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US Government Withdraws IANA Contract From ICANN
mbone writes "The 'no cost' contract between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN over hosting the Internet Assigned Names and Number Authority (IANA) was supposed to be re-let this March. Now, it has been withdrawn, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) says that 'we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community.' This is a pretty stunning vote of no confidence in ICANN by the U.S. government, on the eve of the 43rd ICANN meeting in Costa Rica. Speculation is that this is related to the attempts of the ITU-T to take over Internet governance, but it also could be over the new global top level domains. I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about this in the weeks to come."
I Am Not A contract?
The headline is a bit misleading. What NTIA did was withdraw the RFP. The IANA contract still stays with ICANN (contract extended until the end of September), and there will likely be another RFP.
However, it is indeed a big rebuke, because in the NTIA Notice they stated that " we are cancelling this RFP because we received no proposals that met the requirements requested by the global community" which is another way of saying that ICANN has not been acting in the global public interest.
No seriously, what does it mean?
ICANN: Okay, we've been thinking about it and it's hard to see what's wrong with a XXX domain - at worst we still get porn everywhere on the internet, like we already have, and at best some of it's a bit more centralised where people can filter it.
US Government: AHHHHHHH it's like admitting sex exists. Don't do it, don't do it!
ICANN: Ah, well in the absence of any coherent arguments, we've decided to go ahead with the XXX domain.
US Government: WTF? We only went with an independent body for this sort of thing on the understanding that you'd follow our every whim. Right, we're not going to let you do it any more.
ICANN: So who is?
US Government: Ah, well, still you then okay, but we're cancelling our RFP and , uh, renewing you for another six months anyway until we have to renew you again after that,
Slashdot: BIG NEWS! Contract withdrawn, stunning vote of no confidence!
ICANN has been rolling out TLDs in order to profit its core constituency: the registrars.
.xxx -- except the registrar who pushed it and is now using extortion
tactics to pressure people into buying domains in it, e.g. "get yours...before someone
else does".
.info -- what, domains in other TLDs don't contain "information"?
(Well...alright...spammers needed it, and quickly overran it. It's been a best practice
in anti-spam engineering to block *.info and whitelist what you need for many years.)
But registrars stood to profit, especially from the spammers buying domains by the
thousands, so it was created.
.biz -- because we already had .com. But it was a chance to sell
the same thing twice, always a great business opportunity for registrars, so ICANN
made it happen.
.pepsi or .google or .dell.
Nobody needed
Nobody needed
Nobody needed
And nobody needs hundreds of additional TLDs, either. There is no clamor of voices among the billion people on the Internet for
It's not an exaggeration to say that the majority of domains in existence today are used for abusive purposes: spam, phishing, typosquatting, search engine manipulation, etc. Yet ICANN wants to do whatever it can to explode the number, to keep the cash registers ringing at the registrars.
What ICANN could be doing -- but isn't -- is to reign in the epidemic abuses. There are registrars that are owned by known spammers, for example. Another thing it could be tackling are domain confiscations (by the USG) without due process: ICANN can and should push back hard against that. But none of this will happen: ICANN is corrupt to the bone, a textbook example of regulatory capture, therefore it will do whatever maximizes the profits of its masters.
Collaborating? The US Government created ICANN in 1998 owned it until 2009. But thanks for your insight.
US Government: AHHHHHHH it's like admitting sex exists. Don't do it, don't do it!
This is Insightful? Give me a break.
First, .xxx solves absolutely no problems. It will not make porn easier to filter (why use .xxx if everyone is filtering it?). Arguments about specific TLDs aside, I seriously doubt that .xxx in particular has much to with this situation. Rather, .xxx is a symptom of a larger problem.
ICANN has stopped working to serve the public's interests. The proliferation of new TLDs, including .xxx, has been brought about for a single purpose: to make registrars more money. With .xxx its been nothing but a blatant extortion campaign against large companies -- "register, or else". If the goal of this direction is to fundamentally change the hierarchical nature of DNS (say, to move from www.microsoft.com and yro.slashdot.org to www.microsoft and yro.slashdot), then that is probably a good idea in the long run, but the way in which they're going about it is nothing more than a money grab.
Put simply, ICANN has stopped working for a better and more stable public Internet and has instead taken a dive directly into the registrars pockets. I personally would like nothing more than to see the US stick it to ICANN if it will help put them back on the right track (or work towards their outright replacement).
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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A Brit invented HTTP. I wish you'd stop stealing it.
(by which I mean I wish you would stop posting.)
at worst we still get porn everywhere on the internet
No, at worst you have people spending millions of dollars to pay for domains that they don't need or want, but have to get for defensive purposes. The XXX domain is bad porn sites (since it leads the way to further censorship), it is bad for the fundies (since it does not involve sticking their head in the sand), and it is bad for all other corporations (because they have to buy domians for defensive purposes). The only people who benefit from having more generic TLDs are the registrars who will rake in tons of cash selling them.
None of these seem terribly far-fetched as regulations on the Internet...
Palm trees and 8
Put simply, ICANN has stopped working for a better and more stable public Internet and has instead taken a dive directly into the registrars pockets. I personally would like nothing more than to see the US stick it to ICANN if it will help put them back on the right track (or work towards their outright replacement).
The only flaw I can see in this reasoning, is that the US government has not shown any evidence that it wants "a better and more stable public Internet", at least not when there is any conflict between that and doing the bidding of the corporations who, ultimately, fill every politician's campaign coffers. Or conflict with repressing their political bête noire of the week.
I wonder if ICANN was making unhappy noises about domain seizures.
.com does not belong to the United States. The fact that Verisign was assigned control of the registry by ICANN does not change this. Similarly if ICANN gave the registry to an operator in France it would not mean that France now owns .com.
Since Verisign is a private company it is incorrect to say that the US Government controls .com. Sure they can (and do) abuse the unique position they are in by bullying the registry operator. But to conclude that they control .com is similar to concluding that they control Windows updates, since Microsoft also has its headquarters in the US.
I for one find it deeply concerning that the US is asserting jurisdiction over international domains. Many of which are registered outside of the US by foreign registrants and registrars.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
So the thing that surprises me is - how does the US government get involved in IANA and various TLDs? The only TLD they should be bothered about is .us. I guess one could make an argument for .com, .org, .net and others, but there too, they are assigned to non-US organizations as well. While the US may have 'invented the internet', its management as a worldwide resource has to be free of any country's government, even if the bulk of that organization's activities happen within that country.
Which is why it puzzles me that the government should be in any way involved in the relationship b/w ICANN and IANA.
It has always been involved, and there has always been this connection. IANA was set up by Jon Postel under a US Government contract and transferred to ICANN under a US Government contract (the one with the canceled RFP, to be specific).