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US Tech Firms Urge Congress To Allow Internet Domain Changeover (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the bring-about-a-change dept.

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: Major technology companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter are urging Congress to support a plan for the U.S. government to cede control of the internet's technical management to the global community, they said in a joint letter dated on Tuesday. The U.S. Commerce Department has primary oversight of the internet's management, largely because it was invented in the United States. Some Republican lawmakers are trying to block the handover to global stakeholders, which include businesses, tech experts and public interest advocates, saying it could stifle online freedom by giving voting rights to authoritarian governments. The years-long plan to transfer oversight of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is scheduled to occur on Oct. 1 unless Congress votes to block the handover. The California-based corporation operates the database for domain names such as .com and .net and their corresponding numeric addresses that allow computers to connect. In the Sept. 13 letter, a copy of which had been reviewed by Reuters before it was sent, the technology companies said it was "imperative" that Congress does not delay the transition.

23 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Why the hurry? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It isn't just authoritarian governments -- many other democracies have no First Amendment-like protections.

    When, not if, censorship decisions come down the pike, well, congratulations.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    1. Re:Why the hurry? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the hundreds of domains already ceased by the US government are _in no way_ censorship, right? Double standards, double standards....

    2. Re:Why the hurry? by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think I could argue that the kinds of commercial censorship that the US engages in are less damaging to freedom of speech and political freedom than the censoring of political speech that is usually referred to when we talk about censorship.

      And I say that as an unrepentant, unashamed pirate who thinks that copyright is a bunch of hooey.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Why the hurry? by reboot246 · · Score: 2

      That the large tech companies would be in favor of the United States giving up control should come as no surprise. They are all in favor of globalism. They see only markets, not borders. Everybody everywhere is a potential customer or worker to exploit.

      The world may indeed have a global government one of these days, but now is not the time for it. There is still too much disparity, conflict, and greed for there to be only one government. Besides, I'll be dead a long time before it happens so I won't care.

    4. Re:Why the hurry? by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Here's my main question.

      How is this in the best interest of the US to cede this control to someone else?

      Our govt is supposed to try to make the BEST decisions for US, not the world...the USA.

      Can someone explain to me, how ceding control of ICANN could possibly be in the best interest of America?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    5. Re: Why the hurry? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      The difference, I think, would be that the US government only seizes domain names that are within its own jurisdiction. It can't/won't seize thepiratebay.se, for example, though it could seize thepiratebay.org because .org is within its jurisdiction (but oddly it hasn't.)

      However if we hand domain names over to an international body, then who knows what domains they might seize. I would imagine that, for example, Europe (especially Germany) might want to seize stormfront.org, middle eastern countries would likely want to seize pornhub.com, etc. While I don't visit either site, I don't think either should be seized by anybody.

      But the main point is, one of the things we've enjoyed with US governance of IANA is that every country has exclusive ownership of all of its respective TLDs, and other country's laws are notwithstanding (unless for whatever reason some other country willingly honors the laws of another country, like new zealand willingly following US laws with regard to megaupload.) Unless there's some compelling reason why this should go away, then why should it be handed over to an international body? I just don't see anything broken about the status quo.

  2. What control do they think ICANN has? by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Informative

    ICANN has been gradually selling off what little control they have left over the years as it is. Their utterly idiotic decision to start selling off gTLDs to the highest bidders was one of their boldest of all moves but they really haven't had much relevance for some time. There aren't many things left to do to make it more deregulated and still have any kind of resolvable DNS.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  3. "Facebook, Google and Twitter" ?? by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Funny

    One of those "major technology companies" is not like the others...

  4. I'm not seeing good explanations here.... by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I read the article and I feel like nobody is being very forthcoming with the real motivations behind wanting to cede control of this to the "global community" or NOT wanting to.

    How much does it cost U.S. taxpayers to maintain control of the domain name database? Or does it actually generate considerable positive revenue? (ICANN says it's "non profit" but so was our Major League Football association for a long time, as well as MasterCard.)

    Why do companies with a big web presence, such as Facebook, want control to go global? Is there some problem they've experienced in the past where they can't get a domain registration in a timely manner because it's all U.S. based?

    I can understand the concerns of the Republicans trying to block this transfer, if there's really no evidence ICANN isn't handling everything well as it stands today. The Internet WAS an American invention, based on our military network. It may indeed be a global thing today -- but I'm not sure it's wise to give away global control of the domain registration process if there's not a valid argument for why it would improve the efficiency of the process? (In other words, doing so just on some philosophical idea that "Global Internet isn't really global if domain database for it is run in the USA" doesn't sound like a good enough reason to change something that's worked well this whole time.)

    1. Re: I'm not seeing good explanations here.... by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If it's not broken.... Don't fix it. Running the internet is pretty cheap by US government standards.

    2. Re:I'm not seeing good explanations here.... by jmyers · · Score: 2

      I cannot find anything that says why this is a good idea. If FB, Google, etc, are supporting it there has to be a reason and they are not saying. I can speculate that these companies could possibly claim to be global entities and not US corporations and avoid taxes/regulations or otherwise piss off a US administration with no fear of the domain getting shut down. It is probably short sighted because they may have more control over the US government and more due process than some unelected international body.

  5. Re:And companies aren't willing to uphold it becau by aliquis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would had run my own freedom communication platform if only I had a jurisdiction to do so from.

    Try to uphold as much of full freedom of speech in the US since you are one of the few where that kinda is a thing. Everywhere else it's accepted or even viewed as good that people aren't allowed to tell their opinion or spread new ideas.

  6. Cynically thinking... by Ded+Bob · · Score: 2

    I get a bad feeling for the transfer just from the list of supporters: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Cloudflare and Yahoo. It feels, to me, that they are not doing it for freedom but rather for money. They are going to have services or other means of making money off the transfer where they cannot do it currently.

    However, this is just a feeling. I would like to understand it better for why they want it. Time to read since the article is scant on details.

    1. Re:Cynically thinking... by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I get a bad feeling for the transfer just from the list of supporters: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Cloudflare and Yahoo. It feels, to me, that they are not doing it for freedom but rather for money. They are going to have services or other means of making money off the transfer where they cannot do it currently.

      The problem is the Congressmen trying to block the changeover aren't doing so in the interests of online freedom, but rather in the interests of maintaining control over the internet. Either way it's all about power.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  7. Why by TFlan91 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see a lot of posts about "why".

    Well the reason is that if the US doesn't give up control, countries have been threatening with building their own internet infrastructure to run in parallel.

    If these countries (Brazil, Russia, etc) did create a "second internet", then Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, would all be shut off from their customers in those regions.

    Can't do the math?

    They get a lower customer base, lower potential profit, lower actual revenue. Unless the spend the R&D on developing their platform to conform to the "second internet".

    1. Re:Why by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

      I kind of feel like this is the way things will go eventually anyway. Each country having its own enclave with firewalls and filters between the networks.

      This actually would solve some problems like attacks or illegal goods/services (file sharing?) originating from other countries.

      I can see a lot of reasons why ours and other governments would be for this. Which is why I think it will happen.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:Why by slew · · Score: 4, Informative

      Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc would get into the parallel networks, but it would be through the countries' gateways/filters. This implications of this are not good for the people in nations controlled by thugs.

      China is the modern day case study for a for a parallel internetwork-domain system (via the great firewall).

      The ".com" and other country specific versions of Google, Facebook and Twitter are all blocked by this firewall. There is self-censored Google.cn and Facebook.cn, but Twitter hasn't decided to get into the parallel network game yet (and get in bed with the censorship)...

      The result is not really theoretical, you can look at the current situation and draw your own conclusions

      Of course this is just a scaled up version of what is done in corporations already. If you are surfing the internet from work you likely are on a parallel internet that has domains censored today. The real issues are simply the scale of censoring and the laws and forum for arbitration of conflicting interests (e.g., is my-company.biz.com and my-company.biz a conflict? how about awatch.com and awatch.apple.com?)

    3. Re:Why by Red_Chaos1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well the reason is that if the US doesn't give up control, countries have been threatening with building their own internet infrastructure to run in parallel.

      Since when was "do what I/we want or I'm going to take my ball and go elsewhere" been a valid reason?

      If these countries (Brazil, Russia, etc) did create a "second internet", then Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc, would all be shut off from their customers in those regions.

      As far as I can tell, they'll do the same thing once control is globalized. At least now, they can say "fine, we'll make our own Internet" and the rest of the sane world can say "cool, see you later, good luck with your Internet without any of the shit your people actually want because we don't care to jump through your retarded hoops to appease your insignificant ass" (and yes, it really is a matter of insignificance because the shit most of these countries are yammering about and want control for is to further enforce their own restrictions on others, whereas we enforce openness (for the most part anyway, far more open than many of these other countries would have it be)). Besides, regardless of how it works out, we already know most big Internet businesses will do what they need to to ensure their service is still available, but I'd rather that choice be at the corporations level, and not made a requirement at the behest of tantrum throwing nations/governments.

      Can't do the math?

      They get a lower customer base, lower potential profit, lower actual revenue. Unless the spend the R&D on developing their platform to conform to the "second internet".

      Why yes, yes we can, and it's already been done. Look at what Google did with China. We didn't have to give up control of the openness of the Internet to the rest of the world. Let the nations that hate all that freedom build their own fucking Great Firewall and control their people that way. As I said above, if the Internet companies give enough of a fuck, they'll find a way to make stuff work, and that's as it should be, IMO.

    4. Re:Why by jader3rd · · Score: 2

      Well the reason is that if the US doesn't give up control, countries have been threatening with building their own internet infrastructure to run in parallel.

      Isn't it great that the internet was designed to handle that case. It's a feature, not a bug.

      What are those countries complaints? What's they're motivation for running their own DNS service? Are they legitimate and technical? Is ICANN not living up to their stated mission goals?

    5. Re:Why by swb · · Score: 2

      This is simply laughable.

      The idea of a parallel internet run by BRICs? Who is going to buy into and provide services to it? Who is going to trust a group of the most authoritarian and/or corrupt and/or inefficient governments to manage such a network?

      And the money and mindshare has a center of gravity heavily biased towards EU/US/Japan/ANZ economies. There's money to be made in BRICs, but so much less relative to the effort of running a large-scale network. It's like Windows Phone -- by all accounts, a decent platform but the income and desirable demographics and numbers are all biased to other platforms, so nobody bothers.

      China only manages to halfway get away with this because of authoritarian political control, not because the Chinese want it and nobody is asking to be brought into the Chinese internet when they have the free and open internet as an alternative.

      I see zero chance of these countries breaking off into their own networks.

  8. I don't know ... by NoSalt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For some reason this sounds to me like one of those situations where we say to ourselves, "What could happen if we cede control of the internet's technical management to the global community?" Then, six months, or a few years down the road, we look back and say "Ah ... that's what could happen; wish we hadn't done that."

  9. Re:And companies aren't willing to uphold it becau by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Haven't been keeping up with current events, have you? YouTube is demonitizing (thus killing) channels that don't meet their vague as all hell "guidelines" that include "political or controversial content". Wanna guess what is happening?

    Well those "#killallmen" "DieCISScum" and "lets kill whitie" channels? They are all fine, none of them are being affected no matter how racist and sexist they are, but any that call them out on their bullshit or point out SJW insanity like Trigglypuff? Well I hope you didn't need that channel for anything,they have even shut down a channel multiple times that does nothing but host news broadcasts of crimes from around the USA because it makes the BLM movement look like shit by showing who they are protesting for.

    Considering the fact that the head of Google is the CTO of the Clinton campaign should not make this surprising to anyone, but between this and Google manipulating search results to aid Clinton they are about as fair and balanced as Jezebel or Twitter.

    --
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  10. Oh, lord, this nonsense again by SEE · · Score: 2

    This is meaningless outside of symbolism.

    Anybody can set up an alternate root server, and the only thing that makes any particular root server's assignments valuable is if ISPs in general use it. At worst, if ICANN (or any successor) abuses control over the root servers, there will be a few weeks until everybody switches to a fork under new management (probably under a consortium of businesses led by Google anyway). And as the so-called US government oversight of the current servers is entirely without any practical effects at all, so would be "surrendering" it.

    The fact that US "control" keeps generating news stories is the obvious reason to give it up; it causes antagonism and controversy without adding any value at all.