GENEVA - Net czar Ira Magaziner was in town last week to bring his hands-off-the-Net message to an international conference on domain name administration self-governance. He warned that unless the Internet acted quickly to police itself, pressure would build for national governments to take the reins.

"What I don't want to see happen," said Ira Magaziner, special advisor on Internet issues to President Clinton, "is to be sitting here two, three or four months from now with you squabbling about what is going to happen. The forces that want to exert more control will use that as an excuse."

His warning was timely. Last week, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that outlaws the transmission of content "harmful to minors," ties federal funds to the use of filtering software in schools and libraries and bars online gambling. Talks are to begin in the next two weeks to resolve the incompatibility between the European Union's consumer privacy laws and the States' posture of letting industry develop codes of conduct.

The Geneva meeting is one of four informational summits intended to determine the bylaws and makeup of a new board, and such thorny issues as how the organization will be funded. It hasn't even begun to address contentious topics like trademark dispute resolution, whether registries should or shouldn't be nonprofit, and what new domains should be introduced.

The immense political pressure on the Internet was noted by Donald Heath, chairman of the Internet Society, which ended its annual meeting here with the jointly sponsored domain name forum. Politicians, he said, "have a very big toe. If they stick it in, they will crush the Internet."

The next meeting will take place Aug. 12 to 13 in Singapore.