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U.S. Government Retains ICANN Oversight
narramissic writes "ITworld reports that the U.S. Commerce Department will retain ICANN oversight for three more years, although there will be a review in 18 months of ICANN's progress toward becoming a more stable, transparent and accountable organization. The decision comes despite international pressure advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity."
You've got to be kidding.
The only reason they haven't totally failed is they are a legal monopoly.
Their customer service and satisfaction is horrible. Many people can't even figure out how to file their own taxes.
They can't even effectively get the money they're owed, they are outsourcing that to private collection agents.
I believe accountability leads to transparency and vice-versa. The word transparency in this case doesn't mean invisible, it means the full, accurate, and timely disclosure of information. Which can be accomplished, although not always easily.
I realize I'm going against "common wisdom" here on Slashdot, but is it really so bad that the U.S. retains control of ICANN?
I mean, what's the alternative? Putting it under control of the UN, like WIPO?
Would that really be better or would it just give people warm, fuzzy feelings?
NIST, the Postal Service, etc, etc. There are many examples, but your irrational US hatred blinds you to this.
"The NY Times reports that John Derringer of 5th Ave. will retain his pocket change. The decision comes despite numerous homeless people asking him for money."
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
An autonomous ICANN is even more dangerous than what we have today. We can easily predict that the autonomous ICANN would basically do whatever the registies want: granting them perpetual, unregulated monopolies with the ability to raise prices and otherwise screw customers at will. Internet users would have no say at all.
I don't get how that's a good thing. How would eliminating oversight make ICANN into a more stable and accountable organization?
ICANN is a private entity that makes decisions that affect the Internet at large with almost no public oversight as it is. They are already proposing to add a bunch more ridiculous TLDs to fund their enormous proposed budget increases. It has become clear that new TLDs are not intended to improve the Internet, but are rather ICANN's license to print money. How would things be better if they no longer had anyone to answer to for that sort of garbage?
Sure, the US government is not great at oversight with regard to technical matters, but it's a lot better than no oversight at all. Given the hatred of the UN on this site, I'm sure no one would ever want ICANN to be brought under their influence, but some sort of international governing body would be a good thing. At this point, the UN is the closes thing we have to something like that.
Bringing ICANN under international control and creating more opportunity for the public at large to influence their decision making would be a step in the right direction. Ending what little oversight the organization currently has with nothing to replace it is a step in the wrong direction.
Actually they are retaining oversight while ICANN works to improve it's stability, transparency and accountability. It doesn't say the US government is trying to turn ICANN into that. Simply cutting it loose before it's ready will cause chaos. The US government has transitioned other entities to outside control. I'm the first one to say the US government is a screwed up mess but this is probably the responsible way of handling the transition. They aren't going back on the transition they are adjusting the timeline to give time to make sure that ICANN doesn't fall into chaos.
Replace "US Government" with "Any Government"
There is no way the US will EVER give up control .... especially in the present power crazed and fear driven attitude
For gods sake think of the children/terrorists/economic situation (delete as appropriate)we can't let an organisation comprised of non-americans have any power, they might do something we don't like
Post WW2 Germany
Post WW2 Japan
Need any more?
It's only a matter of time before ICANN is order to edit the root DNS servers to combat child porn, terrorism, rouge states and/or anti-american sentiment. People who deny this are fooling only themselves. ICANN will go the way of every other agency in contemporary America. To the right. The US is no longer fit to lead the free world in anything anymore. This is not a troll. It really isn't.
There isn't a substantial amount of difference between US theocrats running DNS and Chinese autocrats running DNS. I'd rather have the UN in charge because at least then I could rely on inefficient beaucracy and discord to leave the system we know and love well enough alone.
May the Maths Be with you!
I don't even care about who created the tubes... the UN is powerless to enforce it's own resolutions and is even more rife with corruption and lack of accountability than the US government. That alone disqualifies the UN.
I thought the argument was to place ICANN under the authority of the UN, which is a completely different idea then making "ICANN a totally autonomous entity".
This is the meat of the argument, right? Should ICANN be under US authority or should it be under UN authority?
And of course, at this point, the thread turns to UN bashing, without stopping to think that, hey, the UN actually already runs a global adressing system - or rather, the international telecommunications union does. And it plods along just fine, with all those different countries assigning their own numbers, and things just keeping on working..
What most people fail to realise is that what ICANN actually does (that is of any consequence) is very, very little. They don't run any nameservers, they just say "those ones are the ones we recommend you use" and tell the people running them "these are our policies". At any point in time people can say "you know what, fuck you ICANN", and NOTHING would change. ICANN is there because people feel a need for there to be an "authority". In reality the show is run by the (cc)TLD registries, verisign, ISC, RIPE, etc.
In fact, the EU has legislation that reserves the right to EU governments subvert ICANN; it would legally obligate ISPs to point to government-approved nameservers rather than ICANN's. (Of course you could still use your own). This is the same legal mechanism through which telephonenumber registries are appointed, actually. This is a recourse the US doesn't even impose on their citizens, even though they contract out to ICANN.
That hasn't happened because ICANN has failed to really fuck up that much.
The day ICANN is deposed will be much like a bloodless coup in Thailand. ICANN folks will show up at work some day to find everyone's just kind of ignoring them.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Then we'd veto. Besides, if fundamentalist christians in the US have been unable to censor the internet (despite having allies at the highest levels of the government) then I don't think it's going to happen in the UN.