European Union Asks US To Free ICANN

An anonymous reader writes "Viviane Reding, Information Society Commissioner of the European Union, is calling for the United States to hand over control of ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers). She said that the organization running ICANN needs be free of control by a single nation, and rather controlled by a private entity and governed by multiple nations. ICANN, headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, was created in 1998 to oversee a number of Internet related tasks. Reding said, 'In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world.'"

Comments

Uh, no

[Jaysyn]

We can see how well the UN has worked out, so no thanks.

Re:Uh, no

[MightyYar]

That's not a troll, guys.

The head of the UN "human rights commission" has been Colonel Gadaffi, for the love of Jebus. The UN does a decent job of preventing major armed conflicts between major world powers, and the food relief missions seem pretty successful - but it is not the forum for all things international in scope.

Even the EU has more limits on speech than the US, and I fear that giving them more control over the internet will result in censorship. I agree that having the US in charge is not ideal, but I'm also having trouble thinking of a way to improve on this, since it's hard to find a country with less restrictive speech.

Re:Uh, no

[metamatic]

The head of the UN "human rights commission" has been Colonel Gadaffi, for the love of Jebus.

That's nothing, the head of the Department of Justice in the USA approved of illegal wiretaps, and the President of the country personally approved of torture, for the love of Jebus.

Re:Uh, no

[Shakrai]

Why don't you take your snide 'try reading a history book or two' remark and shove it up your ass? The Soviets and Chinese accounted for 88% (yes, eight-eight percent) of all Allied military casualties. It doesn't matter how important you think the US intervention was. The fact remains that many more Americans and Britons would have died fighting that war if it wasn't for the Soviets and Chinese bleeding the Axis powers.

To discount the importance of the Soviet and Chinese contribution to the war is to suggest to me that you are the idiot who needs to 'try reading a history book or two'

Re:Uh, no

[russotto]

Why don't you take your snide 'try reading a history book or two' remark and shove it up your ass? The Soviets and Chinese accounted for 88% (yes, eight-eight percent) of all Allied military casualties. It doesn't matter how important you think the US intervention was. The fact remains that many more Americans and Britons would have died fighting that war if it wasn't for the Soviets and Chinese bleeding the Axis powers.

If I may dare to quote an American (Patton) on this subject: "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his."

The fact that the Soviets and Chinese died in far greater numbers doesn't mean their contribution was greater.

Re:Uh, no

[Shakrai]

Germany suffered around 3.6 million KIAs on the Eastern Front. She suffered around 5.5 million KIAs in the entire war. The Eastern Front contributed to well over half of Germany's military losses.

The fact that the Soviets and Chinese died in far greater numbers doesn't mean their contribution was greater.

You wouldn't see it that way if you were a Russian ;) There are a number of different battles (Stalingrad) and sieges (Leningrad) where the Russians absorbed more deaths than the British and Americans did during the entire war. I really don't think you can make the claim that their contribution wasn't important and I find it questionable that the Allies could have won without them. The US might have been able to defeat Germany but do you really think we would have walked away with a "mere" 418,000 KIAs if we had faced them alone?

Re:Uh, no

[Shakrai]

What should they have done differently? Given up because they lacked the resources and training to effectively fight their opponents when the war started? We had the luxury of two oceans between us and time to build up and train our forces. We had the luxury of choosing when we would fight.

You don't have those luxuries when your country is invaded. You fight back as effectively as possible and do what needs to be done to drive the invaders from your homeland. Do you really think we would have done it any differently if someone was invading our soil?

Re:Uh, no

[swillden]

The Japanese version of waterboarding killed people, or injured them for life. Ours does neither.

How about we strap you to a board and try it for 10-20 minutes and see if you still don't consider it torture?

Victims of waterboarding may not normally be physically damaged (though lung damage can occur and if done wrong the subject may actually drown) but the psychological damage is often severe and long-lasting.

I'm not inclined to feel a lot of pity for terrorists, but I do feel very strongly that MY nation should not lower itself to that level. We're better than that. I would much rather have another 9/11 every year than to abandon our principles and the pre-eminence of the Rule of Law -- after all, it would still only account for as many lives as about 3 weeks of traffic accidents, and as much property damage as one fair-sized hurricane. We can sustain that, easily. In fact, though, it wouldn't come to that even without "enhanced interrogation", warrantless wiretaps and the rest of the shameful practices justified as part of the "war on terror".

It's comforting to believe that Jefferson's declaration that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots" refers only to the blood of soldiers who volunteer to die overseas, but in fact maintaining liberty and the high ideals upon which this nation was founded also exposes those of us at home to risk. The use of torture is just another example of us trading our ideals for "a little temporary safety" and, as Franklin put it, when we do that we "deserve neither liberty nor safety". To maintain the rule of law, to maintain our liberty and our national conscience requires us to accept some risk. There was a time when we were up to it. I hope we still are, though I often wonder.

Re:Uh, no

[argStyopa]

"You mean like the time when they kicked North Korea's ass out of South Korea? Yeah that was an UN action (Resolution 84)."
That's that war that's STILL GOING ON, right....50 years later?
The one where total US forces were about 480,000, and the total of all the "allied forces of the mighty UN in action" equaled about 135,000?
The one where the ONLY reason that "NK's ass was kicked" was the landing by MacArthur (American general) at Inchon with American forces?
And perhaps we should be candid: it was the only significant action of the UN *only* because the Soviet Security Council Ambassador had left the council in a fit of pique?

"Or how it served as a forum for the US and USSR to work out the Cuban Missile Crisis instead of fighting it out?"
Load of crap; the resolution to the CMC was the result of classic direct diplomacy. What did the UN have to do with ANYTHING aside from a forum for (non-constructive, and in fact inflammatory) public posturing?

"How about the first Persian Gulf war, the one that's approved by the UN and not based on bullshit? Don't we wish we listened to the UN instead of Bush and Fox News the second time around?"
Not going there because I'm pretty certain that no matter what I say it's not changing your mind anyway, so why bother?

"The UN is huge and has many organs. Most of them are successful enough that you never hear about them and the work that they do. Of course there are failures but a world without the UN would be a far worse place."
The list of crises where the UN failed to do anything constructive? Probably a list too big for the whole of the internets to handle. How about last week where UN "peacekeepers" let Palestinians launch rockets from adjacent positions, and then complained angrily about Israeli return fire? Or the UN-soldier juvenile prostitute rings in West Africa? Or the stunning and decisive UN response to Darfur...the Balkans....Rwanda....?
You're right that SOME of the bureaucracies of the UN are effective and useful. The general council? Pretty much a whinging forum for countries that aren't worth listening to.

"Stop sucking on Fox News' teats"
You need help, with this weird Freudian idee fixe about Fox News and breasts. It *could* be that someone merely disagrees with you, or in your worldview does that make them automatically an idiot?

The best defense is a good offense

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Reding claims that it is indefensible that one country control the internet as if it were prima facie true that this were the case.

However she prefaced that statement with the best defense:
"Reding believes "The US, so far, has done this in a reasonable manner", referring to the oversight that the US government has given ICANN."

So the US is providing oversight in a reasonable manner according to the people who wish to strip that oversight from the US. Then they claim that such "reasonable oversight" is indefensible.

I think Ms. Reding would be surprised how a great many things she doesn't believe in have reasonable and sometimes convincing defenses. I also think she'd be surprised to see how many of the things she holds so dear are actually undefended biases.

Re:The best defense is a good offense

[Sockatume]

The "reasonable oversight" isn't what's considered indefensible. The tacit permission for the US to control most of the world's data infrastructure is the problem. Even though the US hasn't done anything bad with its power over the infrastructure, it could, and that potential makes some people nervous. It's entirely possible for a happy status quo to rest upon dangerous possibilities.

As an analogy, consider the Anti-Social Behavior Order. It's a kind of order that a judge can issue to a UK that bans you from doing something. Anything. Right now it's generally used to stop people being douchebags to each other, but there's nothing to stop a judge issuing one banning you from writing anti-authority newsletters, or protesting somewhere, if those are considered "anti-social". That makes people nervous.

Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

"ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internetâ(TM)s unique identifiers."

So it's already private and even countries that US companies cannot legally trade with still manage to get Internet access (North Korea). So there seems to be a solution without a problem.

Complaints?

[Bob9113]

I understand the unease that the rest of the world has with a single nation controlling ICANN. However, much as I often ask with engineering requests that seem spurious; what is the ROI to justify the change?

What is going wrong, which could reasonably be expected to go better, if we make the change? I'm not saying our stewardship of ICANN has necessarily been perfect, nor that we have a divine right just because we built the Internet. I do believe that the Internet is now a global resource, and that everyone has a very strong vested interest in it. And I am, generally speaking, a globalist -- I'd like to see us all spending more time on bettering all of us.

However, if there are not specific complaints, with a clear and significant path to improvement, it seems difficult to justify transferring control. Making the rest of the world feel good about Internet stewardship is not a good enough reason to risk the gridlock, posturing, saber rattling, and horse trading that could result from U.N. control.

Multinational control

[rlp]

I have no problem with allowing ICANN to be controlled by a group of nations which all have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.

Strong free speech rights in the US

[Glass Goldfish]

I'm not an American, but I'm glad that ICANN is run by Americans. For the most part, the United States has a great deal of respect for different view points and allows for free thought. I can certainly imagine Europeans banning Internet websites for fear that they will anger Muslims, gays, atheists, Christians, animal rights activists, etc.. You can imagine European bureaucrats coming up with a handbook of acceptable thought and using that as a guide for website banning.

Re:Strong free speech rights in the US

[TheRaven64]

The problem with having ICANN controlled by a US corporation is that it is subject to US laws and, more importantly, US court rulings. This has caused some problems in the recent past, because even state courts can issue judgements which affect ICANN. It's not just US law, for example, it's California law which governs ICANN.

Re:NO.

[TheRaven64]

We made it, it's our toy, and we'll do with it what we please.

Not really. ARPANet was your toy. The original core protocols were developed with ARPA funding, but the current generation of the Internet Protocol (version 4, with version 6 being slowly deployed) was created as an international effort. The physical bits of the Internet in the US and some outside were created by US corporations, some with funding from the US government, but most of the current infrastructure is not US-owned.

In reality, ICANN does not control very much. They control the root DNS servers (most of which are outside the USA, by the way). If the UN set up a competing ICANN and mandated that ISPs in their member regions use the new DNS root servers - which could potentially include all of the existing ones outside the USA, since they are not actually run by ICANN, they just carry ICANN's configuration) then there isn't much ICANN could do. US ISPs would have the choice of either switching to the new roots or having their customers potentially have links incorrectly handled in the future, if the two organisations didn't keep their configurations in sync.

Seriously, multi-nation governance over the Internet is a terrible idea. Excellent decisions are never made by committee (let alone one with multi-national components), and when you cloud the waters even further with political motivation it makes for an excellent tasting recipe for disaster.

I can make a telephone call to almost any country in the world from here. The UN doesn't seem to have done a bad job ensuring that this works correctly, in spite of the committee that controls the international telephone system having multi-national components.

Unless you can make a better argument than "we use it too so we get some say as well", I see no reason for this to happen.

I seem to recall reading that a variant of this phrase was the rallying call for the American Revolution.

Don't like it? Invent your own interweb.

I assume you know that the web was invented by an Englishman in Switzerland.

So if the internet was a road system....

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Let's consider an analogy. I come into your country, build an entire series of roads at my own expense with technology and equipment I developed and let you drive on these roads for free - as a gift. The only catch is that I control the traffic laws, parking and traffic lights and road signs. Because the road signs in your free system, gifted to you by others, are in English, you ask for control of the systems traffic, construction, signs and laws. I think we've just redefined "Chutzpah."

Re:"hand over control" - yum, troll link text!

[IndustrialComplex]

Here is the cool part.

The US can't abuse ICANN. Well, it CAN, but when it does, it will lose all control over it as the EU/China/Russia/Australia... every other nation works to set up it's own segregated service. The other nations could force the US to release control if the US gave them a reason to. So as long as the US remains a relatively benign aspect of ICANN, it can remain in control.

And that's a good thing, it means that through the Mutually Assured Destruction that would occur in the event of an abuse of ICANN, it generally remains true to what it is supposed to do without becoming more than what it was intended to do.

I kind of view the US' control over ICANN as the Royalty in the UK. Sure, they technically have a lot of power, but the instant they tried to use that power it would evaporate away in an instant.

Or better yet why?

[LWATCDR]

No it isn't divine right but the right of doing it first. The US did build the Internet and most of the tech that it runs on. "Thanks CERN for that http thing BTW".

So now the EU wants the US give up control. Okay what are you going to give us in return? Respect? I doubt that. Less scorn? Sure....
I have to say that I see no good reason for the US to give up control of ICANN any more than I see a good reason for France to give up control of the FAI.
I doubt that it will improve any service on the internet, increase cost, and potently aid censor ship. There are a lot of countries in the UN that do not value free speech at all.

French died fighting while the Yanks made excuses

[fantomas]

A lot of brave French men and women died fighting for their homelands while the Yanks made excuses and sat around eating ice cream in Times Square or whatever they were up to and didn't get involved til 1941. Show a bit of respect.

Ok jokes aside and in Europe we're truly grateful for the Americans finally getting involved in 1941 and for less open but valuable support beforehand, but I think you do the French a disservice, take a look at how many were fighting in different theatres of war and in home resistance. I think over here in Europe we're much more aware about how many nations fought together and suffered terribly. Check how many nationalities fought on the Allies side in the Battle of Britain, something like a sixth of the RAF pilots were from countries other than Britain.

I am not sure where American naivety comes from regarding WW2 (though for sure it's not limited to your country)- perhaps because the war was mostly something that happened far away and didn't happen on your home soil except with rare exceptions? I guess the folk-memory of the war is life going on as normal and waving off the brave boys to distant lands. Maybe this is something to do with how that war is perceived differently in the USA from Europe?

Re:French died fighting while the Yanks made excus

[TheRaven64]

I am not sure where American naivety comes from regarding WW2

Hollywood. Take a look at any US-made WWII film, and you see the French being rescued, the British being helpful to the main American force, and the Russians conspicuously absent (especially on anything made during the cold war).

Then take a look at what history is taught in school in the USA. All (most?) nations are guilty of focussing too heavily on their own history when it comes to education, and for the USA the two world wars were not nearly as major events as they were for most of Europe, and in WWII a lot more focus is given to the Pacific theatre. I'm guessing you have an interest in history, and so have read quite widely on the subject, but try to think back and see if you can remember how much you were taught in school about the Pacific theatre in WWII. Here (in the UK) I don't remember being taught much more than 'oh, and the Japanese, Chinese and Americans were having a bit of a fight over there too'.

Some of the early war films and books in the USA were written based on accounts of US servicemen, but these had a very skewed view of the war; they missed out on all of the early actions in Europe, weren't aware of how much intelligence for the invasion came from various resistance groups, and very few of them came into contact with the Russian war machine that trampled over the Eastern Front. From their perspective, the Americans arrived, landed in Britain, dropped in to France, marked to Berlin, and then went home.

Re:I've always wondered...

[Nutria]

That was way back in 1958

Ummm, no. The first two computers in the nascent Internet were linked in 1969, and Cerf and Kahn didn't start designing TCP until 1973.

things could have moved on by now considering North America only contains 5% of the World's population.

So... majority rule? Give the most control to India (with more religious factionalism and caste poverty than you can shake a stick at) and the PRC (which is a paragon of tolerance and enlightenment if there ever was one)?

STOP SMOKING THAT ADULTERATED WEED!!!!!

Re:European Threats

[Jane Q. Public]

Why do they have a point? I would like this explained to me.

The Internet, and the protocols it uses, were invented in the United States. Until recently, the vast majority of users were still in the United States. If others wanted to follow suit and join in... fine. The United States formed an organization to oversee the network. But it isn't "theirs". They have no "rights" to it. If they don't like it, they can always just form their own damned network.

Imagine that I invented a cool new kind of telephone network. I build up a network in my own neighborhood, complete with switching station. Then, other nearby towns get wind of the network, and want in. So, out of the goodness of my heart, I let them hook up to my network, and I even update my switching station to handle the traffic.

Then, after they have used it for a while, and decide they like it, those neighboring towns start demanding that I turn my switching station over to them. The one that I built, with my own time and research and money.

Huh? By what right do they presume to demand such a thing?

Re:French died fighting while the Yanks made excus

[Workaphobia]

Insulting the French is a national pastime for us. I don't really know why, it doesn't make much sense to me. Wikipedia suggested it might be because we have few French immigrants compared to other nationalities, so in effect we're excused from trying to be politically correct to you.

For your information, the people who make jokes about France surrendering often actually believe that France is weak and that their proximity to the Nazis had nothing to do with their country falling. It's an excellent example of the Ugly American archetype.

Re:French died fighting while the Yanks made excus

[Jaeph]

While I agree the GP needs to be a bit more respectful, you go to far yourself.

"...while the Yanks made excuses and sat around eating ice cream in Times Square..."

I believe the excuse is "nobody declared war on us", which is a damn good one. The more I read about history, the more I believe that a major issue we have in the US is taking sides in wars that do not involve us. We should let other people fight the wars and have the bravery it takes to sit them out. If that means more disengagement from the world to prevent being dragged-in, so much the better.

Yes, that means we sit idly by while the Germans put up concentration camps. Yes, that means watching the slaughter occur in various places in Africa. Yes, that means...you get the picture.

The only wars we should get involved in are defense of our borders, or defense of allied borders, and we should be very, very picky about who we call "ally".

-Jeff

Re:French died fighting while the Yanks made excus

[Patch86]

Nobody declared war on Britain or France either- they both declared war in support of the Polish.

And there's a reason for this: far and aside from humanitarian arguments, Britain & France both reached the conclusion that Nazi Germany probably wasn't going to stop at Eastern Europe. The realisation that you were probably in the firing line anyway will do a lot to make you stick together with your fellow targeted neighbours.

What do we think would have happened to the United States once all of Europe, Asia and Africa were under fascist regimes? And how well would they have fared, with no allies and the industrial might of a whole world poised against them?

We actually don't really need to ask this. Hitler demonstrated quite amply with his treatment of the Soviets. At the beginning of the war Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. As soon as the Nazi regime decided that they were able to take them, they turned their attentions on the Soviets. And of course, the US was attacked by the Japanese as soon as they thought they could win, too, despite not having declared war.

All the US could have achieved by staying out of the war longer would have been to deepen the hole they would have needed to get out of. It is good for us and good for history that it didn't turn out this way, and that both the USA and USSR were dragged into the war before it was too late.