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.

Comments

Like the UN would be any faster...

[Maestro4k]

• Other critics say ICANN is too slow in making decisions and adopting new technology, like ways to transmit Chinese and Arabic characters. VeriSign has sued the organisation, saying it is standing in the way of lucrative new services.

I wonder if these same critics have paid any attention to just how quickly the UN moves on things. Yes it's an international body, but it also brings even more petty arguments to the table because of that. While ICANN's far from perfect, I doubt things would be any faster with the UN taking over, slower maybe, but not faster.

This is what is wrong with this idea.

[Guysdrinkingbeer]

From the article
"... whether the internet should be governed and, if so, how."
With all the problems that go on in the UN why are they a better choice then the US. The article has some valid points, but the current system is pretty fair.

Why bother using the UN?

[gartogg]

The question that I would have about the regulatory system in place is that if the government were to attempt to "force the disruption of internet traffic to entire countries by deleting them from central computers," would the commercial hosters and systems continue to accept dns information that would be bad for their customers? It seems that the internet is commercial enough that in leiu of government oversight, it might be better to allow a evolved commercial alliance govern the systems.

It is a bit silly to allow a small thing like DNS to create such a problem in the first place. When we go to IPv6, it might make more sense to use URL forwarding to IP's, and bypass most of the regulatory system in the first place... Allow other countries to maintain permanent fixed DNS servers for their own IP ranges, and have the assignations know, so that all other central controls are unneeded. If the US wants to control .com, .net, .gov, .org, let them. Sell off all remaining 2 and 3 letter combination top level domains using whatever system you want, and then dissolve ICANN. It just makes sense,if the internet is supposed to belong to the users.

Re:If

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

The doesn't have any real power for a couple reasons. First, since it's a conglomerate "government" it relies completely on the power of its constituents. And rarely has it wanted to do anything that its powerful constituents didn't want to do already (do to veto power and a few weighty members). So when some powerful countries who would already be taking an action go through the UN, they just do what they originally set out to do with UN uniforms on.

Secondly, the UN doesn't have any real power because, while everyone is willing to participate, no one is willing to really give up power of their nation to another ruling body. I doubt that will ever happen peacefully.

I would like to see more discussion from the UN about what might help developing countries, or what might foster more online growth - and then see that input taken into account by internet regulators. But I think that's about the best the UN could do to help.

NGO?

[utlemming]

The only way that it would work would be for a NGO to be formed. But honestly, I think that most Americans and Europeans would be more comfortable if the ICANN powers were turned over to NATO than to the UN. We're talking politics, and even though most of us /.ers are ideologs, we still need to recogonize the importance of politics. The US is not going to let the internet out of our hands. Not with out protecting the interests of the US. Most likely the future of the internet is going to be decided not by the UN, but by a consortuim of internet nations in treaty negotiations. Whether or not the UN takes over the internet will not solve the issues surrounding the internet. All the issues, such as a spam, porn, fraud, et al., will have to be resolved via treaties anyway. You might as well form a treaty organization that is devoted solely to the internet with teeth.

The next question: how many people actually understand the term legitimacy? (In the poli sci realm it is defined as the "Legitimation refers to the process by which power is not only institutionalized but more importantly is given moral grounding. Legitimacy (or authority) is what is accorded to such a stable distribution of power when it is considered valid." (From Oxfords Reference Online). The fact is just because the US citizenry may not consider the UN legitimate and the rest of the world considers it legit, does not mean that it is any more legit for the United States. To claim that the UN is legit because the rest of the world claims it is, would be like arguing that Isreal's rule of Palestine is legit just because most of Ireal says it is. The point is that legitimacy changes from demographic to demographic. What one nation may consider legit does not lend itself to force a legitimacy stand on another. And just because the US considers ICANN a legit insitution does not may it any more legit in the world.