United States Cedes Control of the Internet

greenechidna writes "The Register is reporting that the U.S. is relinquishing control of ICANN. The story states: 'In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet. Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organization ICANN, making the organization a more international body.'"

Comments

Re:Thank heavens

[LKM]

Oh thank goodness, now more sensible countries like China and India will have a say about internet policies.

Uhm... India is a democracy. Unlike the US.

Maybe you were thinking of Iran?

I know, it's hard. All those foreigh countries...

Re:Prioritized Citizenship?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh huh. How about the people of Lebanon? You don't seem too interested in their rights, otherwise you might consider stopping the flow of weapons and training to the Israeli's. And who did the U.S. point the finger at immediately after Israel started slaughtering civilians and U.N. personnel? Why, Syria and Iran, of course! Never mind the fact that the U.S. armed a lot of the terrorists that they've later learned to regret...

It's pretty clear to me from the results of the last election in the U.S. that American's aren't even conscious of their _own_ rights, and are only too happy to let them be taken away for the interest of some vague notion of security -- I don't see how they could possibly be concerned with anyone else's on any more than a superficial, bible-thumping level.

It'll go down in history, allright...

[TrebleJunkie]

...as the biggest mistake the US has made since not nuking Iraq back into the stone age, twice.

I swear, every day, we're a little bit closer to the future depicted in Atlas Shrugged, if we're not living it already.

Welcome censorship, Russia,China vetoes and bans,

[unity100]

, inter-arab quarrels, radicals self-righteous semi-gay, imposing bureucrats.

Goodbye internet.

Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer?

[elrous0]

or more realistically, a facade

It's the same facade the U.S. uses when pretending that the Iraqi government is actually in charge of Iraq.

-Eric

Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer?

[ConceptJunkie]

In other news, GP is in the running for most modded post ever. From 1 to -1 all the way up to +3.

Why? Did it get modded so far down the integer wrapped?

I wouldn't trust ICANN to run a fever better than the U.S. government, leave alone the Internet, Net Neutrality or no. For all the real problems, utter stupidity, corruption and complete insanities in the U.S., the rest of world is generally worse.

Re:Holy Shit

[Tony Hoyle]

Instead they banned all religion - talk about even handed!

It's apparently illegal even to be seen carrying a bible in school.

This is meaningless.

[Fantastic Lad]

So a U.S. Government body gave control of a portion of the internet to a U.S. Corporation. Gee whiz.

All that need happen is the U.S. to generate some excuse to clamp down with martial law and have all those executive orders passed into law by a compliant congress, the U.S. corporations become arms of the U.S. government and all the ambassadors and foreign representatives will cower in their hotel rooms.

This move to give power to the ICANN is nothing but superficial public perception sculpting.

-FL