EU Domain Registries & ICANN

rob_levine writes "Following on from the announcement a few weeks ago that the U.S. Department Of Commerce intends to retain control of the Internet's root domain servers (originally to be relinquished in 2006), several EU domain registries are preparing to build, test and install a system to prevent U.S. government meddling, according to this article in The Register. Could this be the beginning of the end of the centralised autocracy that is ICANN?"

Comments

Decentralization...

[JossiRossi]

I suspect that if this goes through it'll be a start to where the internet speads apart and out, someday entire seperate networks set up. Like "ChinaNet" instead of internet. I imagine the seediness of the internet could only go up... Not that I mind. =]

WWW

[Beuno]

Wasn't this suppose to be the "WORLD Wide Web"?
I think someone lost sight of what they were doing...

Re:WWW

[TheRealMindChild]

People laugh at this, but what you know as the "World Wide Web" was a term and a concept dreamt up by.... wait for it.... Al Gore.

He (and other of course) took what was a government research network, more or less, and got laws/regulations passed that made it the commercial information superhighway it is today. In his vision, it was a global network, but you have to understand, it was never MEANT to be under global control.

Re:WWW

[nixkuroi]

Yes, WWW does equal World Wide Web and it was created by Tim Berners-Lee, an English guy. The WWW runs on the Internet and the Internet was created by the US government. It's a little like someone creating a road and then someone starting a cool bus service on it.

The road owner (RO)is telling the bus service owner's (BSO's) that it is going to continue owning the road and the BSO's are getting pissed because they're afraid the RO is going to put in some traffic signals and road signs they don't like. So now the BSO's are threatening to create their own side roads with their own signs and signals.

This kind of stuff happens whenever you create something that becomes a standard upon which people build other standards. People freak out when they think the infrastructure upon which their livlihoods are based is being messed with, especially by someone can't pronounce the word nuclear. :)

Sounds Like Good News

[mechsoph]

Let's hope they set up a good system that we all can use.

I'm not really sure why everyone's so worked up about this. If the US Gov. doesn't run things right, we can all just point our resolvers at an alternate root, like this one. And considering the the US was just maintaining the status quo, it really seems like even less of a big deal.

It looks like these guys are just gonna set up an alternate root for everyone and try to automate the system as much as possible. Hopefully it works.

BTW, anybody else annoyed that all these news articles on this keep confusing DNS with "The Internet?"

Suprize!

[arrow]

You can set up automated systems and launch shared responsibility campaigns untill your blue in the face.

The fact still remains that your shared trusted ultra 31337 root zone file won't actually be used.

The operators of the root servers have stated time and time again that their job is to only serve the root zone, the contents of which is the responsibility of ICANN (and in turn the US government).

This is just more "alternate root" quackery.

A connection tax to follow?

[Tominva1045]

Could the amount of time it would take the EU to put up a VAT-like name-server interpretation tax be measured in nanoseconds?

Re:And you thought Bush misspoke...

[Narchie Troll]

A few points:

1. Internet2 isn't a separate network. It's just a high-speed subset of the Internet. There is only one Internet, and IP is its protocol.

2. Do you really think that Bush is even aware of Internet2, much less that he was making a reference to it?

3. I don't recall any media reference to the "internets" statement. Every joke I've heard about it has been online.

Re:Monopoly(TM)

[SillyNickName4me]

For the record, the steam engine was invented by the Greeks millenia ago, and yet they only get a footnote? Guess what, they didn't do anything interesting with it.

The Greek and the people from Cartago, and others who had access to steam engine technology (actually, it was a steam turbine, not a traditional steam engine as we know it) did something significant with it. They decided that while potentially powerfull, the effects it would have on their social structure and population would be devastating. They did something that modern civilisations seem to have forgotten, they decided to forego technology in favor of a stable society.

Americans and France

[falconwolf]

I'm not saying this is the end of Franco-American relations, but only that Americans will remember France's actions for longer than the French think.

I'm one of the Americans who were against the Iraqi invasion without UN support and supported France's stance. I am still waiting to see those WMDs, where are they? The sanctions against Iraq were working. Mind you I'm not saying I supported Saddam, I was against him when Reagan and Bush Sr supported him while he was using those WMDs against Iran as well as Kurds and others in Iraq.

The Washington Post's Gas Attack
Today's outrage was yesterday's no big deal

Falcon