VeriSign To Control .com Domain Until 2012

DIY News wrote to mention a Reuters article reporting that VeriSign will control the .com domain until 2012, according to an agreement with ICANN. From the article: "The agreement settles a long-running dispute between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and the most powerful company under its jurisdiction. The settlement comes at a time when ICANN is under attack from China, Iran and other countries that want more direct control over the domain-name system that guides traffic around the Internet."

Comments

The Mayan calendar ends in 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

Coincidence? Yeah, probably, but you should call Art Bell just in case.

Re:The Mayan calendar ends in 2012

[mctk]

Not to mention it's the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Coincidence? Probably, but I'd still recommend that you never let go.

fair?

[ajdlinux]

Verisign has been known to go around policy: who authorised .root? ICANN is known to be undemocratic and hold meetings in places where people can't access them. Could some non-profit organisation take over .com and make the internet fair again?

Iran? China?

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

God forbid we should run the Internet in a way that displeases such an open and information-friendly group of countries.

Verisign icky!

[mister_llah]

They tried to start a 'service' to redirect mistyped domain names to a search engine (with ads)....

These same people also make 6 dollars per year for the 35 million .com domain names in use, and then also the .net names.

They are icky.

===

Of course, one has to wonder... WWCD? What would China do? (if they had control) ... or any other nation/entity vying for control...?

Mountain View, California-based VeriSign introduced a search engine in September 2003 that directed Internet users who mistype domain names like "www.example.com" to a search engine which contained advertisements

IMHO, The internet should always be 'free' (except for the cost of connection) ... and I think right now its as free as it's going to be...

Obligitory..

[fak3r]

"All your .com domains are belong to US"

Choose your evil

[fuzzy12345]

I thight this topic was pretty much mined out, so I don't expect the huge number of "USA, yeah! UN Sux!" posts that have characterized it in the past, but...

What's everyone say now? ICANN President Paul Twomey said the settlement shows that issues involving the domain-name system are best resolved within ICANN, rather than through an international bureaucratic body. Am I missing something? Big US corporation uses threat of long, expensive US litigation to bend ICANN to its will? ICANN claims that this proves the system works, sure -- what else could they say and maintain a shred of self-respect?

But now y'all have to chose your evil: VeriSign and litigation lawyers, or the UN? Bwahahahaha!

Re:China and Iran?

[Scrameustache]

suppressing our people

Stop doing business with them, then talk about how evil they are.

Re:Iran? China?

[slavemowgli]

Well, that part of the article was FUD at its best, and you're the perfect example of a naive Slashdot reader who took the bait and fell for it, so to speak.

For one, not all the world's Iran and China; admittedly those are dictatorships that you probably don't want having a say in how the Internet is governed, but the majority of the world's countries is not like that. Furthermore, the proposition wasn't that individual countries control the Internet; rather, it was suggested that an international body responsible for this be created. Kind of like the ITU, for example - which is not exactly a prime example of the devastating influence that countries like China and Iran would have, is it?

And don't even think about playing the "free speech" card - that coming from a country where an accidentally-exposed nipple on TV causes a major outrage and where the FBI goes after and tries to shut down porn websites is just ironic. If you want the USA to keep control of the Internet, at least be honest enough to admit that you like to feel that you're in power, that you have control, and that you're better than the rest of the world.

And now I'll most likely get modded down to oblivion for saying this, probably - again by people who otherwise constantly talk about free speech. Isn't it ironic...

Why mention only China and Iran?

[CharAznable]

Why not the EU or any other number of countries that don't have despotic governments? Countries depend on the internet for a number of things, and it's only natural and sensible that they don't want to trust their vital infrastructures to Verisign or the US. Mentioning China and Iran seems like a lame attempt at scaremongering. "Imagine, the internet in the hands of China! Oh noes!"

The arguments?

[DynamicPhil]

I have yet to hear *good* arguments for not transferring the power to the UN.
Does ANYONE have those?

Ive currently heard (and you will get my comments on the arguments in non-italic)
The US doesn't mess with how its run
false: we have the whole mess with the .xxx domain, and not to forget: what's going on with the iraqi domain?
Well, since the current owners are in US custody (!??) its in limbo: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/30/iraq_inter net_domain/?

Transferring power will lead to greater Cencorship
Oh, cencorship as in preventing media to display coffins of dead soldiers? Or showing a nipple on tv? Banning Al Jazeera from reporting from iraq? Or pictures from abu ghraib? (where the public - thats us, folks - have the right to know what is actually going on).
No, my dear friends - it's time to 'fess up, and admit that there are plenty of countries - participating in the UN, as a matter of fact - that does the whole "Freedom of speech"-thing better than the US.

The UN is corrupt
Arguably the UN has had its share of scandals - it's no suprise since any political body draws the attention of people out for personal gain. This is solved by actively participating, and demanding increased opaquity of how the UN (or any political body - the US for example) is run. I won't even go into the whole Haliburton, Bush AWOL, Saudi connection, Campain Contributions and Florida vote scandals.

Historically the internet came from the US - so it should remain in US control
This one is plain dumb. Just because something is historical, doesn't mean that it neccessarily is good today.

The US runs it better (technically)
Not really. Ever heard of pharming? Im going to do a littel flag-waiving myself, and point out that right now Sweden is on the track to implement DNS-SEC, for examplehttp://www.nic.se/english/nyheter/pr/2005-0 9-14?lang=en

To keep internet democratic, the US should be in control
It IS a issue of democracy. The US has to hand over the power to a international democratic body, any other action is per definition UN-Democratic (no pun intended). I'm sorry, but arguing anything else is just moot.
It's the US responsibility to participate and to try to affect the outcome of voting on these issues in the UN. That, my friends, is how democracy is supposed to work.(and I shouldn't have to point out what democracy actually is)
I'm scared of that the rest of the world won't put the US intrests first.
Well, should they? Honestly?
The rest of the world is not, I repeat NOT, by definition Evil. Remember, North Korea, China (as is the US) are a part of the rest of the world. There are enough good countries to balance out the "bad" ones ("bad" as in the _US sense of the word).

Ok, I'll probably be modded down for this post, but before bringing out the flamethrowers, I'm actually intrested in hearing good arguments for keeping it in US control.

Regards ...