U.S. Government Retains ICANN Oversight 87
narramissic writes "ITworld reports that the U.S. Commerce Department will retain ICANN oversight for three more years, although there will be a review in 18 months of ICANN's progress toward becoming a more stable, transparent and accountable organization. The decision comes despite international pressure advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity."
I for one... (Score:1, Funny)
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I believe accountability leads to transparency and vice-versa. The word transparency in this case doesn't mean invisible, it means the full, accurate, and timely disclosure of information. Which can be accomplished, although not always easily.
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This place has really gone to hell as UIDs approached one million.
Are you stupid, or being deliberately obtuse? Either one is annoying.
In case you're just an idiot, "fully transparent" refers to the skin of the organization, so you can look in, and see it working. It doesn't mean that the whole thing is invisible and even if it did, that would still be useful - you could see what it ate.
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Transparency [wikipedia.org] has many definitions, please review and note differences between computing, business, material, etc.
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IRS?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason they haven't totally failed is they are a legal monopoly.
Their customer service and satisfaction is horrible. Many people can't even figure out how to file their own taxes.
They can't even effectively get the money they're owed, they are outsourcing that to private collection agents.
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Re:does not compute (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, the USPS became an independent entity that receives 0 taxpayer dollars, too...
It was way worse. (Score:2)
They've gotten better and better the further they've gotten out from under the boot of Congress. I think they'd maybe almost survive in the open market today.
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NIST, the Postal Service, etc, etc. There are many examples, but your irrational US hatred blinds you to this.
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I'll grant you the "stable". You don't hear of snails usually falling over. But it is hard to call them "accountable" with the increased prices matched by decreased service, and the high level of lost mail.
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Re:does not compute (Score:5, Insightful)
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When compared to the alternative by anyone other than starry-eyed international idealists, the US Government starts to look pretty damn good.
The US Government's control has resulted in the internet being a near-perfect bastion of free speech. With all the "Hate speech" and "Don't criticize the Government" laws you see in many other countries around the world, do you th
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Post WW2 Japan
Need any more?
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I'll be here all week! Thank you!
Amtrak (Score:2)
Congress also spends billions of dollars on the Interstate Highways, yet they don't monopolize over-the-road trucking; truckers use the infrastructure and theoretically pay taxes to do so (levied on diesel fuel). We all know that they don't come close to paying for the damage they do to the infrastructure...but that's a different discussion.
If Congress tri
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One could argue that the highways repay themselves in far more ways than just that of the levy on fuels used to cross them. Transport = business = tax.
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It's better to work together than to fight. Being xenophobic never fixed any problem I know of.
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At the moment ICANN is basically pulling random domains out of its ass (.museum?
One Good thing (Score:2)
Autonomous ICANN is a disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
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*sigh* There we go again.
You don't own the internet! Some of the core protocols of the internet were invented in America. Others weren't! E.g. the World Wide Web was invented by an english man [wikipedia.org]. Can you picture the internet without the world wide web? Should Tim Berners-Lee and the British government have control over every website in existence? Does that look right to you, in the same way you think everything that runs on IP, TCP, DNS, etc. is "owned" by the USA?
Meanwhile, the fact that you invented som
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In other words, basically the same as today.
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Right, because we all know the American government has never favoured corporations in detriment of the will of the people...
I for one don't think it would be that bad. Any organisation is subject to the kind of political/economical pressures you refer to. The fact that the ICANN is autonomous, controlled by the US government, controlled by the UN or controlled by anyone else will not change that. It just determines who is the most capable of exerting that pressure.
In fact you could argue that an ICANN u
Re:One Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
ICANN is a private entity that makes decisions that affect the Internet at large with almost no public oversight as it is. They are already proposing to add a bunch more ridiculous TLDs to fund their enormous proposed budget increases. It has become clear that new TLDs are not intended to improve the Internet, but are rather ICANN's license to print money. How would things be better if they no longer had anyone to answer to for that sort of garbage?
Sure, the US government is not great at oversight with regard to technical matters, but it's a lot better than no oversight at all. Given the hatred of the UN on this site, I'm sure no one would ever want ICANN to be brought under their influence, but some sort of international governing body would be a good thing. At this point, the UN is the closes thing we have to something like that.
Bringing ICANN under international control and creating more opportunity for the public at large to influence their decision making would be a step in the right direction. Ending what little oversight the organization currently has with nothing to replace it is a step in the wrong direction.
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In that case you need'nt worry.We know which country has the max influence on UN!
Weird Weird! (Score:2)
Duh!
I wonder though... (Score:1, Insightful)
I mean, what's the alternative? Putting it under control of the UN, like WIPO [wikipedia.org]?
Would that really be better or would it just give people warm, fuzzy feelings?
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At least it wouldn't give people the feeling that the USA likes to stick their nose in all matters and have control of everything under the sun...
We seem to agree, here on Slashdot, that the relative "anarchy" inherent to the way the internet works is a good thing, and that government control over it should be kept to a minimum. Why, then, do some people insist that the American government keep control over something as important to the internet as the ICANN? It would be the same as giving them the power
You want an ICANN Nation? (Score:5, Informative)
A totally autonomous entity? You want to make ICANN it's own individual nation? The Internet should be run by a stateless corporation who is completely outside the authority of any government at all? That's straight out of a cyberpunk novel
I thought the argument was to place ICANN under the authority of the UN, which is a completely different idea then making "ICANN a totally autonomous entity".
This is the meat of the argument, right? Should ICANN be under US authority or should it be under UN authority?
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It's a collection of government representatives, designed to hammer out global treaties and generally avoid another world war.
The most powerful government in the UN *by far* is the US - so if it's corrupt you know exactly where to look.
(I saw a programme the other day in which they said the reason the US hates the UN so much is because it's run by fundies who are convinced that the UN is the antichrist
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I thought the argument was to place ICANN under the authority of the UN, which is a completely different idea then making "ICANN a totally autonomous entity".
This is the meat of the argument, right? Should ICANN be under US authority or should it be under UN authority?
And of course, at this point, the thread turns to UN bashing, without stopping to think that, hey, the UN actually already runs a global adressing system - or rather, the international telecommunications union does. And it plods along just fin
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The U.N. is simply a nationalist concept that is extended to the world. We have taken the model of social organization that was really a product of 19th century imperialism, and are constantly trying to re-adopt it to the modern wor
who do you want to control ICANN? (Score:2)
This is the meat of the argument, right? Should ICANN be under US authority or should it be under UN authority?
Of the two, I'd rather see it under US control. With the exception of the .xxx domain the US hasn't done much to control how or where the internet goes, that I know of. If the UN gets control though Cuba, North Korea, and others will try to grab control of the whole thing. I'd rather see it stay pretty much open and not closed.
FalconInternational pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Good. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (Score:1)
It would be a shame to turn over control of it to an organization (UN) even more beaurocratic, bloated and useless than the US Government, as they would likely regulate the internet into the ground.
But It Will Break (Score:2, Insightful)
And what is the US going to do to it? The country doesn't even abide by habeas corpus anymore. People can be dragged off in the middle of the night never to be seen again. It's becoming a theocracy and most Americans seem quite contented with this. And you want this nation to administer DNS for the entire globe?
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Sure there is. One is your imagination running wild, and the other is shit the chinese prove every day. The third option, the UN, is the devil you don't know (with respect to this issue), and I think we all know that canard, eh? Considering that everyone turns a blind eye to UN troops turning refugee camps into child brothels, among other things, I'd say the whole organization is suspect.
The US i
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You're new to this planet aren't you? :)
no way!! (Score:1, Insightful)
For gods sake think of the children/terrorists/economic situation (delete as appropriate)we can't let an organisation comprised of non-americans have any power, they might do something we don't like
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That has to be the most absurd statement I have seen in a long time. The only domain blocking (read squashing of free speech rights) we see on the internet is in countries where the ruling reg
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Very rarely, if at all, will anyone in authority give up that power without a fight.
I actually think the UN would do a very good and impartial job (no doubt I'll get flamed by the irrational UN haters). I no longer trust the US administration to be on the side of free speech and fairness ( and yes it is fairer and supports free spee
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How much control the US government has through ICANN't is quite literally overstated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root [wikipedia.org]
Anyone can set up a root server, intercept the DNS, if not resolved then forward it to exist ICANN supported root. In fact, China actively does this see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4767972.stm [bbc.co.uk]
China is doing it because ICANN is unenforceable they choose to be different and are serious. If Vixie and other
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ICANN's own press release plays up autonomy (Score:2)
Who paid for it? (Score:1)
Agreement Between ICANN and US Dept of Commerce (Score:1)