ICANN, new TLDs, and Congress? 172
itchyfish writes "Looks like the fight on TLDs is going to be a long one. It seems as though Congress is going to get involved. Could be a long, long time before any TLDs see the light of day."
Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:2)
Re:Wow...Big Government Again (Score:3)
Why is is a US issue? Because Congress created ICANN (essentially). There are a couple of ways that TLD allocation can be handled
In general, I prefer things being done by the private sector, but the corporate solution will likely lead to a monopoly for the benefit of the big corporations. The government and ICANN are doing things badly - name.space [name-space.com] has shown that there is no technical limitation to many gTLDs being created, but right now, the answer is to get Congress to force ICANN to adopt a better system, then figure out a way to get the government completely out of the picture.
Let's go one further (Score:1)
So what the Internet needs is to get rid of the TLD that has become generic, i.e. .com, and to become very sticky about giving out .net and .org. The main TLDs for businesses would then become the country codes (.us, .uk et al.). If a business operates in multiple countries, it can have multiple country codes (as is common practice anyway). This would resolve some of the conflicts. The rest would IMO be beyond the reach of DNS changes, and would need to be sorted out between the parties concerned, possibly in court under national trademark legislation.
Of course this would upset a lot of people who have dug deep in their pockets to pay off .com domain name squatters, would give severe feelings of inadequacy to the types whose self-image relies on the equation "short domain name = big dick" and would lose ICANN nearly all its income ...
Re:Congress and Lawyers and Patents, Oh My! (Score:1)
See the Top Level Domain Finder [pccf.net] and have fun searching...
Re:UN can't enforce genocide laws, let alone TLDs (Score:1)
Enforcement on an international scale is only impossible, if all the major players in the international field decline. And even then, to paraphrase Frank Zappa: "There's more of us little motherfuckers than you are."
And about those responsible for mass killings, the international Court of Justice [icj-cij.org] seems to be doing quite well regarding the most atrocious killers of the recent Balkan war, even so, that some of them are freely going there, to await justice and get it over with.
What we need a single, flat namespace that doesn't have any "distinctions." The distinctions are unnecessary, unmanageable and unenforceable. Multinationals will claim their name in all namespaces by carrot or stick. There's no shortage of domain names if you're willing to be clever. There are, however, a shortage of obvious generic name terms and trademarked names, but that would be true in any namespace.
I agree, that the current three letter TLDs are not meeting needs or wants. For instance, where I work, we originated as an university computer center, and are therefore still not-for-profit, but we do have very commercial clients, for instance, the largest national newspaper, and a large publisher. Since only the US is hesitant about using their national TLD, this poses no problem, because we use the national TLD. But imagine, soon we will lose the not-for-profit status, and, in US terms, move from .edu to .com, and our acronym is a female first name,SARA [www.sara.nl]. SO, what to do, buy out some luscious girl or her pimp, who exploits a sara.com site? Or stress the educational part of our business with the more easily maintained .edu site? Since it's sara.nl, the question will never rise, unless at some time we grow so big as to contemplate sara.int, but I do not see that happenning for some decades. And by then, we could always choose a new name, more cheaply.
But with a single namespace name collisions would take place more often, resulting in money destroying court cases, so let's not go there. Simply hand over the non-country-based TLDs to the UN, and leave the other ones to the countries involved.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
We need a GNU namespace (Score:1)
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:1)
Perhaps it is time to create .bofh, if it's not already been done, and
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
Re:Red Light District... (Score:1)
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:2)
GRASSHOPPERS I TELL YOU! GRASSHOPPERS!
(just kidding)
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The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]
Re:Who do they think they are? (Score:2)
I guess they figure they built it, so they own it. It's not like they ever declared publicly they were giving it to the rest of the world.
They can pass all the laws they want, maybe even laws banning certain goods to be sold online, but it wont stop it from happening
Actually, it will. They created ICANN. ICANN is creating new domains. Their laws affect the internet. Point disproved. Just because you don't like something you can't pretend it doesn't exist.
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Re:www.youcann.org - How To Make It Succeed (Score:2)
Whether or not they've used it wisely (um, definitely not), Network Solutions has wielded
a huge amount of market power. In part because they had exclusive rights to sell TLDs for a while, but in part because they have the root level nameserver.
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Re:Congress and Lawyers and Patents, Oh My! (Score:1)
Dear ICANN:
We have taken control of the internet naming system. We have claimed ownership to any and all TLDs that didn't exist before January 2000. That's right -- we own words that haven't been invented yet and ccTLDs for countries that don't exist yet. Every permutation of the ASCII alphabet is ours. Furthermore, we have patented them all. Since we now own everything, none of the new TLDs you create will work, because they belong to us. You might as well close up shop, as you are now obsolete.
Anyone can register a TLD through our organization. Naturally, we are willing to negotiate licencing for the TLDs you have recommended. For a small fee.
SECONDLY
We must protest that you cater to geeks, rather than to "Internet Business Modellers" such as ourselves. The New Media world is rough on business who just want to strike it rich off this Internet thing.
Our organization hereby believes that ICANN sucks.
We will 0wn you.
Your sincerely,
Anthony Harrison
Director
e2p Limited
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:1)
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:2)
Re:Who allocates country TLDs? (Score:1)
Re:Wow, that much to apply??? (Score:1)
There are other, better ways to measure seriousness than money, like how effectively an applicant makes its case and whether or not the applicant's proposal is supported or opposed by others. $50,000 seems outrageous to me.
Re:TLD's (Score:2)
Normally I can ignore the "US FIRST!!!" posts, but this is just over the top.
Re:It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:1)
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:1)
Amen, brother, AMEN! If every little pissant government on the planet is going to muck with the system, give each country its own sandbox to soil as it sees fit. I'd even argue against the .int TLD unless some enforcable provision is enacted for resolving international disputes over it.
So what if huge companies have to register a separate address in each country that they want an ePresence in? Let 'em register mcdonalds.fi, mcdonalds.ch, and mcdonalds.us. And if someone else beats 'em to mcdonalds.uz let 'em fight it out in the Uzbekistan courts.
Of course, if a little island nation somewhere wants to sell their TLD for some extra capital, that's fine and dandy. Its their domain, they can administer it as they see fit. Long live Tuvalu!
Chelloveck
Re:I Wanna Know... (Score:1)
Why don't you use http://slash.news/ [slash.news]? It works here.
Re:Dot-pro? (Score:1)
Who do they think they are? (Score:2)
The fact is, most computer experts dislike the Government, for whatever reason(crypto restrictions, privacy violations, etc...). The government therefore cannot get a highly skilled staff of computer experts to work for them. So in a nutshell, they will not be able to regulate the internet. Why cant someone think forward and realize that you cannot regulate the internet. There are too many variables, too many people, too much data.
Id bet the only agency thinking forward is the NSA. And we all thought that Echelon was bad... I wonder whats next...
There's only one way to solve this. (Score:2)
2. First come, first served
3. No squatting
4. No trademark bullying
Sure, these are generalized principles, but I think they pretty much cover all the bases. Rule #4 is of particular significance, as it eliminates the overwhelming power of money.
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:2)
no big rush (Score:1)
And since the US government is pretty firmly in the pocket of corporate interest, there isn't going to be a lot anybody can do about that. Sit back and wait, kids.
ummmm "WAH" (Score:1)
Secret windows code
Re:Dot-pro? (Score:1)
Re:I Wanna Know... (Score:1)
Interestingly, ICANN can't lobby at all (Score:3)
at http://www.icann.org/general/articles.htm [icann.org] read:
5.b. No substantial part of the activities of the Corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the Corporation shall be empowered to make the election under 501 (h) of the Code.
What i'm not sure about is, how can ICANN be "independent", if it falls under US Law jusrisdiction, seing how it is a non-profit corporation organized within the framework of US law.
Regarding dispute itself, i'm somewhat surprized that ICANN acted this way (choosing submissions from some paying companies while refusing others), when their Bylaws, ARTICLE IV , Section 1: General Powers state:
c) The Corporation shall not apply its standards, policies, procedures or practices inequitably or single out any particular party for disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable cause, such as the promotion of effective competition.
I would say that granting some TLDs that benefit the companies which submitted them while rejecting others violates the above rule.
#include IANAL.h
#include disclaimers.h
-DVK
Re:What happens if AOL sets up their own root serv (Score:1)
In fact, them weenies who have been suing over spurious trademark claims (e.g. Madonna) have really created the strongest support the current root servers could have. Should anyone challenge the DNS system with alternate root servers, the legal groundwork for burying them alive has already been laid, and they have done it to themselves.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Teach them the truth about ICANN (Score:1)
Here are some of the main problems with ICANN:
If you really feel strongly about the issues you should go to The Committee on Energy and Commerce homepage [house.gov], click the link labeled "Feedback" and help to educate these members of Congress who may not fully understand just how badly ICANN is screwing the people on the Net.
www.killyourfamilyforexperiencepoints.com (Score:2)
I guess this would be the #1 reason why there is no 'fair' process taking place... what a goddamn wonder - make the stipulation that "only profit motivated organizations with $50k to 'bet on the future' are allowed in this discussion. If you are not a business you dont fucking matter"
Jesus fucking Christ - did they expect these proposals to be anything other than land grabs by $whores$? and the 'losers' to be gracious? Again - am I the only one not surprised?
Re:Come again? (Score:1)
That being said, it's probably a good idea to question ICANN's bias in making decisions.
But while I personally have nothing against seeing another unaccountable institution sacked and burned, I have to disagree with all the ill-conceived cries to get government oversight out of this business altogether.
If alternate root servers were chosen and the creation of new gTLDs created by anarchic, everyone-for-themselves choices, the result would be loss of globally unique web addresses. Worse, the people with the most eyeballs would get disproportionate power in creating order back out of the anarchy. In other words, the dot-biz folks would STILL be screwed, and AOL would create, administer, and own the EFFECTIVE dot-biz. You can see where this is going... AOL keywords or nothing, and... the DEATH OF THE INTERNET PREDICTED.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
SNL: Sign up at clownpenis.fart (Score:1)
"Sure all the other 'good' domain names were already taken. But that doesn't mean we're not committed to having the best online investment site around. Clownpenis.fart."
(Or was I the only one who saw that episode of SNL?
Alternate ns system!!! (Score:1)
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:1)
Maybe they meant insightful as in 'insighting a riot'
Re:????? (Score:1)
The US Domain Registry is administered by VeriSign, Inc.
You know...Network Solutions: "The Monopoly People(tm)"
Good. New TLDs are a bad idea anyway. (Score:1)
Why? It doesn't really solve any problems, and is just a convenient way for registrars and lawyers to make more money. Consider: Who do you think is going to buy Amazon.biz, or Amazon.pro? Either Amazon.com will -- or some domain squatter will get there first, and then Amazon will have to go sue them.
Besides, it just adds to consumer confusion. What if slashdot.org and slashdot.info pointed to two totally different sites with different purposes? What good would that serve?
Adding .name seems logical at first blush, except it doesn't change the fact that there are still going to be a lot more people with a given name than there are domains that correspond to that name. So one lucky guy will get mikesmith.name, and the other 450,000 Mike Smiths around the world will still be SOL.
And who on earth thought of .aero? By that logic, why not .space (OK, maybe mir.space, hubble-telescope.space would be kinda cool) or .sea?
Who cares? (Score:1)
Re:We need a GNU namespace (Score:1)
Claim your namespace.
Unnecessarily awkward (Score:1)
Re:I Wanna Know... (Score:2)
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:4)
Exactly. And French and German governments should leave web sites outside of their own countries alone and not force them to abide by their own national (local) laws.
America has yahoo.com and ebay.com and those are the ones that America should have influence over, not France or Germany. This is the sort of thing that gets European countries accused of cultural imperialism.
Be your own root server - ignore the wonks (Score:1)
http://support.open-rsc.org [open-rsc.org]
It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:5)
At this point, we essentially have unlimited numbers of second-level domain names that might as well be top-level domains, because they're all followed by an irrelevant and arbitrary
To sum up: because there's no difference between
Unlimited TLDs aren't the answer, what we need are the equivalent of zoning laws.
Who allocates country TLDs? (Score:2)
If it takes a long time, it's going to be moot (Score:3)
By the time congress actually does anything, the internet will be completely different.
TLD may not even exist anymore (see this [cfp2000.org] for one of the many proposals that would make this issue moot.)
any proposal which puts one person/company/country in charge is going to be bad.
.web (Score:3)
All of the new domains seem to be attempting to further subdivide .com, to re-assign meaning to the top level domain.
If we're just trying to create more namespace in the same mindset that rendered the difference between .com, .net, and .org meaningless, we may as well quit arguing about it and add nonsense domain names like .blorq, .argh, and .foom, and be done with it.
Seems like another conflict between the techies (pro-meaning) and the marketroids (anti-meaning).
.biz was used to delay process (Score:1)
They have been hiding the solution to trademark problems - it is on my site - http://WIPO.org.uk [wipo.org.uk] - not the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Re:www©youcann©org - How To Make It Succeed (Score:1)
TLDRegister.com (Score:1)
Just wanted to suggest something that occured to me.
Why don't we ensure that every country, or other place that will need one, has a TLD, and then allow them for general registration? Of course, we would have to set the fee rather high, or else they would all disappear practically instantly.
But for $10,000, wouldn't someone register ".dot"?? I see no practical reason why this couldn't be done.
Re:It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:1)
The original posters' point was that the TLD's are arbitrary and no one enforces them.
While I happen to think that was the original spirit of the TLD guidelines, I was pointing out that WIPO disagrees with that premise, and their opinion actually matters, unlike yours or mine.
Re:What happens if AOL sets up their own root serv (Score:1)
AOL says fuck ICANN, sets up own gTLDs, lets anyone pay, then next thing you know, the beast from Redmond buys "slashdot.org" for AOLs users and redirects the whole domain to MSN. That would be fair, wouldn't it.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:2)
This would probably work, but the problem would be getting the current
Probably even harder then getting American organisations to use
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:1)
That's how I envisioned it, yes. Perhaps Coca-Cola feels they're too big to be merely coke.com.us so they want to register coke.com.int instead. They'd have to agree to some provision that they can't buy up their name in any ccTLD's because they've got the .int, and they'd have to agree to some external arbitration: disputes wouldn't be settled in US (or any other country's) courts. If they didn't like the sound of that, let them buy coke.com.<cc> for every country they feel they need to. And like you said, they can then fight in the courts in all those countries.
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:2)
They might well end up having to have mcdonalds.co.fi or such like. As well as having to fulfil criteria such as having an appropriate commercial presence.
Of course, if a little island nation somewhere wants to sell their TLD for some extra capital, that's fine and dandy. Its their domain, they can administer it as they see fit. Long live Tuvalu!
Problems come when a country, such as Canada or Ireland, changes policy after a period of time. Cahnging what had been a structured naming system into a free for all.
The question should be if domian names are "mining rights" with a first come first served basis or are they the equivalent of postal addresses?
Re:Unnecessarily awkward (Score:1)
Re:It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:2)
It's more a case of was rather than is. A major part of the problem would be the likes of Network Solutions encouraging people who have foo.com to also get foo.net and foo.org.
As well as treating all 3 as being
Re:Yes, Congress gets involved (Score:2)
But having congress.gov.us might not satisfy their egos. Even though it would be kind of obvious that anything ending
Also you probably don't want to use
in a nut shell (Score:1)
Re:Existing Country-Specific TLDs (Score:2)
Does this mean that parts of the US will now grab domains from anywhere they have bombed in recent history??
"Ok Kosova you can be independant, you can't have your own domain name...."
The Germans had better look out too, maybe Detroit wants
Re:It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:1)
Are you insane? The conrinthians football (yes football, not soccar!) team is a commmerical venture, why should this individual get to keep a commerical domain name for a non-commericial website!! Thank god the "fine folks at WIPO" do enforce the principals of domain names.
Re:Two things (Score:2)
Re:Yes, Congress gets involved (Score:1)
BigCat79
Express my dissatisfaction. (Score:2)
The majority of these names make no sense to me. I know what each name represents, but my question is why? Do the members of ICANN actually use the Internet? I thought for sure they would approve a .sex or a .xxx TLD, considering the sheer volume of pornography [harvardlawreview.org] on the Internet, and how everyone seems to think we should do something about it. A .xxx TLD sure would help us admins with firewalling rules. Wouldn't even have to worry too much about enforcing compliance either, seems like anyone who runs a porn site would actually want to have a .xxx domain.
Penguins run around naked everyday! The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]
What we _really_ need... (Score:2)
The current DNS system was designed by idealists who apparently decided that
It seems to me that either the naming convention recognizes these commercial aspects in it's design, or it abolishes them; there's no room for ambiguity here.
www.youcann.org (Score:5)
If this alternate system gets popular enough, all this will become irrelevant
Re:We see the wheels of government (Score:2)
Rather the US government should come up with a way to use the
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:2)
They have some rights, not all, since there are SLD's which are specific to the states. Which would be covered by the 10th ammendment. They could create appropriate second level domains for anything controlled by federal government. e.g. congress.gov.us, sc.gov.us, whitehouse.gov.us,
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:2)
The us department of commerce has last say on all this because, like it or not, the us goverment paid for most of the initial development and expansion of the Internet. Like the saying goes "he pays he says". Is it going to change any time soon?.. Its not likely. To quote The Queen of England (in reference to the falklands): "we don't see any reason to give up something that belongs to us". All the rest of this is hot air.
--locust
Re:This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:4)
This reminds me of a true tale of an in-duh-vidual. An American (ok, US-ian) employee and a European employee of the same company were being transferred to an office in Japan. The US-ian employee got extra relocation money for an international relocation. When the European employee asked for the same amount, he was told, "but you're already international."
The Internet is not about interstate commerce and commerce with foreign nations. It's about commerce and communication between anyone, anwhere, regardless of who or where they are. It's specifically about not making distinctions between domestic and foreign parties in a communication.
And last I checked, "public domain" didn't mean "U.S. domain".
(and yes, I am a US citizen).
- Marty
Alternative? (Score:2)
I can't wait! (Score:2)
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D. Fischer
Congress and Lawyers and Patents, Oh My! (Score:4)
A company called e2p has notified ICANN that they have a patent on all new TLD's..
The letter they sent to ICANN is available for viewing at http://www.icann.org/tlds/correspondence/e2p-emai
It starts off by telling ICANN that they shouldn't be thinking about new TLD's, then goes on to criticize ICANN for neglecting "Internet Business Modellers" in the search for new TLD's.
The letter (and e2p's website) are pretty stark of details, can anybody shed any light on exactly what these bozo's are trying to pull?
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:2)
Not that I want to play grammar police ... but calling the internet ".NET" is like giving in to Microsoft, saying, "Yes, you can control the world. We believe in everything you say." So don't try to be clever -- just call it the internet, or, if you want, the net (notice: not period, no capitalization.) Or ARPANET. Or Earth's big LAN party. Or the Information Superhighway, if you have to. Just not .NET.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The American Government should have no influenc (Score:3)
Personally, I welcome the government's inquiries... I hope they dissolve ICANN or restructure it. It has served no other purpose than to promote the interests of those with the most $$, in the same way that the WTO has decided to hand out previously legally owned domain names to any corporation with a few $$.
-
The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]
Re:Keep this in the Technology arena (Score:2)
drawing on his unquestionable techical knowledge:
"dot i-i-i? What does that mean?
That means nothing to me."
Seems at least one of the criteria is that
it has to be aesthetically pleasing to Dr Cerf.
Re:Antitrust (Offtopic) (Score:2)
I don't think it has anything to do with alignment..
Re:Wow, that much to apply??? (Score:2)
If it's money they want, people should be able to post their ideas and have others contribute to some sort of a PayPal escrow. From a central site, people could propose TLD's, and those that backed it could make a contribution. I think there is a bigger mandate from 100 people willing to spend $1/each than there is from some organization that has $50k to burn.
Besides, I think there would be significant support on all sides for a
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I Wanna Know... (Score:3)
Bryan R.
Yes, Congress gets involved (Score:4)
Hm, it might put an end to some squatting. Who else wants a .con?
Why does this always have to be so damn hard? (Score:4)
Fawking Trolls! [geekizoid.com]
UN can't enforce genocide laws, let alone TLDs (Score:3)
I suppose some of the leftists on slashdot that get warm and fuzzy about one-world government might find themselves actually believing this is possible, but it really, really isn't.
What we need a single, flat namespace that doesn't have any "distinctions." The distinctions are unnecessary, unmanageable and unenforceable. Multinationals will claim their name in all namespaces by carrot or stick. There's no shortage of domain names if you're willing to be clever. There are, however, a shortage of obvious generic name terms and trademarked names, but that would be true in any namespace.
Re:Why does this always have to be so damn hard? (Score:2)
Claim your namespace.
Claim your namespace.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:I have to ask... (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't matter anyway... (Score:3)
Our solution is for the TLD to be owned and managed in a democratic fashion by domain registrants. We feel that domain registrants will have an interest in enforcing their charter. Over time, these community-policed namespaces will come to be more trusted and useful than the .com/.org/.net ghetto and similar uncontrolled namespaces. Kind of like moderated as opposed to unmoderated usenet groups.
We already operate several such TLDs, including .parody (charter is obvious) amd .oss (for open source software-related material). We also peer or are discussing peering the namespaces of other roots, including ICANN/NSI, ORSC, PacRoot, TINC and AlterNIC.
If you're really interested, become an OpenNIC member, register a domain name or propose a new TLD, or help out however you like.
Claim your namespace.
Red Light District... (Score:4)
Next thing you know...
1. ISP routers will be legislated into blocking such addresses at the national and ISP levels
2. at the same time, legislation could be passed that all kinds of "distasteful," "immoral", etc. (whether sexually, politically, etc.) material be religated to that TLD
you'd end up making it real easy for a government to create a national black hole list.
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Re:Express my dissatisfaction. (Score:2)
The American Government should have no influence (Score:5)
America has the .us domain, and thats the one congress should have influence over, not the international TLD's. This is the sort of thing that gets America accused of cultural Imperialism.
WooHoo! (Score:2)
Dot-pro? (Score:2)
I think that the
_____________________________________
Existing Country-Specific TLDs (Score:4)
In the absence of such scintillating new TLDs as .sex, .www, .web, and .now, certain buses in Santa Monica and Los Angeles, CA are now advertising .la domains (.la is a country-specific TLD for Laos, in Southeast Asia.) Amazingly, not very many people have bothered. I see several .tv domains, but the only thing I see advertised with a .la TLD is the registrar [www.la] itself.
I don't see the use of alternative TLDs really taking off until Joe "AOL User" Shmo is a little better versed in the workings of the Internet.
Just my 34 lira...
Wow, that much to apply??? (Score:5)
What the hell is ICANN doing that requires 50 G's to process an application???
Perhaps their data entry personel are making $5,000,000 / hour...
This is Congress's jurisdiction (Score:2)
That's what's good about our system: 200 years ago, no one could have known that dns servers could even exist someday. But the same constitutional principles enacted then govern now and govern well. I welcome this latest reaffirmation of the beauty of our government in action.
Let's aim that 747 their way... (Score:5)
Re:Yes, Congress gets involved (Score:3)
packwood.ex.con
rostenkowski.ex.con
tower.ex.con
We see the wheels of government (Score:5)
For a company that got put in control of the infrastructure, they are in a weird situation. The normal approach would be for ICANN to be an Executive Committee (i.e. appointed by the President), but they went with this quasi-public organization.
This has advantages and disadvantages. It mostly shields the Internet from Presidential Politics (although Evans could get Commerce back involved), and gives it more leeway, but it forces Congress and the White House to take major steps if they want changes. This prevents micromanagement, but it means that if it doesn't like the direction, it can get involved.
The wheels of government are slow but awesome. Perhaps we'll finally start realizing that government isn't obsolete, it still has the guns, and therefore rules.
Alex