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US Govt Wants to Control ICANN?
blankmange writes "ZDNet is covering a new piece of legislation that may be introduced by Sen. Conrad Burns that would give the US government more control of ICANN - the independent corporation that controls the domain-naming system of the internet. 'In a statement released two days before a Senate subcommittee is scheduled to hold hearings on the global body, Burns said the change was necessary because ICANN has exceeded its authority, does not operate in an open fashion, and is dangerously unaccountable to Internet users, businesses and other key interest groups.'"
ICANN has exceeded its authority, does not operate in an open fashion, and is dangerously unaccountable to Internet users, businesses and other key interest groups.
Kind of like... the government??
I have been pwned because my
"Dozens of other governments have charged ICANN with being too dominated by U.S. interests"
So the solution is to put it under control of the US government. Does this sound as dumb to everyone else as it does to me?
When I hear stuff like this, I start to wonder what the real motivations are...
This is a real dilemma. Consider that all the claims the US government makes about ICANN are correct: they're unaccountable, monopolistic, and they certainly don't run things the way they were supposed to. Almost everybody in the /. community can agree that ICANN needs to be reined in.
The US government used to do this job, and back then, it was fine. But of course then the internet was a small space for researchers and academics to exchange ideas.
Our current administration is authoritarian and too concerned about what's moral, correct, and in the best interest of scaring the populace. Free speech == bad in the eyes of the Bush regime.
Add to that the fact that the internet is now worldwide, and the US shouldn't be patrolling the world (though they do it in physical space already - cyber space is a small leap), and it puts us all in a real dilemma.
I guess the real question is, with which stick would you rather be beaten?
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
When the US Govt. gave up what power they had over the domain system, it went to shit. Netsol messed it up, ICANN is messing it up even worse.
I say let the NSF do it again.
ICANN may be an international body, but much of their authority came courtesy of the US government. It would take a major consensus from virtually all ISP's (in the US and the rest of the world as well) to allow a different body to take control of DNS. Since ICANN's authority came via the US government, theoretically it can be taken away as well. Given the way ICANN operates, that may not be a Bad Thing. It might be nice to have a "do-over" with ICANN and try and get it right this time.
Of course, if Jon Postel hadn't passed on far before his time, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
One interesting point in the article: the GAO rep said that domain name registration had fallen from about $50 to $10 due to ICANN. Check me if I'm wrong here, but I very clearly remember that when NSI started charging for domain names (I also still remember when they were free) they charged $35/year. Not $50. And that's still the price from them today (though they offer longer-term discounts) - other registrars are free to charge what they want and generally undercut NSI.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The DNS problem is a simple one to solve.
There are two choices.
1) We are going to keep adding TLDs.
2) We are NOT going to keep adding TLDs.
Period.
The only other time to change a TLD is if the geopolitical world changes, and we need more (or less) cctlds.
Other than that, maintain the root servers, and leave it the hell alone.
This all has to happen during this session, which only has 50 working days left, and which has much else (such as the Department of Homeland Security) on its plate.
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I'll take its "sister" (heh heh) site, www.showusyour.bush.
I've had enough of you whiners and complainers. ICANN operates in a fair and free fashion. Their meeting are open to the public.
Just because you missed their last meeting in Ghana, doesn't mean it's not too late catch the bus over to Romania.
I understand that the next meeting will be on the dark side of the Moon. They don't want the pale Lunarians feeling left out of the loop.
evanchik.net
There are two problems with this post:
First off the popular vote `in most areas' didn't go for Gore, or he would have had more electoral votes. The total popular vote was very slightly more for Gore than for Bush, but this was because some of the very populous states, such as California went for Gore.
And this brings us to the actual reason for the Electoral College, which is very different from what you suggest in your post. The founders were quite rightly worried that a few large states would be able to control federal elections in such a way that smaller states would have no voice at all, so they reached a compromise. The existence of the Electoral College requires that a presidential candidate build a broad base of support accross a range of states, thus ensuring that he better represents the entire nation.
In the absence of the Electoral College, no presidential candidate would ever have incentive to listen to any but a few of the largest states -- and would be much more the president of New Yorkifornia than of the United States.
Dubious, and I don't mean George.
Through law, one way or another there is government control (ours or someone else's govt.) of just about everything, now.
What we need are some serious lawsuits to clarify the rules or non rules.
I for one want to go back to some rules that should never have been changed and another that should have always been.
Rule one - First come first served.
The heck with who owns a copyright or trademark, this is a seperate space.
You want it, get in line, get in line early, if you miss out try to buy it, if you can't buy it, rent it or come up with something else.
Rule two - One Domain name per customer.
dove.unilever.com is just fine, the space for dove.com should belong to someone else.
'www.' should be depricated.
Rule three - The name must be in active use.
The lack of this rule has created squaters, and ties directly into the previous two rules.
Somebody had the rules system pretty close to right in the begining, too bad they wrecked it.
And last the rule that never was, but should have been.
You should register once, only once.
Renewal is a form of extortion at worst, taxation at best, and really creates a situation in which the root registrar is the actual owner.
This is a public database, registration fees are understandable, but after it is registered, administration is trivial and should be financed by the folks who are pulling daily feeds for the BIND servers that are actually routing it commercially.
Off the soapbox.
I think the key here is "businesses and other key interest groups". In other words, the government doesn't get any kickbacks because they don't have any control over what ICANN does. Seriously, if the government had the "internet users" interests at heart, MS wouldn't be in the position it is in now, and they would have come down on them like a ton of bricks. And arguing that the government is more/less corrupt than businesses is like shopping for dildos - you aren't looking for the one that feels the best, you are looking for the one that hurts the least.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It may not be a private corporation, but it thinks it is.
I can boycott corporations, but the closest thing to a boycott of the US gov't is illegal.
The US government is the prime facilitator of most of the things coprorations do that we see as Evil. (DMCA, military action in Guatemala & Nicaragua, Saipan, heck, the amount of time copyrights are good for magically gets longer every time Disnay's copyright in a certain mouse is about to expire.)
History has shown that these limits on the power of the government that you speak of are fungible. Usually, they are only funged a little bit, for example with limitations on free speech w/r/t certain four-letter words in public. Sometimes, they're funged a lot more. For example with the WWII internment camps.
I'm still not convinced that the US government values me as anything other than a contributor to the GDP, in the same way that I know large corporations only care about me as a chump that may have a few loose dollars in his pocket.
As for the laws that limit the gov't, the constitution and laws in this country only hold water because our governing body agrees they do.
Abraham Lincoln blatantly ignored the Constitution and a few other major laws, I'm sure. The gov't can do that just as easily today. At least corporations have a government standing above their heads waiting to put them in their place (or at least make a pathetic attempt to do so) every random interval unit of time or so. That may not be worth two shits in a can, but it's a psychological comfort.
Who's going to stop this abulatory conglomeration of tinker toys and assault rifles we Americans like to pretend is a government if it stretches things too far?
A minimal beaurocracy with responsibility for nothing other than running user supplied referenda on which one internet user gets one vote?
Sure, tricky to administrate, but I'll pick a flawed democracy to a perfect dictatorship any day.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
A net without US script kiddies, self-important housewives, the NRA, the US arms of the MPAA and RIAA spamming P2P networks... Mmmm. :)
That is what ICANN was supposed to do, but it's a simple fact that they elected only 5 board members instead of 9 as originally agreed. They have subsequently disbanded elections and put in place a "nomination" process which concentrates power in the hands of the original rules.
Similar to the common stories of democracy failing to establish itself in small countries, the original rulers have made some abuses of power. They've played favorites, made arbitrary spending decisions (even blocked inquires from an elected board member for spending records), and they've shown a lack of principle regarding the rights of citizens to whom they should be accountable (witness the unfair domain name dispute policy).
Comments that "the USA does not own the internet" will abound... but ICANN, like a former territory, was given its authority by the US, with a very clear charter that clearly called for a transition to democratically elected officials to make the decisions. Had they followed their charter, had they ernestly held elections, had the original board members stepped down as they had originally agreed, there would be much more tolerance for some bad decisions.
But that's not the case here. Unelected interim officials held on to their power and disbanded elections. Abuses have been made by unelected ICANN board members who do not deserve the power they have improperly siezed for themselves. That's a much different situation that poor decisions on the part of elected officials who should have felt accountable to their constituants who will re-elect them.
Like a developing nation where the interim rulers siezed power and refused to establish democracy as originally chartered, someone needs to step in. The US was both the country that originally granted ICANN its authority, and the US has the clout to demand ICANN's restructing.
This abuse of power and refusal to transistion to democracy are inexcusable. The US would never tolerate it in a former territory (where there's an economic impact on the US at least), and there's no reason that ICANN should be treated any differently.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
I will never understand why people fear/dislike their government more than private companies who never even have to let you know anything strange is going on unless they get caught.
Eminent domain.
The government has the exclusive power to confiscate (for "fair compensation") property for whatever reason. Now, I'm sure you'd love to believe (as you say you do) that when the government does take something, it's all for an important purpose (aka public works...roads / utilities / etc.). Not always is that the case.
About five years ago, my college wanted to build a couple extra residental buildings for the campus, but some "old houses" stood in the way. The college asked the city to exercise their right to buy out those properties. Residents complained, because of course it would lower the property value of the neighborhood. So, the residents were heard, but the college still got the land. Why? The mayor was also dean of the college.
Another good example can be found here. Nissan Automotive bought out the Mississippi Legislature to get a law passed that allowed them to take whatever land they chose to have (and disregard the land's real value).
My point is this: I don't want a governing body who can be bought out to control the internet. I'm sure someone is going to pipe in and say that "Domain names aren't physical property...the government can't exercise eminent domain!" Anyone who wishes to say such a thing apparently doesn't realize that until a law is on the books that says the government can't, the government will.
We want ICANN to act like a decent international regulatory body. Having it act no more evil than ANSI of IEEE would be nice. Unfortunately, ICANN has a bit more going for it, mainly:
So, to make sure it acts like a public group and not like a business, we feel the need to place some sort of authoritarian control over it. Since its domain is the world, however, the US government makes little sense for this. How about the UN?
Now I know that many see the UN as either useless or evil, but in certain cases (the World Health Organization, UNICEF,