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.
speed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't just taking control away from the US government, it's putting that control more firmly into the hands of a private organization. "International" doesn't automatically mean "better" (witness the WTO and IMF). All it means is that US citizens will be just as easily ignored as EU, AU, OAS, ASEAN, and ETC citizens are today.
Re:other countries too (Score:3, Interesting)
there's already so many people using it, and it'd be a ton of work to setup another system.
Well that sounds like a good reason just by itself, and you don't really give any reason for the US to maintain control other than some strange possessive instinct. The internet is a global system now, so it makes sense that ICANN should be accountable to global interests. Even though I'm British, I don't actually have a problem with the way ICANN has been run by the US, but the last thing I want is for everyone to start coming up with their own crazy system because of the kind of pointless, divisive behaviour which the US is thankfully avoiding with this new decision.
:)
In fact, you mention the telephone system, but I bet it's a pain to have to parse all of the different crazy international phone number formats! Maybe a global system would be better for that too, if we could start from scratch
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Interesting)
Aside from your blatant paternalism (the US has existed a lot longer than the EU has), you're happiness translates to me as "Good - now the EU can have a shot at exerting control."
As a US citizen, I'm completely unsurprised by the EU claiming to care about other people while consolidating power in itself.
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, actually it can.
Please read -- http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3675.txt
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:other countries too (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:other countries too (Score:4, Interesting)
Other languages (Score:3, Interesting)
What was the problem that warranted change? (Score:1, Interesting)
As a US citizen, maybe I just don't appreciate the annoyance of having ICANN be a US-supervised organization, but IMHO, ICANN has been doing a pretty good job. The organizations that I take issue with have been those like Verisign. I have kind of a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" sort of sentiment regarding ICANN. I don't see them doing anything I object to today, and I don't see how moving them to global control would improve things. Furthermore, the US has typically been relatively opposed to things like heavy-handed control of the Internet; I'd hate to see ICANN used to promote censorship or monitoring.
Re:other countries too (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you please provide any example where the input of other countries was ignored by ICANN, leading to a negative outcome? Just wondering.
Re:Other languages (Score:3, Interesting)