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ICANN Plays Down U.S. Influence
aychamo writes "The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations. For instance, the US was the only country able to stop ICANN from using .xxx for pr0n domains, instead of .com. The ICANN is planning events to show that it is not US influenced." From the article: "ICANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites. Approval of the new top-level domain could come during the ICANN board of directors meeting on Sunday. One other major development this week involves progress toward allowing the use of non-English language characters when steering a Web browser to a particular site. ICANN is now exploring a proposal to open Web browsers up to dozens of the world's other alphabets. Actual tests of just such a system are now in the works, Twomey said. "
I think every 80s progrock supergroup should have their own TLD.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it? There will probably just be a rush to get their existing domain names as ADDITIONAL domain names before the squatters gobble them up.
.org but should be on a .com! :-)
Slashdot uses a
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Using multiple languages for browsing would only create a huge mess in the internet....
CANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites.
Translate: They all look alike so we should give'em one domain.
Honestly, what the hell is this? It seems like this would be far more useful in Europe where most people speak another European language.
What is Asia? Is it from India to Japan? Just north-east Asia (Japan, China, Korea, and the smaller nations - which was my first guess)? South-east Asia too? Even in the limited area I can'ts eee the point: there is interest in each country in a neighboring language (I knew Korean nationals in the U.S. taking Japanese and many of the Japanese I know here in Japan know or are learning Chinese or Korean) but it's hardly wide spread.
ICANN is the king of dumb ideas and this is a solution looking for a problem.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
From the article: "CANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites."
.com, .gov, .edu etc. domains with .us. That at least makes it fair for the rest of the world. What's the point of .asia btw? just keep using .cn.
So... if I understand correctly, the closer people are to the USA, the easier their domain names will be. Compare:
XYZ.com -> US company
XYZ.co.uk -> UK company
XYZ.co.cn.asia -> Chinese company
What about universities in other countries? Governments? Militaries?
ICANN: Start getting a little bit international, postfix all
They just open up more and more domain extensions. This is a damn organization, not a corporation. Why are they trying to find new ways to milk money from everyone?
In my opinion, ICANN is behaving like somekind of mafia.
Our parents might be logging keyboard input and searching the logs. Yes, I know I'm paranoid.
[sig]
Isn't it possible to abuse UTF-8 domain names for activities such as cybersquatting? It's easy to mistake www.microsöft.com for www.microsoft.com.
(Actually, that's not so easy, but some my browser turned some of the more complicated UTF-8 characters into question marks.)
Isn't there some security risk when it comes to displaying unicode characters in a URL, along the lines of the character may not be what it looks like?
If ICANN wants to play down the influence of the US government, something that it could do is to provide rationale for what it is doing that come from a neutral and respected source. For example, the US Gov't says .xxx is bad. ICANN agrees. People are in uproar. ICANN then says *why* they agree with the US Gov't and state reasons that are neutrally-rooted as to why. For example, they can cite this thing by the IETF (on last check, a fairly neutral group, not tied with the US Gov't): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3675.txt
When your Continental Pride results in less traffic to Ninglenongle.asia than it did to the original, KoreanGameCompany.com, you'll just have to compensate by taking out bigger, longer, more expository ads on the *.com sites. Works for me. Or maybe you'll need multiple sites, one from which to promote your product and make money, and others through which your political correctness and cultural diversity may be flaunted. All Good, as far as our Western tech economy resurgence is concerned.
Vive le Difference! or something...
However, about that international URL thing, does it mean, that there may be non-asci urls, even unicode urls?? may be a mess, mostly because those characters are not always cross-pltform compatible. I'm mostly thinking about such non-ASCII characters as à ù é è that are not compatible for example between Mac OS and Windows, if there's such a character in a URL, it may be a mess...
You just got troll'd!
Seriously, if the TLD structure is subject to influence from 6,000 "letters of concern" from the U.S. Christian Right, what is the message to the rest of the world? That's right - "you have every reason to be concerned about sole U.S. control of ICANN".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
If you're not with America, you're against us.
//too subtle?
"The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations."
Immediately after the denial, however, they added, "But please don't tell the government we said that."
/& thanks for that update! I didn't know!
Today ICANN announced that they would create a ".arab" top level domain name, to reassure the world that they were not overly influenced by the US government. "We think a .arab domain name would allow arabs to more easily identify arab focused web sites, and demonstrates that at ICANN we don't just focus on the US, but also we try to accomodate less significant countries, like Europe, Canada and Arab places like Iraq." The spokesman added "I'm sure it will also help the fight against terrorism".
is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations.
ICANN seems to forget some things, it is wholy supported by the US government on US soil. The UN does not contribute a red cent to it's operations.
I would not underestimate the US influence, but nor do I fear it.
Does anybody else find it as preposterous as do I, that to identify far eastern sites they want to use .asia which is a completely western-centric delineation and uses a western alphabet?
{ - Generic Guy - }
How about .Nigeria, so we can make sure we receive offers to smuggle ill-gotten loot out of the country?
In light of the comments about my comments on the .xxx TLD, I now agree that .asia would be stupid, as would .xxx for all the good reasons stated. ICANN will no more be able to pigeon hole web content by TLD than the USPTO will be able to issue intelligent decisions on software patents. It will work a little, but the consequences are more likely to be bad. Even if these special TLDs allow site owners to pigeon-hole their content by identifying with the .xxx or .asia domains, it does not mean that these would be useful for more than that.
.asia.xxx for pornographic anime????
The issue of different languages is tricky too. If different languages are supported in DNS, wouldn't that require OS/Browser to inherently support multiple languages? I also hate to think what Korean would look like on a URL. (no offense is meant) It would be very different from the current 'norm' and would cause some issues I think. If you go to a PC manufacturer's site, and it redirects you to one with Korean or Mandarin characters and your browser rejects it, you will end up with errors. Of course, the PC maker should build the site(s) so they work with all countries, but still it would cause issues.
I think all of this needs some more thought before implementation. The gov. works pretty well, as do other combinations, so perhaps a combination like that would work better????
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
and it should not be .xxx or .com but .cum
No sig for now.
ICANN? You CANNT do sh*t... Play down U.S influence all you like, it's just not true. When you claim to be an international player, you just can't afford to not have the largest economy in the world on your side, fact. Even if ICANN was based in Yerevan, Armenia, it would still be heavily influenced by the U.S.
My criticism is that .asia would be a poorly defined TLD. There are many opinions about what constitutes "asia" - is Australia included? how about Israel? what about eastern Russia?
.com may be poorly policed but that's a different issue: perhaps ICANN needs to learn lessons about how to hand out TLDs. The new .eu seems to be allocated with a little more caution as we speak.
.us for a start. Should .asia sites have country.asia? like .cn.asia? if so should US companies have .com.us.[continent - I guess .na?] ?
The existing
Also I think the hierarchy of domains needs to be sorted out. It would be a lot easier if all USA based sites used
Slashdot is a major centre of hacker culture. pr0n is traditional hacker usage, going back at the very least to the days of B1FF. It's basically an ethnic variant spelling.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You, like most Republicans, are dumb.
When does it end?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it?
.xxx domains. Suppose you enter a .com domain and the site also has a .xxx domain. Follow all redirections until the site doesn't redirect anymore. You lookup the host name and get an IP. Then replace .com with .xxx, and lookup. Is it the same IP? Censor the other domain, or the IP. Ta-da.
.xxx domains are now used. A conservative senator launches a proposal ENFORCING the now voluntary use of .xxx domains. It gets approved.
.xxx domain?
An intelligent filter COULD be used for sites that do use
Also, let's position ourselves in the near feature, 5 years from now.
But how could such proposal be approved if no pr0n website has a
The problem with rejecting some measures because they're "not good enough" is stupidity. Not stepping forward is stepping backwards.
Why not do away with the .com / .net / .org / .mil / .edu and other like. Replace them with the pre-suffix .co. .ne. .or. .mi. .ed. ... and suffix them with the country where the *physical* server(s) is located.
This would make it a lot easier for the rest of us, not living in the States. This is like english/metric mesurements where one country simply will not adapt to a changing environment out of sheer obtuseness.
"The avalanche has already started. It's too late for the pebbles to vote." - Kosh
Even in the introductory paragraph, we can see that there is some confusion here.
And yet...
So, the US doesn't have much control over its operations, and yet it was the only country that was able to step in and strike down an ICANN resolution. Isn't this kind of like saying "1 + 1 = 2, but 1 + 1 = 3"?
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
Having .xxx.asia would certainly save searching time, and it also seems to be converging with Usenet naming conventions.
Why not move all US-based sites to the .www domain (Wild Wild West). It will make just as much sense as creating .asia for the "Asians". What about creating .east and .west domain and hand out every Web surfer a compass?
you don't have to. in the city I live, there's a heerestraat, a heereweg, a heereplein, a verlengde heereweg. (all street names, meaning approximately: lord's street, lord's road, lord's plaza, lengthened lord's road). no company I know of buy property on heerestraat 2, heereplein 2, etc.
the web is no different: you only need 1 adress, the rest is pure choice. your choice.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Probably more... normal companies only care about the bottom line from the balance sheets, not an employee's bottom line.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I think this would be a better article to read about US influence:s p
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1888417,00.a
ICANN is under the administration of the US Department of Commerce, so ultimately the US will control it. As to whether they are giving undue influence, that is to be debated. I would assume that many countries who are unhappy with the US influence are also unhappy with the current Bush administration. President Bush is currently unpopular in the US as well as the world, and this may be contributing to the sentiment.
But to be fair, we have to ask ourselves:
Who invented the internet? DARPA, US
Who invented the digital circuit? Claude Shannon, US
Who invented the silicon chip? Bell Labs, US
Who invented the bipolar transistor? Bell Labs, US
These examples are not a reason that the US should control it, just some things to think about. If you invented something as powerful as the internet, would you just want to give away control of it? It is a hard thing to take a stand on.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
ICANN needs a Theory. The original TLD's (com/org/net/gov/mil/edu/int) had a pretty good theory that met the needs of the net at that time. Today those distinctions are less useful since .gov/.mil are U.S.-centric, .com has become the defacto standard that people expect, and there are many organizations which don't seem to fit the classification at all (e.g., personal-use domains might be one example). The ccTLD's (us/uk/jp, etc.) let individual countries have more autonomy, but it also semantically diluted the namespace (especially with opportunist looking for TLD's like .tv/.to).
I can't say what a good theory would be. Maybe the original TLD's could be cleaned up and administered better. Maybe the ccTLD's could be integrated with trademark law so that, e.g., foobar.jp means that Japan recognizes the owner of foobar's trademark. At any rate, the theory should have a few characterstics: it should be complete [cover all reasonable use cases]; it should be predictable [if I know of an organization or entity with a website, I should be able to predict the exact 1 TLD they exist in]; and it shouldn't require that most organizations feel obligated purchase multiple names to protect their trademark.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Analagously, my unique domain name(s) are the neighborhood and after the fact (the proliferation of TLD's) is like having a choice between two bad options:
See how it feels a bit different?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
...or even about cultural diversity. Granted the british empire anglicized as much of the world as they could and it's been beneficial to their economy and the economy of their offshoot (america).
There are a whole lot of people who don't speak english in this world and as their economies grow and become technologically advanced they want to enjoy being able to do things in their own languages.
What is this if they don't do it in our language they are against us mentality?
Fine you guys came up with the internet the same way someone somewhere invented the wheel and so many other things that made it possible to get to where we as a human race are.
What is wrong with someone like me wanting to be able to compose an email in my native language, just because it's fun to use all those african proverbs or to even be able to advertise companies with native names (which include diacritical markings and so on) without having to code for each web browser.
I thought this whole internet thing was supposed to open our minds to what others have to offer.
And as per your implication that only anglophone countries can pay for goods, remember there was a world before britain or america, there'll still be one after they're long gone. The funny thing is that most people in the world don't hate america, in fact they love the success story that is america, but it's people like you that see a demon in every shadow that are turning more and more people toward the belief that americans are generally arrogant. And if you read or know anything about history you'll know that pride usually goes before a fall
Lose the attitude, boss, remember Rome, greece, egypt? they were great too....
All straight things must come to a bend
Not registering in all TLDs can sometimes be embarassing. My girlfriend couldn't remember what TLD I used (.org) and guessed .com. I then had to spend some time showing her the whois records (apparently someone registered .com exactly a year, to the day, after I got the .org) to prove I wasn't running a porn site...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
One other major development this week involves progress toward allowing the use of non-English language characters when steering a Web browser to a particular site. What's that supposed to mean? Non-english language characters. Yeah us English speakers made up those characters, and we just lend them to the Spaniards, the French, the Portugese, the Italians, etc. Seriously, to make a statement like that is basically saying that English speakers run the web and to use the web you need to know English. How arrogant of us English speakers. The characters aren't English characters ... they're Latin characters for crying out loud.
Creating .Asia without creating .Europe , .Africa , .NAmerica , .SAmerica , .Australia (and .Antarctica ) is insanity, and shows that ICANN is a gang of hacks. They can't even pull off geopolitical favoritism and apologies without underscoring their orientation along those lines. Preferential treatment of a subgroup is just as bigoted as opposition, just as "racism" means bias with respect to race, regardless of whether positive/negative. But then, what to expect from a gang which compensates for letting the US override consensus for .xxx by throwing a few parties?
I miss Jon Postel.
--
make install -not war
would not so much welcome our new hafta-use-charmap-to-enter-a-URL TLD overlords...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
could anybody explain more on "One other major development this week involves progress toward allowing the use of non-English language characters when steering a Web browser to a particular site." ?
i suppose idn is already working, opera, firefox support it, several countries already are registering these domain names - are they considering allowance of extended characters in top level domains ?
Rich
The use of unicode will be a major boon to phishers, and a security risk to the rest of us, because unicode contains many different characters that look alike. For example, I could get the domain name CNN.com, using the Cyrillic capital C and Greek capital Nu.
"ICANN is now exploring a proposal to open Web browsers up to dozens of the world's other alphabets. Actual tests of just such a system are now in the works, Twomey said. "
ICANN being the ones who blocked it in 1998.
Ok, I'm really missing this argument.
.xxx. (as well as have the .org's and .net's enforced)
.xxx domain, then make them move.
.xxx" in every host file I ever see ;)
I'm a Christian, very right wing. Also, as sysadmin. I know most righters are against this but I don't really see why.
I would love to have a single TLD to block. I would love to see the original domain rules enforced, and have the XXX sites forced on to
Someone tell me what the other righters argument is. This isn't going to create MORE xxx sites. I think all porn sites should be given first rights to their equivelent
Then I put "127.0.0.1
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
That can't be right .. my friends and I have broken into dozens of websites and made huge DoSing botnets, but we use the term "pornography".
...ICANN announced that they are planning also international TLDs ".allies", ".commies", ".socialist-europeans". ".donate-to-africa". ".hispanics", ".arabs", ".others" to show that they are no way biased towards any government and their world view isn't restricted to tv-news of any particular culture.
.commie nation to pursue its devil plans to destroy all the freedom and liberty in this particular country, ".kung-fu" was removed for unknown reasons.
When international TLDs ".christian", ".jewish" and ".mormons" were proposed, received feedback made ICANN to deploy also ".asian-religions", ".african-religions" ".native-indian-religions" to represent worldwide view. It was rumoured, that a call from Saudi Arabia's prince and trade officials of some government made ICANN to enforce additional sub-TLD ".islam.arabs". When international TLDS ".baseball", ".basketball", ".nascar" and ".ice-hockey" were released, ICANN officials were proud to tell about their strong global approach and instantly answered to the critic by showing proposals for ".sumo", ".kung-fu", ".soccer" and ".african-sports" to ensure international commitment.
It happened that later, after some 6000 military leaders in some particular country had expressed their concerns of reports that kung-fu was used at military training by some evil
You and the person who moderated the post you replied to have no sense of humor.
This is why "ad-hominem" arguments are so unfair. They're irrefutible by the target who is often dismissed as arguing from self-interest. The proper action is for others to speak up in defense.
Maybe we should abandon english as the lingua franka of aviation also.
While I sympatize to some extend with those whose language is not written in the roman alphabet, the control characters should be in a universally accepted and understood character form.
Everyone can take the characters of a URL and copy them into the correct browser field. The actual web page content is something else again.
Post of the day.
Who should control the domains and the naming rights? Why would anyone/country/business want to relinquish control of something they created/initiated/started just because it is something that everyone now uses? Is it illegal to retain control of something that you invented, that is now extremely popular? Would they do it for the good of the world? (not that I am against that, just trying to make a point)
For example, it could be argued that the Windows O/S must now be under international control since so many people are using it and it would be unfair for others not to have an input in how they use it. They have already profited from it enormously, so it is time to release it to the world to share, tweak, and restructure as they please. Microsoft has no right to have so much control over something that 85-90% of the world's computers now use on a daily basis. Do you think this a good analogy?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
At which point you show them your post on slashdot, discussing the subject in an adult manner.
Try talking to them instead of treating them like the enemy.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
All this will end up doing is forcing all companies and organisations to register another domain to stop squatters, microsoft.asia, intel.asia, redhat.asia or whatever. And most likely these will just point to their main page which will have a map on it in flash telling you to click your country. God I hate websites with flash interfaces...
Wouldn't it really be a lot easier to have less tlds rather than more? If you can have say, two different web based with the same name, one having comapnyx.com and another having companyx.asia, is this really making things easier to understand?
spin spin spin, media hype and all that. all these news stories about "US wants to take over the Internet" are silly at best, disingenuous at worst, and all around are stupid.
.name?). the fed' couldn't even make up their own TLD's without ICANN approval... it's just veto power over new ones. otherwise private firms take care of their infrastructure, the IEEE (a private nonprofit with international members) manages most of the protocols. W3C takes care of web standards and such, and of course private and public individuals and corporations oversee their own online content.
the only power the US government has over the internet (not the government as a whole either, but one branch, the Commerce Dept if i recall correctly) is veto power over top level domains. and this power has all but been neglected (do we really need a
so there you go, from the horses mouth. America isn't going to play "evil empire" all over the 'Net. relax, and wipe some of that foam away from your mouth.
The people who have been trying to get .xxx off the ground know what they're doing. I've met both of them, and they're comitted to making it work the way it should.
.xxx if they a) already have an adult entertainment business with the name of the domain they are trying to register, or b) are in the process of making such a business.
.xxx tld with their name will be protected (disney.xxx will never exist).
.org, there is a substantial process to prove who you are and what your business is.
Someone can only register a
These people will be audited regularly to make sure they are, in fact, a legitimate adult business, and are not hosting anything illegal like nude pictures of underage children.
Other businesses who have a vested interest in not having someone take the
This is why the cost for these domains is in the range of $70 and not $5.49 -- this is the cost of keeping up with all the registrees. It's not like going to godaddy and getting a
we don't even "control" ICANN. veto power is not control, at least in the common sense of the word. it's like saying the US Gov' is in control of the NFL, when the only intervention in that regard is enforcement of drug regulations and other laws. otherwise, the Federal government doesn't care if a touchback is 20 yards or a field goal is 3 points.
www.mîcrosoft.com/
www.gøogle.com/
Yes, international characters in URLs is a great idea.
So, when can I register microsoft.xxx, sony.xxx and nokia.xxx?
The truth or interpretation..
I am not sure whether you intended for your rant to be flamebait or not. And although you are not mentioning it, it seems you prefer the tenets (or rather lack thereof) of anarchy, since it is the only governmental form that has no direct limits on one's freedoms. Or at least, until someone with a larger club comes around and starts up a feudal system or some other form of government. Anarchist groups can, perhaps, exist for some time. Anarchy is unstable, however, and does not scale well.
Established government is necessary if freedoms are to be preserved. Not all governments types do so, and not all that do, do it well. Some freedoms do have to be monitored or limited in order to preserve others. Ideally, one person's freedom should stop where another's starts. Should I be allowed to walk on your lawn, or should you be allowed to kick me off it. Laws are made to help define the boundary of freedoms so that it is easier to determine if I can or cannot walk on your lawn.
The U.S. ideally had a constitutionally limited democratic republic. The Senate was republic half of L branch, and the house represented the democratic. Through the years the significance of congress has diminished as the population has grown but the congress has not, due to logistics. This diminishes the direct representation the house members are supposed to have for small groups of people. Also, since there is no direct representation, senators AND house members have little need to listen to the people they represent, since they are safe until the end of their term. It is much more to the advantage of politicians to take bribes from mega-corporates than to listen to the people they represent. This in my opinion is the main failing of the current system.
Talk of the NWO is not unfounded. I do agree with you that it is a real thing, and something that should not be allowed to come to pass. However, abolishment of all government in order to prevent it does not strike me as a very effective mechanism.
The entire point of a brand new TLD is to generate revenue for ICANN, the registry that holds that TLD, and the registrars. We still have all of the adams-names names that nobody wants, or uses; e.g. .ws has a 60% abandonment rate. As a result of Verisign's settlement with ICANN, we now have two giant evil corporations scratching each other's backs while the door is closed. ICANN wants more money. Verisign wants more money and power. Verisign is the registrar for .com until they get tired of playing .com registrar. Verisign can raise the rates 7% per year with a reason being "Just because I want to", where other registrars need to give a valid reason. This same proposal doubles the fees that registrar pays to ICANN.
How are we not to make the assumption that a new gTLD or a ccTLD given back to ICANN (e.g. .tv) has anything to do with expansion of the web or TLDs. it's all about the money
A. Must be nice to have computer literate parents, and
B. I gotta quit reading posts by 15 year olds.
Forget domains, they are practially meaningless anyway (Delic.io.us).
And this other language crup. I'm sorry, people want to learn English. Not becuase they don't like their one native language --far from it, no dount they love their own culture. But simply because people also want to participate in a global community --that requires a global lanaguage. By happen stance of history tht langauge has become English. If you start promoting dividing the web into smaller and smaller ethnic spheres you will hamper the greatest achivement of the Internet, connecting us to each other.
:T:R:A:N:S:
A legal definition of pornography where? As other people have pointed out, and I assume you just ignored, there are lots of definitions of what is pornographic. Every country has their own (or none).
Should we just use the strictest definition of 'pornographic' that's out there? Maybe Iran's?
You can't define pornography on a global level -- hell, we can barely define it on a national level.
There will NEVER be a global consensus on what is 'pornographic,' or even on what is appropriate for children to see. Look at the differences in movie ratings between European countries and the U.S., for instance. There are PG-13 movies in America that are 17+ in some European countries, and movies that would almost certainly get an R or NC-17 here which are 13+ there.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...otherwise your point won't be taken seriously.
.xxx for pr0n domains, instead of .com."
"The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations. For instance, the US was the only country able to stop ICANN from using
Shouldn't that be However...
It is the submitters editorial comment, not ICANN's.
It is also poor grammar.
Should be "However" instead of "For instance."
I simply don't think there is a point to be made.
Why does it matter? Those TLDs existed before the internet connected anything outside the US, so there was always an implicit ".us", if you will, following them. Yeah, it's sloppy now, but what do we do?
The people who are missing the point are the ones who blame ICANN for something that was decided twenty years before ICANN even existed.
IDN's (Internationalized Domain Names) have been in place for over a year and a half now. Whats this talk of "in the works"?
IDNA has been in use since 2003. The only people who would use .Asia are folks who speak English. Native character sets have been in use and are backwards compatible via punycode. Just point at the right DNS and use a compatible browser and you are off and running.
Google Search with China (native) as TLD
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=.%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B %BD&num=10&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq= &as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occ t=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=.%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD&as _rights=&safe=off
This explains it best:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDNA
Mulptiple languanges on the net, even as TLDs, do not "muddle" anything. TLDs only need be unique and be able to let other DNS servers know where they are. An RFC took care of that.