Slashdot Mirror
ICANN Plans to Charge Fees to .net Domain Owners
museumpeace writes "ICANN, though it was soundly rebuffed for trying this in the past, is
reported by CNET to be planning a $.75/ year fee to holders of .net domains and will look at fees for other TLD's next year. Is this taxation without representation? And where would this trend stop?"
Can anyone say "Boston Tea Party"?
Do you see where this is going? They can charge as much as they want, be it the measly 75 cents or $15.
(It's like the income tax. The gov't said it would be temporary--and small. But it wasn't temporary, and it's grown quite a bit.)
Keep your eyes to the sky.
I'm going to wait at least till the third warning to pay. That way they spend more on stamps than they get from me.
The danger of making them an elected body is with that mandate comes power. Right now the Internet is basically unregulated. There are certain conventions followed, and certain preferred root nameservers which the vast majority use, but there are basically no rules governing the use of the Internet. This has been a good thing. How many other technologies have transformed the world as rapidly as the Internet has?
If we start building a political structure into the Internet, we will start to have laws and bureaucrats and innovation will suffer. Just look at just about any other areas where government has gotten involved. Soon we'll need licenses just to use the Internet.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
This just give everybody who's concerned about ICANN's unchecked control even more reasons to learn about and support the Open Root Server Confederation.
The Internet needs to stay unregulated and as free as possible from the corporate mindset if it's going to stay in it's current shape. You can already see problems arising with corporations controlling so much of the public's interest in the Internet such as VeriSign's abusing their power by implementing programs like SiteFinder.
It's reasons like these and ICANN's increasing little fees they charge that something needs to be done at some point and the sooner the better. I suppose the very nature of the Internet is a saving grace - if the current custodians fail the public then the network can always be restructured, if very slowly. There is more than one way millions of computers can be inter-connected.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
...just because THEYCANN.
If we start building a political structure into the Internet, we will start to have laws and bureaucrats and innovation will suffer. Just look at just about any other areas where government has gotten involved. Soon we'll need licenses just to use the Internet.
*sigh*
The internet was a government project for a LONG, LONG time, until it finally was decided to open it up to commercial enterprises.
And let's not forget the interstate highway system, or the national power grid, or any of the other hundred items where the government's intervention no only is non-ornerous, but necessary for the whole thing to work at all.
At last we can add in step two!
1. Get self on ICANN board.
2. Increase fees gradually so nobody notices. (formerly ???)
3. Profit!
Indoor plumbing
The electric light
The telephone
The jetliner
The internal combustion engine
I'd say any of those had had a MUCH more profound impact on most peoples lives then the internet has.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
OK.
Aside from Indoor plumbing, The electric light, The telephone, The jetliner, and The internal combustion engine, what have the Romans ever done for us?
If bad puns were like deli meat, this would be the wurst