of the problem is that at the moment, ICANN, which is an organization located in California and working under an American government contract, are the only ones who oversee new internet addresses being introduced.

It is hoped that by having new domain addresses like .sex or .london, the US influence over the web will be diluted over time as more and more are added and used.

“Europe must contribute to a credible way forward for global internet governance,” Kroes said as well. “Europe must play a strong role in defining what the net of the future looks like.”

[via The Verge, Reuters, image via Sebastiaan ter Berg’s flickr]