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ICANN's Cozy Relationship With the US Must End, Says EU
alphadogg writes "The exclusive relationship of ICANN with the U.S. must end, said the European Union's digital agenda chief on Wednesday. California-based ICANN is responsible for the assignment of top-level domains and has a long-standing operating agreement with the U.S. However, following the revelations by Edward Snowden of widespread surveillance of the Internet by the National Security Agency, many countries have questioned the arrangement. The historical relationship, noted in ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments, is outdated and the governance of the Internet must become more global, said the E.U. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Kroes was presenting the European Commission's new policy on Internet governance, which rejects any United Nations or governmental takeover of Internet governance and calls for a move to globalize ICANN."
I'm failing to understand the issue here. Anything ICANN does is essentially public. Any changes to domain IP addresses have to propagate out to everyone, so it's not like they could cause traffic to be arbitrarily rerouted, etc. Sounds like just another straw man attempt to get the ICANN out of the US.
Better known as 318230.
So the problem seems to be that ICANN is an american corporation, and thus subject to the laws of the US, and that in turn, could be used against foreign powers?
The solution then is to 'globalize' it? Where is it going to be 'globalized' to? Which country could it exist in where it would have immunity to any laws and act with impunity in regards to them?
When I see the complaints against it by China, Russia, the EU, and so on, they're always advocating more restrictions, protection of their interests. They want the ability to blacklist sites that talk about their politicians, that discuss unfavorable religions or religious rights, that cover alternative lifestyles such as gay or transgender, and so on. They want to do it without arbitration, automatically.
What they really are complaining about is that they don't have absolute control over it, and they want it. Everything else is just a pleasant lie or deliberate misdirection.
Let's be fair; the US has more than it's fair share of faults, but our definition of freedom is still incredibly wide reaching compared with the vast majority of countries in the world, and we're big enough to make it hard to push us around with political power alone. That's the big problem they're seeing. ... besides, use of the current DNS registry system is entirely voluntary. There's nothing to stop someone from coming up with their own, like the TOR network did. If it's better, people will use it over the current one. Though, I think they realize that any replacement that is more strictly controlled will never be considered 'better', so they need to subvert the current one.
The US "must" do this? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
I can see why the EU and/or UN would want the US to give up control over the ICANN contract, but every time this comes up, I have yet to see a single reason presented as to why the US would agree to do it.
Diplomacy involves the practical application of either the proverbial Carrot or Stick or Both. "Do this or I'll write further Official Letters demanding it" is not much of a stick, and it certainly isn't a carrot.
Of course you are right, but we in the US also have a vested interest in keeping the internet coherent as much as possible. Giving the EU more control might eventually be in our best interest. After all, we, too, can always separate from them if they steer in a direction that we do not like.
What I absolutely do not support is UN control. The UN is primarily there to prevent nuclear powers from going to war, and thus far it has done a fine job of that. Most of the members are shitheads with far more restrictive speech laws than the US. The EU, on the other hand, really only differs from the US in hate speech. If they could be persuaded to not enforce hate speech laws through ICANN, I don't have a problem with giving them influence.
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It evolved from a conglomeration of Germanic, French, and Latin.
Evolution is heresy. Jesus spoke perfect US English the moment he rode a dinosaur out of his virgin mother's cooch. Yippee ki-yay.