US Relaxes Control Over ICANN 230
An anonymous reader tips news that the US Dept. of Commerce has signed an agreement with ICANN to end their current oversight responsibilities and allow more input from the global community. "The move comes after European regulators and other critics have said the US government could wield too much influence over a system used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Those critics have complained, among other things, about the slow rollout of Internet addresses entirely in languages other than English." The US will still be involved; every three years, ICANN's work will be evaluated by a committee, one member of which will be from the Dept. of Commerce.
other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
This is only a good thing. ICANN with it's power has been too US based for long time already, while internet is global.
As an EU citizen I'm happy and even surprised to see this happening - US actually caring about other people too and giving some control to people elsewhere.
To begin with Internet was a distributed system that couldn't be taken down at one point.
No! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:other countries too (Score:3, Insightful)
So we're giving more control over the internet to total surveillance societies like Great Britain? Not that I'm against sharing control, but I also don't see how it's automatically a good thing.
Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
The chorus calling for the "end to US control over the Internet" will morph into the "end of ICAAN control, because they are not subject to oversight." Withe the "solution" being the same - UN oversight.
They are not looking for more freedom - they want more control.
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't bust it any more than having companies running their own domain DNS does. It puts more load on the root servers, but custom TLDs don't bust DNS any more than domains running custom DNS servers to host subdomains.
Btw, good job on posting that opinion appropriately: as a coward. :D
Re:UN slow? (Score:2, Insightful)
Far more countries than just the US declined to participate in the Climate Change issues. As for healthcare and the US climate policy, perhaps the US' view of these topics is different from your own? Just because their policies are different from what you'd want doesn't mean they don't make sense from a different perspective.
Re:other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:other countries too (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'd rather see UN manage the internet than a single country (US). Then it would actually have opinions of other countries on it too.
Re:other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than bicker over who has the "right" to control it, a more important question is what's the practical implications of control. If other countries grow upset at US control, eventually they'll circumvent it. As soon as one country does it and tests the approach, it may create a domino effect where everybody does it, leaving the US on a digital island. Ultimately any given country can control whatever comes in over their wires, and if they don't like the US's approach, they'll usurp it when needed.
Ya Censorship! (Score:1, Insightful)
Ya, I can't wait till domains are revoked for holocaust denial, or for "hate speech" against any kind of minority!
Re:UN slow? (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the Climate Change pieces which brought together the whole world and came to an agreement (sans one little country called the US)
Yeah, it's a good thing manufacturing giants like China are working so hard to protect the environment. Why can't the US follow its example!
Re:UN slow? (Score:4, Insightful)
Very few countries didn't accept the UN findings on climate change, China and India both did for instance. Now in terms of signing up to doing something then that is a tougher argument, but getting people to agree on the problem was the first step and there the UN did well.
On Healthcare, you are right the US might have a different opinion. Most other countries would think that having the highest per capita spend on healthcare and having lower life expectancy, 700,000 people a year forced into bankruptcy and 1/6th of the population not even covered is a bad thing. I mean some mad people might think that a system where you ended up paying less, covering everyone and increasing average life-expectancy was better... but unfortunately those systems don't deliver 30% profits to insurance companies, which is of course the american way (apparently).
Re:Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. And even as it's now envisioned, the multinational committees will likely be stocked with the same luminaries of free speech that sit on the Security Council. And it'll go far beyond just making new domain names. After all, someone has to enforce who is allowed to which TLDs, right?
Frankly, I don't give a damn what China, Lybia or Iran think when it comes to running the Internet. And, if it comes to that, I don't want things like the German, French, or Canadian "hate speech" laws going international either. That sort of feel-good censorship can be even worse than the jackbooted variety, as the authorities choke off dissent while insisting it's all for our own good.
Honestly, I can't understand how any serious observer of world affairs, whatever you may personally think of the United States, can maintain that UN control is preferable to the current system. Not by any standard.
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ya Censorship! (Score:2, Insightful)
The nub of the issue is how to harden the internet against the vagaries of mob rule, special interests, fads and knees jerking. At the same time to embed freedom in such a way that the usual suspects can't dilute it, even if they try.
Whatever you might think of the USA, there is no other country in the world that could have delivered the internet in its current form, with its openness and freedoms.
However, that does not mean that the USA will remain a good custodian forever, so some insurance against future (current?) loss of liberty is appropriate.
I don't believe national governments or the UN are the answer, but am struggling to propose an alternative.
Re:UN slow? (Score:3, Insightful)
Google "UN Nuclear inspections stalled again" or "UN sanctions unenforced" or...
Don't get me wrong, the UN provides a useful dialogue for nations, but as for it's capacity to deal with and defuse major international crises, it's difficult to point to any situation where they weren't almost completely impotent to the crisis at hand.
Re:No! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:2, Insightful)
While he went a big aggressive with the saying, he does have a good point. I still dont undersant why ICANN is fully-usa company and has control over all of the internet, while it spawns over all of the countries.
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering the history of Europe in the 20th century, as an EU citizen you should be one of the last people to be "surprised" at the US helping others.
Re:Oh, boo hoo rest of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No! (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything, freeing ICANN from US government control, and moving it to nebulous control of some squabbling mess of countries, seems like it'll have the opposite effect: give ICANN carte blanche to do whatever it wants.
Re:other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
First amendment is the best protection in the US (Score:1, Insightful)
The best argument here is the US constitution and the first amendment. Despite attempts at censor or block or mess with things those attempts get canceled out and reversed once the court gets involved. What do you think China's views on a wide open internet are? How many other countries have that type of protection?
Re:UN slow? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you also feel that other countries should take over parts of Walmart? McDonalds? Any other US companies you feel your country deserves to steal for... whatever reason you pulled out your ass?
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Insightful)
You forgot to list Spain, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, ... . Why?
Re:Oh, boo hoo rest of the world (Score:2, Insightful)
Well said. Just quoting and posting at +2 so more people can see it before we both get modded down to -2.
Re:NOT GOOD ENOUGH (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Insightful)
Because the UN has done such an upstanding job at managing everything else. Why if it wasn't for the UN we might have seen genocides in Africa wherein millions of innocent people died. We might see countries like Libya sitting on human rights commissions. We might see aggressive states like Iran and North Korea flaunting international law and getting away with it.
Yep, the UN is a fine upstanding institution. We should hand the keys to the internet over to them. What could possibly go wrong?
ICANN barely works now...gonna be worse (Score:3, Insightful)
ICANN is barely functional with a heavy government hand on oversight. Do you imagine that group of idiots is going to do ANYTHING but line their own pockets without that oversight. The Golden Age of Domain squatting is just about to begin. ICANN will be re-allocating domains based on donations to their pockets within 6 months of them being un-regulated. Any chance the average joe had of winning a dispute against a corporate entity is going out the window as we speak...
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:2, Insightful)
... because it seems a better option than to have China, Iran, ... have an over 50% say in how it's run. Obviously.
Re:UN slow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Half of that 1/6th make over 50 grand a year and 1/4 of that 1/6th are foreign nationals.
You think an insurance plan purchased on the open market by an individual is affordable? Here's a hint: most small business owners make similar amounts and simply can't afford insurance for themselves, their spouses, or their families, and most definitely not for their employees.
I, along with many Americans, do not believe in forcing insurance on people who can afford it but don't want it.
So who cares? Similar knee-jerk reactions are found by people objecting to property taxes, income taxes, and public schools. If you're so short-sighted as to not understand that pooled efforts (aside from being the epitome of fairness), reduce costs for everyone, then there's no hope for you. Go live somewhere where the public doesn't subsidise much of your day-to-day existence.
I also don't see why we should pay for citizens of other countries.
Yeah, I don't have kids, and my house hasn't caught fire, so why the fuck do I have to pay taxes to pay for the fire deparment and public schools for all those snot nosed kids trampling my lawn?
You seem to blissfully oblivious to the fact that it's not uncommon in foreign countries that foreigners (selfish Americans included) are covered for free. By that standard, your views could be characterised as those of a selfish asshole.
Sounds like we need to expand state and federal aid to include these people rather than turn over the entire apple cart and force socialized medicine down everyones throats.
You use the term "socialised medicine", but obiously have no understanding what that means. Didja know that the Canadian, British, Japanese and French systems, for example, are all dramatically different? To the extent "socialised" is some vague, hand-wavy term that the government is involved, then we already have it. The Veterans Administration and Medicare. People screamed "Socialism!" when Medicare was enacted and Ronald Reagan predicted the demise of the US. Now, those Americans scream just as loudly at those who try and take it away or make changes to it.
Another fun fact is 80% of Americans are happy with the health care they currently have.
Fun and useless. 80% of those declaring bankruptcy due to health care costs have health insurance. You'd think those groups would be aware of each other. Either way, I'm sure that if polled, more than 80% of Microsoft Windows users would state they are similarly satisfied. Tells you absolutely nothing, but does suggest most people simply don't know what they they're talking about.
Like you.
Re:Oh, boo hoo rest of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, if you follow the "this is MY network and you do with it as I please" line of thought, the logical conclusion would be for the EU, China, India etc. all running their own DNS roots, complete with their own registrars etc. So unless you register your website with ten different registrars (or pay ten times the fee to your registrar), only people within your country and maybe a few bordering them can see it. Hilarity ensues when yourcompany.com is registered to two different organizations on various DNS roots. Or when they deicde they don't really need a compatible IP address space. While not being able to talk to China doesn't seem dramatic now, China is rapidly rising in importance.
In short, if you had wanted to make the internet your network, you should've worked harder to keep the rest of the world out. Apparently that wasn't what was intended.
Re:Yes We CANN! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:4, Insightful)
An adult top-level domain could have negative legal repercussions by endangering free expression... ...Privacy could be harmed by such a proposal. It would become easier for repressive governments and other institutions to track visits to sites in a domain labeled as adult and record personally-identifiable information about the visitor. Repressive governments would instantly have more power to monitor naive users and prosecute them for their activities.
Re:other countries too (Score:3, Insightful)
"Moving the control to international platform where also other advanced democratic countries can balance out totalitarian undemocratic countries is a step in the right direction."
Modulo the bloody obvious which is that government doesn't need to be in the loop in the first place. It's not liked they helped build it and knew what they were doing, ney, the DoC in charge of this now are the same bunch that mandated OSI protocols when talking to the government. When the Internet had reached near ubiquity and OSI still didn't have any networking code they relaxed that rule.
Now these guys are in charge of ICANN and jus handed the keys to an unelected bunnch of clueless government wonks who are already being lobbied hard by the trademark people, one of the most powerful lobbies in America... and the ones that don't leave fingerprints.
Re:other countries too (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and there's an awful lot of other countries that don't want censorship.
Changes need consensus in international organisations, this is a stupid argument, because you'd never get international consensus on this sort of thing so it wouldn't happen.
Whilst you have one country controlling it however, you get shit like this:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081020/0058002578.shtml [techdirt.com]
http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/02/us-judge-censors-wikileaksorg.html [oreilly.com]
Yes that's right, judges in single US courts being able to unilaterally order the effective take down of overseas sites for which they should have no jurisdiction over whatsoever.
Don't try and pretend the countries you list would magically get their way over Western nations if control was shared, and don't try and pretend the US has never done anything wrong whilst in control of the internet.
When you have opposing views sharing power, stupid ideas get blocked indefinitely so the sort of situation in the above two articles would never happen, neither would censorship. Stuff like security issues that need urgent attention would get passed because everyone would agree they're a problem.
Effectively just as in hung or proportionally represented governments, the only stuff that gets blocked is controversal shit that half the people don't want, the only stuff that gets through is stuff that's agreeable to everyone. That's much better all round than having a single entity unilaterally imposing bad ideas on everyone else.
Re:Prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you assume it'll be the security council that'll get involved rather than say the International Telecommunication Union?
What's that? You didn't realise the UN already does pretty much what ICANN does in another area very successfully?
"Frankly, I don't give a damn what China, Lybia or Iran think when it comes to running the Internet. And, if it comes to that, I don't want things like the German, French, or Canadian "hate speech" laws going international either. That sort of feel-good censorship can be even worse than the jackbooted variety, as the authorities choke off dissent while insisting it's all for our own good."
But you think it's okay for a single US state to be able to impose censorship for our own good I suppose?
http://www.freepress.net/node/45158 [freepress.net]
Eventually the appeals court realised this was stupid and overturned it, but the fact is a single judge in a single state of the US whilst US has full control of ICANN could censor whatever they wanted and did so for a damaging period of time for a web based business, and they did. More than once:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/02/us-judge-censors-wikileaksorg.html [oreilly.com]
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2008/03/us-interferes-with-travel-to-cuba.ars [arstechnica.com]
"Honestly, I can't understand how any serious observer of world affairs, whatever you may personally think of the United States, can maintain that UN control is preferable to the current system. Not by any standard."
Your answer lies above, it is because any "serious observer of world affairs" who is not ignorant to the reality of US control of ICANN realises it's been doing a really, really bad job in recent years with everything from gTLDs to censorship of foreign domain names being.
I guess you weren't aware of what ICANN has done wrong in recent years which is fair enough, but if you're going to defend an organisation and speculate on what an alternative organisation would do wrong, you should at least make sure the organisation you're defending wasn't guilty of doing exactly what you're so concerned about- censorship.