ICANN Writes US Government Requesting Independence

Combat Wombat writes with word that IP address and domain name overseer ICANN has put in a request to the US government, asking to be freed from ties to the United States. A 'lengthy' report was sent to the US Dept. of Commerce, and covers the numerous steps the organization has already completed along the road to independence. The BBC reports that a meeting will be held soon in response to the report, a reaction to the expected end of US control. "The meeting marks the half-way point for the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) under which ICANN was tasked to comply with a series of 'responsibilities' deemed necessary for its release from official oversight. The JPA grew out of the original Memorandum of Understanding that established Icann and signalled the beginning of the end for US control."

Comments

From the Office of His Imperial Majesty

[elrous0]

Dear ICANNN,

No.

Sincerely,
George W. Bush

Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty

[Shakrai]

Ya know, as easy as it is to take potshots at Dubya, I think you've largely missed a legitimate concern.

So ICANN wants to be released from oversight by the United States. Great. I bet that makes a lot of people around here happy. What's it going to be replaced with exactly? Do you really want an ICANN without any oversight?

Say what you will about the United States and the current arrangement, but at least at the end of the day ICANN is responsible to SOMEONE. That 'someone' is in turn responsible to 300,000,000 Americans. While 300,000,000 != the whole population of Earth, it's a hellva lot better then ICANN being responsible to no one in my book.

Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty

[HangingChad]

Ya know, as easy as it is to take potshots at Dubya...

I don't think this is limited to him and I don't think it means the rest of the world hates the US. I do think it says the rest of the world no longer trusts the US. And in some ways that's worse than hatred. It's definitely sad testimony to what we've become in the eyes of the rest of the world. Instead of being trusted to work cooperatively with other sovereign nations we've pretty much declared, by our actions if not by words, that our pursuit of terrorism trumps every other concern, legitimate or not.

And it's not just government actions. AT&T threatening to charge at both ends of the pipe and cooperating in warrant-less monitoring of internet and phone traffic on a massive scale. Several of the core ISP's threatening to block certain kinds of traffic. It could easily be a combination of corporate dickishness and the privacy insults we've foisted on the rest of the world and they're just tired of it.

Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty

[Captain Splendid]

it's not a good idea to arbitrarily remove the oversight that it currently has.

Okay, I'll bite. I've been hearing this argument for a while, but nobody mentions what form this oversight really takes. It also begs another question: How useful is this oversight? Can it do anything about the US government and the telcos working hand in hand to wiretap the shit out of the internet? Can it do anything about the telco lobbies who want to bend network neutrality to their own profitable ends?

If losing ICANN oversight is such a big deal, make your case. It seems like the internet's pretty much fucked either way, so how useful are they anyway?

Re:From the Office of His Imperial Majesty

[Shakrai]

Can it do anything about the US government and the telcos working hand in hand to wiretap the shit out of the internet

Exactly what would you have ICANN do about this? It's the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It's most important role is to manage the dns root and address allocations in such a way that the end users don't conflict with each other.

What exactly is ICANN to do if AT&T decides to let the NSA splice into some fiber? Are you going to blame the ITU for wiretapping of the POTS network? Do you really think the United States is the only country that wiretaps on the internet?

I'm probably making your point here, but the counter-argument is that if ICANN is so useless why are people in such an uproar about it? Somebody has to manage the dns root and ip address allocations. Beyond those two functions, pretty much any country that's connected to the internet can do whatever they want with the portions of it inside of their own borders.

Let's assume the US did try and assert authority over the internet. How would it do that exactly?

Won't happen.

[morgan_greywolf]

As much as it might be good for the Internet, it will never happen. ICANN is considered a strategic U.S. asset. Everyone seems to be forgetting that the Internet started out as a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The government is not going to give up control that easily.

Re:And it's time to CANN .mil and .gov

[Shakrai]

Unless the United States is trying to be the Ruler of the World it's time to move to .mil.us and .gov.us like everyone else.

Yes, because in the grand scheme of things with everything that's going on in the World, ranging from the War in Iraq to the Genocide in Darfur, the fact that the United States has global TLDs not ending in .us is really a priority that the World community needs to address.

To what end?

[Joseph Vigneau]

If ICANN succeeds and gains "independence" from the US Dept. of Commerce, what would change? Has the US government imposed any restrictions on the activities of ICANN while under its wings? Most of the issues dealt with by the government involving the Internet are independent of ICANN's charter. Net neutrality and "protecting the children"/censorship, two of the hot Internet issues in Congress, don't really have much to do with ICANN's workings. Indeed, each nation sets their own policies right now about how their populace uses the global Internet (see: Great Firewall of China).

The UN probably isn't the best shepherd for ICANN. The ISO seems to be a decent possibility.

I hope you're all happy

[PinkyDead]

With all this time spent arguing about who should control the Internet and how everybody hates the US and how everybody loves the US and how the UN is corrupt and how the UN is not corrupt and how everyone except you is a communist and nobody's a communist and China is a big country and Europeans eat French food and Kim Jong Il wants to use the Internet to enslave all of mankind with sharks and laser beams; not once, not even one single time did anyone stop and ask ICANN what they wanted.

Shame on you all!

Re:They only have control

[Smidge204]

I don't suppose you can elaborate on exactly WHY and HOW a multinational organization would be an improvement? ICANN is already run by a board of directors composed of people from all over the globe who represent their own international interests. It also takes advice both from a committee which represents even more governments from around the world and another committee that represents organizations and industries across the globe.

On top of that, the US government has little or not actual control over ICANN's daily oerations. The cat is out of the bag, sort of speak, and there is no way the US government can effectively control the internet as a whole even if it wanted to, since the rest of the world is sufficiently set up to operate without it - with the exception of content services based in the US, which are privately controlled anyway.

So other than the generic "USA sux" metality, what's the motivation for total globalization of ICANN's functions? What will this accomplish other than create another incompetent, ineffectual and political circle-jerk like the United Nations?
=Smidge=

Re:You mean.. like the United Nations?

[KutuluWare]

Nobody put a gun to the head of the teenagers of the World and made them listen to Britney Spears, wear blue jeans and drink Starbucks coffee. For whatever reason American culture seems to be popular in parts of the World. I fail to see why we should apologize for that.

Well, if you won't, then please allow ME to personally apologize to the world for Britney Spears.

--K

Re:Lol : "some international" or "country neutral"

[readin]

U. N. is "international" but it is hardly "country neutral". Just ask anybody from Taiwan.