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.
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.
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.
I can't believe this crap gets moderated up every time. The US put the majority of work into establishing what, exactly? Into designing TCP/IP? More or less true, although it was reviewed internationally and a number of the contributors were not from the USA. Building the infrastructure? No. Within the USA this is true, but outside (you know, where most of the Internet is)? Not so much. Hosting the root DNS servers? No, sorry, the majority of them have been hosted outside the USA for quite a few years now. Services that run on top of the Internet? You mean like that protocol designed by a Brit in Switzerland that you're using to troll Slashdot?
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.
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 behavi
You do know that the opinion of other countries like China, Bahrain, Burma, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North AND South Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, UAE, Yemen, etc. is 'censor it for any reason that might potentially undermine the state or social norms.' Yeah, we really need their input.
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:
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.
Australia is introducing filters too as most/.ers know. They just didn't fit my more extreme parameter of 'anything' that undermines the state or social norms. I don't like any level of censorhip, but I wanted to focus on those countries who have policies that are the most irredeemable.
"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
Have you seen how slow the UN is at things. If it was under the UN we would be talking about roll out in the year 2500 if it is put on speed.
not that I don't want ICANN to look at the world, but I just don't want ICANN to slow down just to be under the whole worlds control.
If it works great, don't fix it. If it works ok, fix it without braking it, or slowing it down.
Look at UNHCR which are just about the quickest set of people to react when a disaster strikes
Look at the Climate Change pieces which brought together the whole world and came to an agreement (sans one little country called the US)
Now what you might mean is that it takes the UN a long time to crack down on other countries who do things that your country doesn't like, that is certainly true. These are the people after all who refused to rush into Iraq, the slow-coaches.
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.
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).
Half of that 1/6th make over 50 grand a year and 1/4 of that 1/6th are foreign nationals. I, along with many Americans, do not believe in forcing insurance on people who can afford it but don't want it. I also don't see why we should pay for citizens of other countries. That leaves around 10 million people who are not covered and make less than 50 thousand a year. 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 m
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.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday September 30, @12:20PM (#29596015)
It is 4k to apply for a registrars license, then 2500 a year (USD). Then it is.20 cents a domain. Your company must have 70k in working capital and I believe 500k in assets to become a registrar.
This actually isn't quite true. If you become a com/net registrar, most of the money goes to VeriSign (who controls the com/net registry). The registrar has to pay VeriSign roughly $7 per domain per year that they register. The 20 cents per domain you're thinking of is the ICANN fee, which definitely exists, but isn't the biggest cost. org/info is similar, but the money goes to PIR instead of VeriSign.
I skimmed the article and this looks like it decreases ICANN's accountability to anybody. So when ICANN does something bad, who can hold their feet to the fire to get them to fix it?
ICANN is an organization composed of human beings, sooner or later it will do something that is evil.
ICANN is an organization composed of human beings, sooner or later it will do something that is evil.
Too late. They have already agreed to sell gTLDs. As if the spam enforcement wasn't horrendous enough (it terms of registrar obligations), it is about to get a lot worse since with the gTLDs will go the registrar TOS.
In other words, for some time ICANN hasn't cared about not doing "evil", as long as it makes money.
I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" persuasion. I'm also a fan of doing away with committees when a group of people have proven that they can do a job well.
If the only complaint is that some things are slow, how on earth is bringing it to a committee going to make things any faster?
But it IS broke. ICANN regularly makes decisions based entirely on its ability to make money from them, even though it's supposed to be a non-profit organization. It has little regard for what its decisions mean for the long-term health of the Internet, and it's consistently espoused policies (such as domain tasting and ultra-cheap domain names) that make life easier for spammers and scammers at the expense of regular Internet users. It's also vastly increased the gTLD space for no apparent reason other
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.
we have been made aware that there might be a problem with your bank account. Please log in and verify your personal informations including credit card numbers and expiration dates.
You can log in into our secure site at the following address: WWW.BANK.C0M
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.
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.
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
Support for other languages (RUSSIAN!) in DNS would be excellent, because there'd be about 10000 ways I could represent paypal.com in a visually identical manner (with cyrillic and other such glyph sets), thus making hacking way easier through cheap phishing tricks. I could even get an SSL certificate registered for the fake domain!
It takes intentional browser support to display such a thing, so wouldn't it also be imaginable that alongside adding that feature browsers would also add a malware warning like a coloration to the address bar? It could even be intelligent to only do that when there's Unicode characters for outside your $LOCALE. I could see Firefox doing that...
The UN already has the Universal Postal Union [upu.int] and the International Telecommunications Union [itu.int], which do for post offices, telephony, and radio roughly what ICANN does for the Internet. The ITU does a decent job, assigning country codes, negotiating the rules which interconnect phone systems across borders, and keeping radio broadcasters from conflicting. Nobody thinks about the Universal Postal Union much, but the fact that you can mail a letter to almost any country on earth didn't happen by accident.
Much of what the UN really does is to act as an umbrella organization for the dull and boring mechanics of infrastructure coordination. The diplomatic level gets all the attention, but there's necessary grunt work going on in the background.
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
You wanting it modded up because you agree with it is no better than modding it down for disagreement. It was modded down because he says Americans are all stupid and raises issues completely unrelated to the topic as "evidence". That's flamebait.
Funny how the "terminally stupid" laid the whole foundation for the internet in the first place which is why everybody whines about how the US controls it.
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?
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...
In case people don't read that entire text, a salient point it makes is:
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.
If my network is so awesome that my neighbor wants to spend his own money and time to connect to it that does not give him any rights or entitlements over what still remains my network. Why is that Americans seem to be the only ones who can grasp basic ethical constructs like this? Oh, that's right, because we design everything and the rest of the world just whines about how they're entitled to our work.
So I take it HTML doesn't exist, then, as that wasn't really designed in America.
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.
Funny how nobody complains about those bases or the force projection of aircraft carriers when they're the first line of emergency assistance in major disasters like the 2004 tsunami.
LOLINTERNET (Score:5, Funny)
ICANN HAZ DOMAIN?
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.
Re: (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.
Re:other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:other countries too (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (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 behavi
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.
Parent
Re:other countries too (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (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
Re: (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.
speed? (Score:3, Interesting)
UN slow? (Score:3, Informative)
Is the UN really that slow?
Look at UNHCR which are just about the quickest set of people to react when a disaster strikes
Look at the Climate Change pieces which brought together the whole world and came to an agreement (sans one little country called the US)
Now what you might mean is that it takes the UN a long time to crack down on other countries who do things that your country doesn't like, that is certainly true. These are the people after all who refused to rush into Iraq, the slow-coaches.
The UN is a
Re: (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: (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: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).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Can anyone tell me... (Score:2)
Can anyone tell me why it costs nearly $10 to register a domain for a year? What is the profit margin on this? Who keeps the profit?
Re:Can anyone tell me... (Score:5, Informative)
It is 4k to apply for a registrars license, then 2500 a year (USD). Then it is .20 cents a domain. Your company must have 70k in working capital and I believe 500k in assets to become a registrar.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The registrars' profit margin is quite thin.
Source: http://www.verisign.com/domain-name-services/beco [verisign.com]
So who is ICANN accountable to? (Score:2)
ICANN is an organization composed of human beings, sooner or later it will do something that is evil.
Re:So who is ICANN accountable to? (Score:4, Informative)
ICANN is an organization composed of human beings, sooner or later it will do something that is evil.
Too late. They have already agreed to sell gTLDs. As if the spam enforcement wasn't horrendous enough (it terms of registrar obligations), it is about to get a lot worse since with the gTLDs will go the registrar TOS.
In other words, for some time ICANN hasn't cared about not doing "evil", as long as it makes money.
Parent
No! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, 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.
Parent
This is a bad thing (Score:2)
Expect to ahve about 100,000 TLD within the next 5 years.
Plus, who need accountability~
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah, I can already see it...
---
Dear client,
we have been made aware that there might be a problem with your bank account. Please log in and verify your personal informations including credit card numbers and expiration dates.
You can log in into our secure site at the following address: WWW.BANK.C0M
Internet Addresses in Other Languages? (Score:2)
I can only assume the submitter means domain names in other languages. Internet addresses are either decimal (v4) or hexadecimal (v6) numbers.
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: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.
Parent
Re: (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
ICANN still isn't following its own rules (Score:3, Informative)
Other languages (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Other languages (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Maybe the UN would do a better job (Score:5, Informative)
The UN already has the Universal Postal Union [upu.int] and the International Telecommunications Union [itu.int], which do for post offices, telephony, and radio roughly what ICANN does for the Internet. The ITU does a decent job, assigning country codes, negotiating the rules which interconnect phone systems across borders, and keeping radio broadcasters from conflicting. Nobody thinks about the Universal Postal Union much, but the fact that you can mail a letter to almost any country on earth didn't happen by accident.
Much of what the UN really does is to act as an umbrella organization for the dull and boring mechanics of infrastructure coordination. The diplomatic level gets all the attention, but there's necessary grunt work going on in the background.
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
Parent
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:5, Funny)
I want to run around shooting guns and have working inexpensive health-care!
Parent
Re:EU politicians suck even more than US ones (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (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?
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: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.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And to think some people complained that English was overrepresented on the internet...
Re:Oh, boo hoo rest of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes We CANN! (Score:4, Insightful)
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