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ICANN Wants To End Commerce Dept. Oversight In 2009
Ian Lamont writes "ICANN's current Joint Project Agreement with the US Commerce Department is set to expire in September of 2009, and ICANN wants to become more autonomous and switch to a global governance model, says ICANN's executive officer. The agreement between the nonprofit ICANN and the Commerce Department has been in place since 1998, and was renewed in 2006 despite international protests.
A few US-based groups named in the article — including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the trade group TechNet and a conservative think tank iGrowthGlobal — would like the agreement with the Commerce Department to continue, in part to provide 'accountability.' The ICANN officer quoted in the article says expiration of the Commerce Department agreement would not remove accountability, as ICANN still has a contract with the US to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and must follow California law governing nonprofits. The Register is running a related story about why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN. We discussed ICANN's request for independence a few months ago."
The Register is running a related story about why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN.
Thanks to the US and the DoD we HAVE an internet. As long as the ICANN is located in America they will have to run as a non-profit. Simply put, they're not going to get an exemption just because they think they're some international entity which they really aren't. Come on, get real.
They want to get out from under the frightfully little real oversight they have now (with a regulating body that at least has a lot of experience in dealing with them) and they want to exert significant influence over the decision process of what body gets to "regulate" them next? That sure sounds like a great idea... for them.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
In capitalist America the Commerce controls the Internet.
-1 not first post
The trouble is that there is no way for ICANN to avoid the oversight of some nation... or nations, in the case of the UN. There will always be some sort of accountability to some governing body. Although the United States may be known to screw up from time-to-time (no, really, sometimes they do), I think the free speech laws in the US are as strong as anywhere in the world, and I have far more confidence that right will continue under the US than that it will under the UN.
Maybe without the US oversight, we'll get that new ".XXX" TLD.
Yeah, because everyone knows international bodies are very efficient at doing their work.
I understand efficiency may not be the motivation here, but it should be. How are you going to get anything done with bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy? Just ask the UN.
Fact is that though we certainly have our faults, the US as a nation stands for openness and liberty. We certainly aren't the only ones but we're probably the largest. If we make this international, this will be subject to the same squabbles, power plays and large scale oppression associated with other nations less inclined to openness.
Maybe some people would call this being an overly arrogant American, but I disagree. Truthfully, though we're far from perfect, we have generally stuck up for people and their human rights. Do you honestly think the Internet would look the same as it does today if it originated in China? Unfortunately, our crappy, shameful, terrible current administration has made everyone forget that fact.
Maybe put this in the hands of something like the G7 (not G8), but don't allow the most oppressive regimes on the planet have a say on the very core of Internet connectivity.
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ICANN is already costing you and me - the people who buy domain names - something on the order of $500,000,000 every year in hyper-inflated fees that go directly into the bank account Verisign and the lesser registries. ICANN also requires you and me to path a tithe of about $0.20 to ICANN every time we register a domain name.
And ICANN has created a regime that restricts DNS on behalf of the trademark industry in ways that RIAA can only envy and wish they had such restrictions over music distribution on the net.
And despite that, ICANN has no means for the public to engage in its decision processes beyond remotely observing and trying joining an ICANN approved committee that, in turn joins another ICANN approved committee, that, in turn gets a seat on another ICANN committee, that gets to nominate members of the board of directors. Even citizens of the old USSR had a more representative system.
Once upon a time ICANN did have directors elected by the public - I was the one for North America - but when I wanted to look at ICANN's financial records, a thing quite proper for a director to do, ICANN reacted by erasing all elected seats.
So, if the US government drops its oversight, limited and self-interested as it might be, where will oversight come from?
Do we really trust that ICANN will be any more self-responsive to the community of internet users than was Enron or MCI/Worldcom to their shareholders?
It does seem that the quid pro quo that the US ought to require as the price of freedom is that ICANN adopt mechanisms that really and truly make it responsible to the public.
There is, of course, the further question of where ICANN might obtain immunity against anti-trust laws should the US gov't drop its protective cloak - ICANN does shape the domain name marketplace, set prices and product terms, determine who may and who may not be vendors in that marketplace, and in other ways restrains trade in the world's only viable marketplace of domain names. Several experts in the field feel that ICANN may be vulnerable as a combination that acts in restraint of trade.
I think that generally the US finding a way to let ICANN move to an international governance model while continuing to be based in the US is a good thing.
That said I read the Register article, and maybe I am missing something, but it didn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me. The US government added him to their "bad guy" list. I might disagree with this, and the embargo in general, but that is governmental policy at the moment. His web host took him down, but it was a host outside the US. All the US government could do was send them a polite note; they had no power of enforcement. It didn't read to me as if they took the actual registration away from him. So how does ICANN fit into this?
I would think that Russia, China, Pakistan, and wow, just pick a country- overseeing ICANN would be pretty much insane. Even the UN in their current configuration would be prone to make entire countries disappear without much thought. While the US has made mistakes I'm sure, it's better that than an Isamic(Kill all Jews) republic or a Communist(Oh, was that called Tibet?) nation. In an insane world, the USA is the most sane option. And don't get started on how Finland, Sweden, or some other cute Eurospherian nation could do it. They have to back it with a military that can match those other countries stated above.
I wish there was a better way at this point, just to be distribute the load. But I'm not seeing it. No, I'd rather the US protect my domain names than some great firewall of China derivative.
It's strange to see a post starting with concerns of efficiency and ending by saying an oppressive regime shouldn't have a say in ICANN.
I agree that one can not enjoy the benefits of the US influence on the world without recognising them (as opposed to China's influence; I'm NOT saying there are only benefits to US actions).
BUT, checks and balances between countries could probably lead to a more neutral governance; especially, no single country would have the power to shut off an entire countries worth of domain names (like all *.fr, or all *.cx ^^). Something like a veto system sounds pretty good (the UN was TOO neutral!)
And the loss of efficiency? That's what a controlled decision system costs. Sure, a dictatorship will always be more "efficient" than a democracy, but that's not really a good point, is it?
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
Yeah, I admit my post is a bit rambling. My two points were the loss of efficiency and the potential for oppression. I probably could've expressed it better... but ya know this is /.
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Just so you know, government agencies in the US are often more efficient then corporations.
Look at the financial reports from varies projects.
And have many countries involved lowers the chance of any potential oppression.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There. Fixed.
Dog is my co-pilot.
From my vantage point, I'd say that ICANN is failing miserably at its main purpose - regulation of domain name registration. Can anyone think of anything else that ICANN (allegedly) has even the slightest influence on?
I say they are failing miserably at this because they aren't actually demonstrating any meaningful control. If you look at the list of accredited registrars, you'll find it is many pages long. And how many of those are active registrars? Not many.
And even worse, the number of active registrars on that list that actively aid in spamming operations grows every year, and ICANN doesn't seem to care in the least. If ICANN is supposed to be in control of registration, why are they letting criminal co-conspirators do registration?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Decentralise or we will see internet die. As I see it there is no other option...!
Jesus H Christ, shut up with the "BUT AMERICA INVENTED THE INTERNET LOL" bullshit. Yeah, TCP/IP was developed in America. We all know that. Thanks to the DOD's investment, progress was brought ahead a few years.
So, DNS? Well, America formerly, not any more, had an unimpeachable reputation as a free, reasonable country. I guess the rest of the world trusted the USA to responsibly steward such an important system, so everyone used that. Again, not any more.
For many reasons, including but not limited to size, wealth and attractiveness to smart people the world over as a place to work, America was and to some extent still is the centre of the world in computing technology. But an awful lot of that comes from the rest of the world's trust in America - not just as a reliable manager of the infrastructure we all rely on, but also as a great place to live and work. How much longer will this be the case? In the latter case, it's debatable it's true any more even today. 10 years ago I knew a lot of people who wanted to move to the US. Today, I don't know anyone who wants to.
We are all grateful to the US for its early work and continuing effort to develop technology. But these increasingly surly attempts to hold onto what should be internationally controlled systems do the US no favours. Remember, despite its size, America is less than 5% of the world's population. It wouldn't be all that hard for other governments to mandate their ISPs to start serving DNS from somewhere else - I'd wager 99% of DNS requests are made through ISPs. If abuses of their power like the cuba website case continue, I am sure other governments will start to feel a little anxious about critical infrastructure they rely upon being in the hands of unreliable people.
Just please stop with the boosterism and "us vs. them" attitude. The world will be a better place if we all cooperate. And if America continues to hoard - and abuse - its 40-year-old "steward of DNS" privileges, the other 95% of the world might be provoked into action, to the detriment of all - including the US.
I have seen what some countries consider to be fair use of the internet and their policies of limitations on free speech are disturbing. The only protection the internet will have from such forces of evil is to remain under the thumb of the USA.
Bearded Dragon
Oh in that case, you better hand the control of your electricity grid to the Italians, Germans or French then ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_electricity#Modern_history ). On a more topical note hand over complete control of HTTP & HTML to original CERN signatories ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Member_States ) and no I don't mean CERN observers.
-AC
At first it will be great...global, open, international. Then, just like most of the UN, like the "human rights commission," third world countries with their own, narrow, hidden, religious or political agenda will take over the Internet. You think its bad now...imagine having your domain pulled and Iran or Syria heading up the rotating position as head of your "review" committee. Nobody in a Western culture really wants the world to be democracy. One tenth the population, one half the wealth. Lets vote on that, shall we?
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Sigh. It's sad really.
I used to be very much in favour of the USA holding the DNS system's leash. My reasoning was that I'd rather have control of the DNS in the hands of the freest, fairest and most open country on earth than some faceless jobsworths at the UN.
Now, that position is totally reversed and I would rather have the eurocrats holding the strings. The fact that nothing would ever get done has gone from being a minus to a plus. What kind of state of affairs is that?
That thing with the cuba website has woken a *lot* of people up. Let's see if it's reversed - I certainly hope it will be. But if it's not, expect a migration away from US-owned registrars the likes of which has never been seen, including me. But what if they go beyond the registrar level and start deleting domains at the root level?
Today websites relating to cuba, tomorrow internet gambling? Internet pharmacies? Any domain owned by a business whom a US entity has sued in absentia? God I hope not, but the first step has been taken, and if it continues, all bets are off.
The UN will be no different than the US in terms of monopolizing for the self interests of the few, the difference is other countries can place direct economic pressure on the US to keep it in line... the UN is not really affected in that way, which is why so often we see UN programs rife with corruption
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