United States Cedes Control of the Internet 508
greenechidna writes "The Register is reporting that the U.S. is relinquishing control of ICANN. The story states:
'In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.
Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organization ICANN, making the organization a more international body.'"
Has The Register become The Inquirer? (Score:5, Interesting)
U.S. Unlikely to Yield Web Oversight Yet
Federal officials seem inclined to extend a deadline for privatizing control of the Internet's address system.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writer
July 27, 2006
WASHINGTON -- The federal government appeared unlikely to relinquish oversight of the system for assigning and managing website domain names after a Commerce Department hearing Wednesday raised broad concerns about giving an obscure Marina del Rey nonprofit unsupervised control.
read the rest [latimes.com]
...net neutrality? (Score:2, Interesting)
Internet as a Sovereign Nation (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully though, an international body can agree to some basic tenets so that we can establish so we can limit trivial laws and lawsuits due to localized laws.
concern (Score:4, Interesting)
I must be missing something (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm just glad to see that the obvious is being recognized.
Re:Prioritized Citizenship? (Score:3, Interesting)
Domain suffix migration? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Internet as a Sovereign Nation (Score:4, Interesting)
Despite a lot of "hype" and cyberpunk novels glorifying the Internet as somehow "more than the sum of its parts" - it really boils down to being a really big wide-area network.
The "value" of the Internet can shift from "incredibly useful" to "nothing but junk" or anyplace in between, and that has to do with the quality and amount of content people choose to hang off of the ends of the network.
I think sometimes, we get too caught up in treating the "Internet" as a single entity filled with information and shared by the whole world. In reality, it's just a "grid" that allows everyone's computer equipment to interconnect (or not, as they so desire).
Rather than making this network into a "soverign nation", I think what is best is letting nations make their own decisions as to the "good" and the "bad" of interconnecting their part of the "grid" with other countries. It would be (in my opinion) unfortunate if a country like China decided they simply weren't benefiting enough from allowing traffic to and from U.S. based systems - but it'd be their leaders' option to cut themselves off from us completely if they so desired.
Indeed, this may end up happening.... Certain nations decide to break off from the "global" Internet, and only connect with specific other countries. I think, if this does happen, it will only be temporary - as they learn how much they're missing through those policies.
Uncle sam wants you ... (Score:2, Interesting)
So what does that mean now?
It means two things, piggy:
first it means that the US government can now hold someone( ICANN in this case) responsible for what happens in the internet
and second the government can now concentrate their efforts on how to tax it!
Bombs away!!! ICANN you're next!
Internet must be under UN control ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously having UN do the overall governance does not mean each countries (inc. USA) will be prohibited to push any laws to put stricter regulartion on the internet liberties.
But anyway, that is the choice of each country's citizens !
Be sure that if US do not release the full control they have on the internet, we (europe) are going to build our own sperate gouvernance (obviously incompatuble with US ones) and push this to an international body
Let's see how is US able to handle multilateralism
Re:Prioritized Citizenship? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just think about online activities. Most of them aren't country-specific anymore (I'm thinking about things like online gaming, or even here in Slashdot). Everybody is connected, no matter where do you live. I feel the way you're describing. I'm a citizen of the world, and since I've been using Internet (when it became massive here around 1995), being Chilean is just one more tag I carry. Is the place where I was born and raised. But it doesn't mean I only think about my country and I don't care about any other place. I have the impression that many U.S. ppl are just too much into their own bubbles and don't realize there are more countries outside. Like when I met my fiancee's parents (Texan people). They had a very wrong idea of what a chilean woman would be or look like. And they were impressed when they met me:P (points for me lol).
What I'm trying to say is, when everybody starts opening to the rest of the world, political limits will become just that.
Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't worry... (Score:2, Interesting)
</joke>
Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news, GP is in the running for most modded post ever. From 1 to -1 all the way up to +3.
Re:Domain suffix migration? (Score:5, Interesting)
- .mil to .mil.us .gov to .gov.us
-
Re:Holy Shit (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe you're correct, that its been blown slightly out of proportion, but it's still "The Right Thing To Do," no matter how small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I don't agree that it's become a huge issue, but if nobody complains, legislators are going to keep doing what they want.
If it does become a big issue in the media, which side do you think Americans are going to take? Its going to become another pawn issue in the Ultra-Manly U.S. Pride game and the gov't will never give it up. Personally, I agree that its wrong, but its futile and possibly a political dead-end to pursue it until it actually becomes a problem for foreign countries.
Re:Prioritized Citizenship? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, the stance of our government naturally sways with the prevailing ideologies.
Speaking as a liberal, I should take care when I characterize the position of my conservative friends. However this idea of the rights of other governments seems to me to bear on the paleoconservative/neoconservative ideological split.
The classic paleoconservative Burkean theory is that a stable government deserves a kind of deference, because it's continued stability is, ipso facto, proof that it meets the needs of its subjects or citizens. Interactions between governments are based on national interests, and while the outcome for individuals may be unfortunate (e.g. dying to obtain access to strategic resources that he as an individual may have little chance of benefiting from directly), the nation as a whole prospers. In this view, national sovereignty matters, although the sovereignty of other states can sometimes be violated in the national interest, there is an understanding that in most cases a kind of reciprocal recognition of the rights of sovereign states is important.
In practice liberal outlook on foreign policy is not altogether incompatible, although peripheral disagreements are common. Burke himself was a Whig after all, although from the conservative wing, and a sympathiser with the American Revollution. The distinguishing characteristic of a liberal is the belief that progress is possible and worth pursuing. Liberals are deeply suspicious of realpolitik, the the pursuit of naked national interest at the cost of human progress. This suspicion taints not only the end, but the means, namely military adventurism.
However, most of the time paleoconservatives and liberals aren't that dramatically different on a pragmatic level; most of the time other governments were to be left on their own, with occasional swings towards interventionism for idealistic or self-interested motives. These swings are checked by the other side, and the result was a general consensus that at times made allowances for humanitarianism, at other times pragmatism. This balance produced a consensus on the policy towards communism, the policy of containment, although at times this swung more towards military adventure than the extreme liberals wanted. It also produced the complementary policy of detente, although this smacked of appeasement to extreme conservatives. Both these policies were supported by the segments of each side that were closest to the middle.
The neconservatives, however, are a different animal altogether. They aren't conservatives or liberals. It's really unfair to the conservative side to call them neoconservatives. They're more like an amalgam of what is hated most on each side of the conservative/liberal split. They share with the most naive of the liberals a faith in their ability to create progress. They share with the most blockheaded conservative a blindness to the negative consequences of unlimited pursuit of self interest. That's it in a nutshell: neocons combine the naivte of the worst liberals combined with the blockheadeness of the worst conservative.
The natural check on the violation of soveriegn and individual rights that conservatives and liberals each have are missing from the neocon viewpoint. The liberal believes that war retards human progress. The conservative doesn't believe that human progress happens can be achieved by any deliberate plan or stratagem including war, and so will avoid war if there is no clear national interest. The neocon, however, sees war as a means by which human progress can be advanced, and so will pursue it, not so much at the deliberate cost to the national interest, but with the same faith that the progress will serve the ultimate national interest by which the liberal pursues cooperation and understanding.
Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the status quo Internet traffic is not very censored or controlled by the US and things just plain work. I think this is a very good arrangement.
Some things are matters of principle. Because the Internet is a major international information conduit, its neutrality and transparency need to be preserved at all costs. I am spooked just by the very demand of the US to maintain the upper hand "just in case"... what if someone pisses off the yanks in the future, and they choose to cause trouble? It's the same as in their military doctrine: we insist we have the right and means to kill you if we please, and you have no right for a deterrent.
A credible scenario might be, for example, the US hurting Latin America's Internet access until they elect right-wing governments. The rest of the world would be pretty powerless as they would fear reprisals from the US if they tried to interfere in any way with "America's Internet". At least if the net was governed by an international body, it would be more difficult to outright bully...
Re:Has The Register become The Inquirer? (Score:5, Interesting)
"I have to give it to ICANN. The group tried to help VeriSign to save face by asking it to voluntarily remove the service when the first request could have easily been an order and not a request. Rather than take that opportunity, VeriSign rejected ICANN's request."
ICANN took the action that had to be taken in a gradual manner that it thought was fair to Verisign. After the latter party refused to comply, they fixed the situation with an order. It should never have happened in the first place, but ICANN did everything they could have to fix the situation.
Still needs to be debated (Score:2, Interesting)
Simply saying that world sprang out of the eather yesterday and we can only focus on today is not helpful. We need to examine and come to terms with the decisions that led us to where we are. As there is a vocal group of liers in the USA who insist on fabricating the past, we must keep the debate alive until the record contains only the facts.
Kind Regards