In a few short decades, the Internet has mushroomed in capacity to become a powerful institution with a global reach. This doesn’t mean, however, that it should become the property of an international bureaucracy, as a contingent within the United Nations would propose.

That old cliche comes to mind, the one about not fixing something that isn’t broken.

The Internet developed almost organically as a weave of computer links organized into “domains” — the dot-coms and dot-whatnots of the Web, e-mail and user groups.

As a fledgling, it was a creature of government, a means for the exchange of documents among agencies and universities, but its growth was prodded more by the private sector. Domains are sold and controlled by the private, U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

That may have been a primary ingredient in the recipe for its success. The Net has enabled commerce and communication on a global scale, defeating some of the restrictions on trade and communications imposed by oppressive governments.

It is the effort by some of these governments to control the Internet that has many observers shaking their heads.

That debate, the World Summit on the Information Society, has been hosted in Tunisia, where the government has amassed an appalling free-speech record by imprisoning journalists who criticize its policies.

If the setting itself doesn’t serve as a sufficient reminder of the stakes involved, scanning the roster of participants will do the trick. Among those who have cheered most loudly for U.N. control of the Web are China and Cuba, two regimes not known for supporting the free flow of information.

In particular, China has attracted attention by applying technology to Web routers and software to screen documents and conduct surveillance of Net users there. Additionally, search engine results in China filter out some discussions with key words such as “human rights” and “democracy.”

It’s distressing enough that companies such as Microsoft, Google and Cisco have been complicit in these actions, but according even more influence to such restrictive governments would be a tragic mistake.

Some have suggested compromises worth considering, such as giving over control of country-specific domains, such as “.de” (Germany) or “.uk” (United Kingdom), to those countries.

But overall, the idea that an international bureaucracy should take over the reins of the Internet ignores the reality that governments aren’t ready for that kind of power sharing.

We may be there someday, but not yet.