Remember when the organization in charge of .org domain names traditionally used by non-profits decided to sell itself to a for-profit company? It surprised everyone because up to that point, there was little indication that the Internet Society (ISOC) was shopping the Public Interest Registry (PIR) for sale. Among those surprised, it appears, was ICANN, the organization that oversees the internet’s top-level domains, which now says it is “uncomfortable” with the lack of transparency around the deal and wants ISOC to pump the brakes.
“ICANN’s role is to ensure that the .org top-level domain remains secure, reliable, and stable under the proposed acquisition of Public Interest Registry (PIR) by Ethos Capital,” Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO, said in a statement to The Verge. “We also urge transparency, which is why we sent the 9 December correspondence to PIR and the Internet Society (ISOC).”
This whole saga is a stark reminder that the internet and world wide web are mostly under corporate control, in a thick and complicated web of government agencies and private interests.
What language is that? Not very helpfull.
Now that’s an interest question Thom: Would you prefer the internet to be under the control of a complicated web of government agencies, non-profits and private interests, or under the direct control of a single government agency like free-to-air television is? To put it in plain English, would you want the FCC or Ofcom to control the DNS servers you rely on? How about also controlling the IPs you can access (including alternative DNS servers and VPNs)?
Most people forget that in order to use their VPN service, they have to be given access to the real internet by their ISP (instead of a pre-approved list of IPs)
True, most of my life I would have said FCC, but these days I trust government over corps full stop. I think we should develop something like Ofcom in the US. Self regulation and self management by the industry like the US practices is fool-hearty based on the track records and hurts corps in the long run even if some might lose in the micro/short term. Just look at Boeing, industry simply cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. It’s not even a matter of them being bad people etc. just the societal goals of regulation is at odds with their personal goals of profit. The party regulating can’t be the same party profiting (or connected in a complicated web) or one goal or the other will give eventually when they are at odds, and if a life threatening case, people may die.
I can make a similar argument for the government: The party that has to benefit from silencing freedom of speech (that is, the government and the politicians that run it) can’t be the same as the party that has full power to silence mediums for speech (such as the internet).
Considering how the FCC and OfCom have a history of silencing works of art they find “deviant”/”too lewd” and how some politicians try to use “hate speech” to silence the opposition (in both ends of the political spectrum, let’s not forget that Germany tries to ban AfD under “hate speech” and some ex-communist countries have banned communist parties from running because they consider communism to be “hate speech”), I wouldn’t want the FCC or Ofcom anywhere close to the internet. I believe the internet can be free BECAUSE it’s relatively far away from the government’s reach and instead is “under the control of a complicated web of government agencies, non-profits and private interests”.
To further my point:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/14/first-ads-banned-for-contravening-gender-stereotyping-rules
https://qz.com/1687913/uk-bans-volkswagen-and-philadelphia-ads-over-gender-stereotypes/
I don’t want Ofcom controlling the DNS servers I use or controlling which IPs are resolvable from my router (which again, might not be a restriction you can bypass if the ISPs are forced to allow only a pre-approved list of IPs to be routable and these IPs don’t include any VPNs), because where there is Ofcom, the Advertising Standards Authority usually comes as an extra.
I ‘d take the “complicated web of government agencies, non-profits and private interests” any day over Ofcom having complete control over my internet, thank you.
Planes and cars are different. Government regulation there is welcome.
Yea it’s not appealing, I don’t want anyone controlling my DNS servers but I don’t dictate reality, ISPs control our access to the internet and they don’t answer to us. If the choice is between government and private sector, either direct or indirect, I will take government. They at least will just keep my personal data in a file somewhere, instead of selling it to every criminal in the world (as well as the US or other gov of course) or a Cambridge Analytica.
Government agencies are absolutely critical for corporate oversight, whether it’s the FDA, FCC, CDA, DOE, etc. The problem isn’t regulation per say, it’s that the regulators and politicians need to be accountable to the people. In a democracy politicians are supposed to represent us, they’re not supposed boss us around in terms of personal liberties and tell individuals what they’re allowed to say and do. It’s cliche, but technically they’re supposed to work for us. Too often they succumb to corruption and fail their public service duties by pushing their own interests.
This whitehouse is appointing some of the most corrupt individuals ever to run the government in order to let corporations oversee themselves. The FCC is a prime example of this. If democracy mattered, we’d still have net neutrality in the US today. Once corporations take over government, true democracy ends. We’re becoming a full fledged corporatocracy.
Agreed.