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ICANN Meets Annan
CypherOz writes "The Australian reports a meeting between ICANN chief Twomey and Kofi Annan and the role the UN may play in the naming game. " We've talked about this before as well.
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The UN really should either take over the DNS system, or regulate it (regulation is probably better). After all, DNS is a global system that is important the better part of the world. It clearly falls under the purview of global government.
..but naming isn't everything of the internet! :-?
It has legitamacy to every one other than the United States, who will abide by it only when it is in its best interests.
How much could the U.N. actually do that the U.S. isn't doing now? I understand the appearance issue - this way it might have a bit more international legitimacy, but realistically, on a practical level, I don't see much coming out of this. The language compatibility thing is interesting, and that could possibly turn out better when working through the U.N., but I'm skeptical. To me it all sounds like a bunch of dippy diplomats are talking about something they don't understand. But wait - isn't that the U.N.'s new mission?
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I just hope that if the UN gets involved, they come in against Verisign and any other large businesses who wish to screw with things. I'm not all for the UN controlling things, mind you. But if they do have some say, I hope its on the side of reason and open standards and fair, reasonable practices.
Actually the real question would be would the UN have any actual POWER to enforce the rules they set. They don't have much power now, so UN mandates get ignored quite often when it's convenient, so Verisign would probably just do what it wanted and ignore the UN mandates. It could actually end up being much WORSE than it is now."While ICANN's far from perfect, I doubt things would be any faster with the UN taking over, slower maybe, but not faster."
I don't think these issues have any need for a fast paced organisation. I would rather prefer a stable, yet slow organasation to handle these issues.
And UN is suspectible to political pressue considerably more then ICANN. What a can of worms will open if UN will deside wich country should have wich domain name suffixes, and who shouldn't have suffixes at all. And Taiwan is not an UN member at all. What if UN start removing existing suffixes for political reasons ?
Because you don't have to be an asshole just because you can.
Jeroen
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I sure have heard the term "United Nations to take a greater role" line before.
The gathering grew from December's UN World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, where the world's leaders failed to reach consensus on governing the Internet and punted the issue to a task force that is supposed to report to Annan in 2005.
When was the last time world leaders manage to reach a consensus?
It ended Saturday with a closed-door meeting of diplomats.
Transparency of internation politics.
Computer industry officials at the meeting were skeptical of a UN role, but they agreed that some kind of international body could be useful in coordinating language issues, security and getting the Internet into developing countries.
Heard that before
Most believed an international body had no right to regulate the content of Web sites, a concern for countries like China and North Korea
And not the US? Oh wait, they have DMCA
"ICANN has to be more international and it has to be more transparent," said Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, vice chairman of the UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force.
UN Transparency = Closed Door Meetings
ICANN also chooses who controls the country codes -- like ".us" or ".uk" -- that define each country's piece of real estate in cyberspace.
The rightful code for Britain should be GB. But the British snatched UK, which should have gone to Ukraine.
It has yet to decide the future of Iraq's ".iq".
Bush's War Against IQ ;)
Twomey denies any US government influence in ICANN's work.
"I have never once seen the United States' foreign policy have any impact on this process," he said.
deja vu?
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And that's why we're there. We're willing to be nice, but we're not going to let the rest of the world walk all over us.
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And UN is suspectible to political pressue considerably more then ICANN. What a can of worms will open if UN will deside wich country should have wich domain name suffixes, and who shouldn't have suffixes at all. And Taiwan is not an UN member at all. What if UN start removing existing suffixes for political reasons ?
An incredibly good point, I hope someone mods you up. I'm sure that China would start the pressure to have Taiwan removed immediately and I'm sure Israel would start lobbying for Palenstine (.ps IIRC) to lose its domain. Actually the net would probably come to a screeching halt while the UN fought over who deserved a domain or not.Despite the concerns expressed in the article by critics, the US has taken a fairly non-political oversight role with the Internet and ICANN. True that might not stay that way, but at least as things stand now, ICANN is probably far less political than any UN governed Internet body would ever be.
Tell me where all the cash from the "food for oil" programme went? It didn't go to food. It went to bribe top UN, French, German and Russian officials (probably as far up as Putin and Chirac) to support Saddam.
The UN under Kofi Annan has become as corrupt as gangland Chicago.
What are your sources?
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'd like to see some details.
-kgj
-kgj
With all the problems that go on in the UN why are they a better choice then the US.
Because they don't represent a single nation state.
Can you please explain to me why a nation that predominantly speaks English and Spanish aren't putting in any effort to resolving issues for Chinese and Arbic speakers?
Oh wait, there's no need to explain it to me - it's fucking obvious.
With all the problems that go on in the UN why are they a better choice then the US.
Because then it wouldn't be a single country forcing its view of how things should be done on everyone else?
The UN has got a lot of criticism recently for being slow. Of course it is quicker and easier to make unilateral decisions. Getting consensus with a large group takes time.
The UN might be in considerably better shape if the USA put it weight behind it and didn't try to put it down all the time. There has been a lot more UN bashing recently since Bush got into power. It's not really suprising when you consider he had hardly been outside of the USA before he became president - an increadible state of affaird for a country that traditionally has been so good at foreign policy.
With all the problems that go on in the UN why are they a better choice then the US.
With all due respect, the main problem going on in the UN *is* the US. The UN aren't perfect, but in fact they're doing quite well, and would be doing great if they weren't undercut at every turn by US administrations who use UN-bashing to score cheap popularity points with their voters. (Something similar can be seen in Europe with respect to the EU: the national governments like to take credit for any positive effects while blaming the negatives on Brussels.)
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
ICANN's not perfect, the US govt. is not perfect, but to be perfectly honest, Auerbach's right when he says that the US has never really taken a ham-handed approach to the Internet and to "cutting off" anyone it doesn't like.
Sounds to me like the lesser of two evils--we've all seen the types of politics involved in the UN. Frankly, I'm not entirely sure I _want_ more democracy in how the "Internet" is run. And let's be straight about it--they're not talking about peering arrangements, IP address space, whatnot--they're talking about the DNS.
The current hierarchical system has its problems, but the increasing number of non-US root servers should at least disabuse anyone of the notion that an overly zealous US could, at the drop of a hat, just turn things off.
What I'd like to see from the UN, maybe, is increased sponsorship of things like discussion on proposed standards, dissemination of information, encouragement of the spread of technology and freedom of information to certain restrictive third world countries, whatnot. I'd rather not have it involved in the technical development of our dear, functional, essentially stupid network.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Which problems are you referring to?
Have you been living in a cave on Mars? Google "oil-for-food" for starters.
The US not paying its UN membership fee?
Have you ever been a dissatisfied customer? The last recourse of a dissatisfied customer is to refuse to pay the bill.
The US blocking security resolutions?
Don't complain about the US. Complain about the UN Charter. It gives arbitrary veto power to all of the permanent members of the Security Council. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, as a whole, is up for debate, but it's how things are.
Or the problem of the US ignoring the majority of the UN and the security council?
That's funny, the way you used "majority" and "UN" in the same sentence there. You do realize that the UN is an unelected, undemocratic body, right?
...the full name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or the UK for short.
.uk TLD then you've got bigger problems than TLD country codes.
.am or some such.
.uk TLD is entirely appropriate. As is the US's use of the .us TLD.
If I have to explain why the UK has the legitimate claim on the
Yes, people (including politicians and the media) treat the terms "The United Kingdom" and "Great Britain" as though they are interchangeable, but I think you'll find they do the same thing with "The United States [of America]" and "America" too.
But if you're reasoning held true then the TLD country code for the US should be
Bottom line: the UK's use of the
Oh, and by the way, diplomacy is rarely about reaching a concensus; it's about reaching a compromise: it's just a pity that some governments have conveniently chosen to forget that.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I doubt things would be any faster with the UN taking over, slower maybe, but not faster.
This really isn't a fair criticism, as the UN has often been quick and highly efficienty when it counts. For instance, when the UN administered the Iraqi Oil for Food program, it oversaw a highly successful program for redirecting money intended for starving children and judiciously placed it into the bank accounts of UN officials, international leaders who helped prop up UN policies, critics of US and British administrations and even terrorist institutions. Annon's own son, Kojo Annon, helped implement and oversee the program and made sure no worthless Iraqi children would gobble up funds that would be better spent on new limos, jets, castles and other critically important rewards for the UN officials and their friends.
Likewise, UN weapons inspectors were ruthlessly effective at avoiding the embarassing weapon discoveries in their host nation of Iraq (this is appropriate protocol, mind you) and were exceptionally diligent in advising their hosts with sufficient notice to permit them to relocate the embarrassing items prior to inspection.
Yes, I'm sure Internet domain administration and oversight will be well served. Innovative new registration practices will be enacted, such as domain quotas and scoring (requiring a U.S. firm pay 1000x what a Nigerian firm would to renew the domain, and giving the Nigerian firm a head start to reduce the world's inequities). Imagine the joys of receiving spam from pepsi.com. Wouldn't you like to see a McDonalds-branded spam for penis enlargement? The UN would certainly provide equal opportunity for third world nations to have a try at established US, European and Asian trademarks (oh, expect for the French ones, of course. But that's just a matter of cultural protection, just like how it's not bigotry of the French to prohibit the wearing of religious attire, but try that in Britain or the States and you'd have the ambulance chasers from the world court after you).
I'm sure this will inevitably be interpreted as flamebait, but do we really want them dictating policy on the internet? Maybe some other 3rd party, but the UN???? This organization doesn't have a spine. It's corrupt. It happily changes it's tune when politically expedient. Surely there's somebody better out there...
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Thank God someone here "gets it."
The reason people complain about the U.N. is generally that they haven't a clue what to EXPECT it to do. There are things the U.N. does very, very well through EcoSoc and there are things the U.N. isn't equipped for at all (see: waging war, NATO). There are dubious issues behind the IBRD and the IMF, but they _do_ serve a purpose as no other entities can. Then there's the ICC. Without the U.N. we wouldn't have created that venue for trying all of the world's Slobos and Saddams... not that this administration seems to care about that when they have a perfectly good illegal concentration camp.
Actually, the USA has had a terrible foreign policy, installing and supporting dictatorships all over the world. People from the USA are usually ignorant of what goes on in the outside world. It's sad and I hope it changes, the USA has a lot of power and if it were used for good things could change quickly.