DoC to Extend ICANN's Control of IANA

Luminous Coward writes "I first saw this on The Register. Kevin Murphy of Computerwire reports: The US Department of Commerce last week quietly published a document detailing its decision to "sole-source" the contract for the so-called IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) function to ICANN, as opposed to opening the contract for competitive bidding. ICANNWatch explains why this is a bad idea. They also report that the ccTLDs and the Internet Multicasting Service have expressed interest in running IANA."

Comments

Re:Good idea... bordering on brilliant

[onta]

The problem that makes the UN impotent is not the fact that many countries are ruled by dictators (the idea behind the UN is to be a forum for *all* countries, not just democracies).

One of the biggest problems is the US's behaviour. For years the US refused to pay its quota, and has only paid its debt with the UN when they wanted something from it.

US's respect for UN resolutions is not very good either, and the UN does not have the capability of enforcing the resolutions, that's just impossible. Just two examples here:

• There was a UN resolution telling Israel to move out of the occupied territories. Israel has obviously not moved out, and while many countries have said it should, the US just lets Israel do whatever they want.
• Last november the UN said Iraq should disarm and sent inspectors, now the US wants a resolution that will allow them to attack Iraq, there's nothing wrong with asking for a resolution, except that Bush said he would only follow the resolution if it said what he wanted.

Now, how could the UN be useful if the single most powerful and influent nation in the world does not want to know anything about it, except if it is for its own benefit??

Re:Maybe the best solution

[Mr. Slippery]

Perhaps the running of the internet should become a United Nations function?

I was just thinking that perhaps it should be handed over to the ITU. If they can get the world's phone systems talking to one another, the Internet should be a piece of cake in comparison. (You ever look at telephony protocols? You don't want to. Trust me.)