Sorry I haven't read all the posts before replying, but a lot of them seem to be off topic. I would like to reflect on some of the conclusions presented here...
So what if we (United States) happen to control the ICANN. Why would another country or the EU want to control it? The only answer would be to control OUR Internet!
Think about it...
If we screwed up the Internet for Europe, for example, they could simply cut us off from the rest of the world, as some have said. DNS is decentralized. only the naming conventions and the addressing scheming is ICANN controlled. Any country who wishes to could create their own ICANN at any time and set up any addressing scheme they choose. IPV6 is an option now and it could be adopted in a European country at anytime with a gateway to the IPV4 land. Or they could simply cut the US from the Internet to the rest of the world.
The problem is, the creme of the Internet is here in the US! Cutting us off is not an option. Even the Arab countries who desperately hate us and call us Infidels haven't isolated themselves from the whole US-based Internet because they like our content. The terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 apparently used hotmail for communications!
I believe that the US should keep ICANN because WE-CANN.:) I do not see the dangers or the risks in us keeping it. There has been no major problems as of yet. There has been no impropriety yet. The Internet is freely configured and any country or government entity is free to isolate themselves if they wish. The actual intent here with this request to take over ICANN is to take over the US-based internet, otherwise they would just create their own.
The US created the Internet and the world piggy-backed onto it. The US didn't threaten to charge a fee to access it. The US didn't censor content from the rest of the world, although the US government has put restrictions on encryption, but that would have nothing to do with whether we controlled ICANN or not. The US has done some stupid things in the past, but the people who "run" the ICANN so far have behaved fairly.
It is simply a pride issue. I remember way back when I worked in a data-center that had Novell servers and we all had the supervisor password. Then some admin types moved in from out of town and decided that we network-operators didn't have to have the supervisor password, and we all got pissed. The internet is too important and too fragile to make any command changes when there is no reason to do so. If ICANN were to suddenly take the internet hostage and make demands and abuse their powers, then that would be a different issue. Until then, I just hear a bunch of whining babies who wish.COM was in their country instead of ours, even though it doesn't really matter anyway except for marketing convenience.
Show me an unfair situation where the US is bullying the world over the ICANN control or a major problem that was caused by, or ignored by, ICANN and maybe I might change my position...
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry I haven't read all the posts before replying, but a lot of them seem to be off topic. I would like to reflect on some of the conclusions presented here... So what if we (United States) happen to control the ICANN. Why would another country or the EU want to control it? The only answer would be to control OUR Internet! Think about it... If we screwed up the Internet for Europe, for example, they could simply cut us off from the rest of the world, as some have said. DNS is decentralized. only the naming conventions and the addressing scheming is ICANN controlled. Any country who wishes to could create their own ICANN at any time and set up any addressing scheme they choose. IPV6 is an option now and it could be adopted in a European country at anytime with a gateway to the IPV4 land. Or they could simply cut the US from the Internet to the rest of the world. The problem is, the creme of the Internet is here in the US! Cutting us off is not an option. Even the Arab countries who desperately hate us and call us Infidels haven't isolated themselves from the whole US-based Internet because they like our content. The terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 apparently used hotmail for communications! I believe that the US should keep ICANN because WE-CANN. :) I do not see the dangers or the risks in us keeping it. There has been no major problems as of yet. There has been no impropriety yet. The Internet is freely configured and any country or government entity is free to isolate themselves if they wish. The actual intent here with this request to take over ICANN is to take over the US-based internet, otherwise they would just create their own.
The US created the Internet and the world piggy-backed onto it. The US didn't threaten to charge a fee to access it. The US didn't censor content from the rest of the world, although the US government has put restrictions on encryption, but that would have nothing to do with whether we controlled ICANN or not. The US has done some stupid things in the past, but the people who "run" the ICANN so far have behaved fairly.
It is simply a pride issue. I remember way back when I worked in a data-center that had Novell servers and we all had the supervisor password. Then some admin types moved in from out of town and decided that we network-operators didn't have to have the supervisor password, and we all got pissed. The internet is too important and too fragile to make any command changes when there is no reason to do so. If ICANN were to suddenly take the internet hostage and make demands and abuse their powers, then that would be a different issue. Until then, I just hear a bunch of whining babies who wish .COM was in their country instead of ours, even though it doesn't really matter anyway except for marketing convenience.
Show me an unfair situation where the US is bullying the world over the ICANN control or a major problem that was caused by, or ignored by, ICANN and maybe I might change my position...