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 organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body. Update: Ars contradicts El Reg’s claims: “Contrary to some reports, things are not about to change. After a meeting at the Commerce Department, Acting Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, John M.R. Kneuer, said that the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year.”
Posted on ars, found via BoingBoing: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060727-7366.html
To summarize, it says that it looks like the US is NOT letting go control.
Edited 2006-07-27 22:10
I am a US citizen, but I cannot see as to how it is fair for the US to control ICANN, it is time that the US learns it is a player in the world, not the leader of it.
That’s a very simplistic view of the world. The US provides numerous services to the world, voluntarily. The internet is one example, so is the GPS constellation used by all civilian GPS services. The US dollar lubricates transactions internationally (1), and US power insulates European foreign policy from the vargacies of world politics (2).
In the case of the internet specifically: the US invented it, the US laid a lot of the basic infrastructure for it, and American companies still own its major backbones. I agree it would be a good faith gesture on the part of the US, at a time when its poor foreign policy has hurt its image abroad, but don’t misunderstand the issue. It is the prerogative of the United States to cede control of the internet, and any such gesture would be a gift, not an obligation.
(1) Though the Euro is slowly supplanting the dollar in this regard, its a far way from replacing it.
(2) Compare the complexity of European politics pre WWII to that of European politics post WWII.
In the case of the internet specifically: the US invented it,
Amongst other things, the following were invented or dicovered by the British:
Electricity (Michael Faraday)
The telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)
The television (John Logie Baird)
The jet engine (Sir Frank Whittle)
The computer (Charles Babbage/Ada Lovelace/Alan Turing)
Public-key cryptography (Clifford Cocks)
The world-wide web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee)
The flush toilet (Thomas Crapper)
On behalf of Her Majesty, we hereby revoke your right to use such inventions and discoveries. Furthermore, anyone else peddaling the idiotic notion that the country that invents something has a right to tell the world how to use it will also have their rights revoked.
Have a nice day.
First, the list of “inventions” is somewhat off. Why does Faraday get any more of a claim on electricity than Franklin, or for that matter, Maxwell? As for Bell, he moved to the United States early in his life, and invented the telephone while in the US. As for computers — the US has done most of the development of the computer as we know it today. Almost all of the most influential computer companies in history are American.
Moreover, it ignores a key aspect of the situation. The inventions you name were by and large created by individuals. Therefore, while its hard to argue that England has special rights over the jet engine, it’s quite obvious that Mr. Whittle does. The era of individual inventors is largely over. These days, innovation and progress is a very expensive proposition, and a lot of it is paid with public funds. The US spends more money than any other entity on the planet on R&D, and shares a lot of the results with the world. DARPA spends about $2bn a year on the kind of pie in the sky projects that occasionally result in something like the internet. In a very real sense, these inventions were not just created by individuals who happen to be American, but were paid for by the American people. I’m all for sharing that technology with the rest of the world, but I resent the idea that the world is automatically entitled to that technology.
The list was not meant to be entirely serious. I don’t think Thomas Crapper actually invented the toilet — his name just became attached to it around the turn of the last century.
But the point does stand. In the specific example of the jet engine, Whittle eventually managed to attract the attention of the UK Air Ministry, who funded the major development of it. Right through the fifties, most of the world’s jet engines were based on Whittle’s designs, and the R&D work done at his factories during the war (as paid for by the UK government).
Similarly, with regard to computers, major early work was done in the forties at Blechley Park, and in the fifties at Manchester University, both of which were funded by the UK government (who also paid Turing, until they decided to bump him off).
Tim Berners-Lee’s work on the WWW, developing web servers and web browsers, the HTTP protocol and so forth, was funded by CERN. By your argument, CERN (and therefore the European countries that contribute to that organisation) should be able to rule on the direction of the web, and who gets to use it. Thankfully, that’s not the case.
Clifford Cocks was working for the UK government’s top-secret GCHQ when he (literally overnight!) developed the RSA algorithm, several years before Rivest et al. Due to the nature of his employment, it was never publicised. But even if it had been, I don’t think anyone would try to argue that the UK government should be allowed to decide who gets to encrypt their Internet traffic.
Many Americans complain that they are disliked by the rest of the world. I’m afraid that it’s often true, and it’s due to the attitude you’re demonstrating in your posts. There really is nothing special about the United States: it’s just another country. Yes, right now it happens to be the most important one in the world. But so was Britain for about 200 years. In another 30 it might be China, or it might be the EU (if that can be thought of as a single entity). What annoys those from other nations (and particularly the French, it seems), is the completely overblown sense of national pride that’s demonstrated by many US citizens, particularly those to the right of the political spectrum (although in world terms, the Democratic party is at most centrist, and certainly not to the left).
In short, there are many americans who would do well to remember that for all their current financial and military superiority over the rest of the globe, they still only represent 5% of the world’s population.
[Also, as an aside, I’d like to point out that Britain and England are not synonymous. While England is by far the largest region within the UK, geographically and in terms of population, Scotland and Wales (and Northern Ireland, sort of) are in there as well. Indeed, our next Prime Minister is likely to be a Scot.]
What annoys those from other nations (and particularly the French, it seems), is the completely overblown sense of national pride that’s demonstrated by many US citizens
If I were a US citizen I wouldn’t worry about that too much, as the French have an overblown sense of national pride as well.
As for the topic, I do not have the slightest problem with the way things are right now. It’s not like the internet stops working if the US decides to take their ball and go home, which they’ll never do. I don’t see what the problem is.
I think for you English speakers this is a minor topic, but there’re six thousand millions of people out there who can’t write the name of their personal webpage in their own language (for example) because someone setting up the root nameservers decided that with prehistorical 7-bit US-ASCII characters it would be enough. Now we have some kind of workarounds for this, but they’re hacks.
I don’t see how that is the problem of the US “owning” the internet. Individual ISP’s are the problem there. We maintain our own servers/sites. We have begun internationalizing our site, even tho’ it is primarily for copyright use in the US… we still share responsibility in a group with other copyright organizations throughout the world.
There really is nothing special about the United States: it’s just another country.
But it isn’t just another country. It has been the single biggest contributer to world technology and scientific advancement over the last century. I think that deserves a less hostile tone than many are taking with regards to the ICANN debate. Especially considering that the internet isn’t just a technology the US invented, but an infrastructure the core of which the US built and still maintains.
Yes, right now it happens to be the most important one in the world. But so was Britain for about 200 years
No doubt, power changes hands relatively regularly on the world stage. But the US is a very different beast than the world powers that proceeded it. It’s the first world power that even pretends to care about the well-being of the international community. The UN is an American invention — the brainchild of an idealistic American president. Its policies often falls far short of its stated goals, but the US doesn’t just consist of the cadre of politicians who wanted to bomb Iraq. USAID is still the largest provider of foreign aid in the world. The NSF, DoE, and DoD are still among the biggest contributers to scientific resarch in the world. American universities, which recieve a significant portion of their funding from government projects, are still as a whole at the forefront of scientific progress in most important fields.
Good comment – hey I learned something –
– next prime minister ? – Tony Blair to the shame of us I guess in Scotland – is Scottish AFAIK – okay Im actually German and a bit Scottish – well half or a third or …& actually here just on holiday 
– but Scottish Independance might soon come – 
8)
But good comment – interesting – IMO
The list was not meant to be entirely serious. I don’t think Thomas Crapper actually invented the toilet — his name just became attached to it around the turn of the last century.
Ah the typical “spout a lot of BS and then claim it cant be criticised because it wasnt serious” technique. Regardless, your list is pretty flawed.
For instance, I can’t say I would give anyone credit for “inventing electricity” (Maxwell if I was forced to), but how about electrical infrastructure? Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla come to mind, and they were all American citizens.
Baird did not invent electronic television. He used the mechanical spinning disk method. Electronic television with cathode ray tubes was invented in America by Farnsworth or Zworykin.
Also, Europeans are left with the nice bonus of being second adopters on said technologies, and thus having slightly improved systems. Engineering-wise I like 240V mains and PAL — but remember that without someone else starting with 120V mains, wacky 3 phase voltage relationships, and NTSC, you would not have such improvements
(edit to correct grammar)
Edited 2006-07-29 14:38
The jet engine was invented by romanian Henry Coanda in 1910.
That reminds me of Star Trek… when Checkov always credits a Russian as the inventor of [insert product here].
(I am not saying I don’t believe you either… It just struck me as funny as everyone here is arguing).
UH, you should read the following:
“Charles Babbage (1792 – 1871)
Charles Babbage’s greatest claim to fame is that he didn’t build the world’s first computer – although he sure tried hard enough.
Babbage was something of a zealot in the cause of mathematical accuracy – this was a man who once wrote to poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and demanded he change the lines: “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born” to “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one and one-sixteenth is born”.
But in spite of his eccentricities (Babbage also nurtured an almost pathological hatred of organ grinders), he almost, almost, became the first man to invent the modern computer.”
http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/babbage.htm
And Public Key encryption seems to have been invented by three people, at least one of whom was an Aussie.
Anyway, in some cases it is really hard to figure out who first thought of what. In any event, it is clear that the internet in its present day owes a lot to DARPA and the US in general. As mentioned by several posters, I really don’t care who controls it, but the old adage applies here: If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If you think things can’t be worse wait until 200 different countries get a piece of the pie.
Amongst other things, the following were invented or dicovered by the British:
Electricity (Michael Faraday)
The telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)
The television (John Logie Baird)
The jet engine (Sir Frank Whittle)
The computer (Charles Babbage/Ada Lovelace/Alan Turing)
Public-key cryptography (Clifford Cocks)
The world-wide web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee)
The flush toilet (Thomas Crapper)
On behalf of Her Majesty, we hereby revoke your right to use such inventions and discoveries. Furthermore, anyone else peddaling the idiotic notion that the country that invents something has a right to tell the world how to use it will also have their rights revoked.
You see, this is where your hatred of the US has clouded up your ability to compare apples to apples.
Are we demanding that we have control of YOUR electrical companies?
Am I saying that I should have control of YOUR television that you have at your house?
Am I saying that we should have all of your jet planes?
Am I saying that I should have control of your YOUR computer?
Am I saying all of YOUR keys belong to me?
Bernes-Lee? Yeah, okay. DARPA! Thanks, but nice try.
Am I saying that I should have control of YOUR toilet?
Apples and Oranges mate. We were free to use the technology to design our own, correct? Just as the rest of the world is free to use the technology to design their own Internet. That’s the apples to apples comparison that you’ve failed so miserable to make.
“Amongst other things, the following were invented or dicovered by the British:
Electricity (Michael Faraday)”
Actually Ben Franklin discovered it existed. Faraday did do great work on magnetism and such though. Definitely contributed to how it is today.
“The telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)”
Actually Alexander was Scottish, not British, being born in Edinburgh. He did not invent anything however until after he became a US Citizen residing in Boston. So the telephone was developed by the US, not the British.
The rest are all good though
Off topic: The jet plane was invented by romanian Henry Coandă.
On topic: The internet was not invented in US, it was a sum of networks evolving in to what we call now internet.
Electricity (Michael Faraday)”
Actually Ben Franklin discovered it existed. Faraday did do great work on magnetism and such though. Definitely contributed to how it is today.
If we’re getting pedantic, the ancient greeks already discovered electricity as such.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/ElectroMagnet.htm
Anyway, this discussion isn’t going anywhere. Who invented what first is not an external source of a value-derivation. It’s about what you do with it, not about ancestral rights.
Europe has implemented their own GPS system recently mainly to avoid the control the U.S. military has on GPS.
Also, in response to other posts about a non-profit controlling the Internet. We have allot of problems like Google mapping privacy invasion and Wikipeida errors that other world leaders are complaining about, and how the U.S. dictates the policy ultimately.
Where should this be discussed? With a back room handshake with a corporate or government money machine, at the U.N. then? or at ICANN in an open and transparent way. I prefer ICANN over the U.N. The U.N. will just make larger and larger demands I think it’s in everyones interest to maybe hand over control to ICANN.
Essentially we could have other dictators running the Internet if the U.S. feels they need to cover face. like a game.
Removed double post.
Edited 2006-07-28 00:53
As an American Marine who has served in Desert Storm, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Our country needs to be more cooperative with the rest of the world, (espesially our allies), to be more of a global player.
I personally think that ICANN should have representives from as many countries as would be willing to be members; this way EVERYBODY (or nearly everybody) could have a say in what exactly governs the internet.
/my 2 pounds sterling.
“As an American Marine who has served in Desert Storm, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Our country needs to be more cooperative with the rest of the world, (espesially our allies), to be more of a global player.
I personally think that ICANN should have representives from as many countries as would be willing to be members; this way EVERYBODY (or nearly everybody) could have a say in what exactly governs the internet.”
I agree with you as I think we can still maintain certain ownership and ICANN is located in the U.S. Even if people invent stuff they do it within a community. What does inception have to do with ownership? Allot of people will argue thet God invents everything but he doesn’t weant us to be robots. I think ICANN is a very American institution and patriotic. I like ICANN becase it’;s in Silicon Valley and it should stay there. The reason everyone is hot and bothered about patriotism is that we are losing it because of globalazation, but there is a way to maintain it with localazation. Everyone is bothered about it not just here.
It looks like we are handing control over to ICANN but it will take a year, like with Java, as read on Ars. WOW! Interesting.
Also with this new major NSA spying program that seems like it is is never-ending, even with no war going on. Do we want another country like China to make a back room deals with the U.S. and spy on us? Do other countries want the U.S. to spy on them? It needs to be more open and neutral.
The NET neutrality debate doesn’t make allot of sense just within the scope of one country. More democrats want openness but they only seem to want it on a country by country basis and that includes the U.N.; which I don’t think is as powerful anymore.
Imagine a future Utopia society where we are one humanity in outer-space. We need to be one system and we can still have localization but it should not rule all. We aren’t local anymore. In early history we were more local but now with people going back and forth we need to re-localize ourselves but universally.
I don’t care so much about the U.S (it’s OK, the flag is nice if it wasn’t being burnt like every weekend), but more about America. The U.S. institution has changed like any other government throughout history. I care about my culture and the area I live in. The original Pilgrims. The original Pilgrims came here for religious freedom. I don’t think a flag and a few pictures of Uncle Sam defines everything I am. I am just tired of everything being dictated by these sub continental entities and not the people. We could be re-locking ourselves back into Europe if we continue to worship these large static entities and not our original intent.
“Imagine a future Utopia society where we are one humanity in outer-space.”
WOW! What are YOU smokin’? You sellin’?
<begin sarcasm> Yeah, what a great idea. Look how well the United Nations worked out. <end sarcasm>
Is something wrong with the Internet? The Internet is a US product. Why shouldn’t they lead the direction of the Internet? I realize the popular thing to do these days is to bash the US, but this is just stupidity. There is nothing wrong with what the US has done with the Internet. Sure, the pedophiles are upset because they didn’t get their prOn domain of xxx. The Internet isn’t a place to get your jollies off at. It’s an economic product, and thus should be treated as so. I, for one, am really hoping and praying that the Internet splits off, and the European and Asian countries get their own Internet. We’ll see how far that lasts with all of the censorship that’ll take place, not to mention the taxes levied by European countries (several have really been drueling about taxing emails).
Lets put it this way. You buy a car. You rely on the car for work. Then, people ask to start car pooling with you. You continue to pay for the majority of the upkeep of the car, the car note, oil changes, etc.. Then, one day, those that you were giving a ride to for just pennies decided that they should have an equal ownership of the car because they started relying on YOUR car so much. Tell me how that makes even the tiniest bit of sense.
If icann is what i think it is there goes all the good stuff on the internet and where left with religous crap. When will the us stop acting like a spolied little rich brat. Let the world have some control on what goes on with it.
“If icann is what i think it is there goes all the good stuff on the internet and where left with religous crap. When will the us stop acting like a spolied little rich brat. Let the world have some control on what goes on with it.”
ICANN already controls the internet, in the sense they are the ones who assign IP addressing and maintain the DNS servers. They have no control over any content, so the internet would go on as it has been, with the “good stuff” untouched. The US should give up control of it, but just remember it would not exist without the US, so is almost like a parent giving up it’s child. Who do you think developed it initially?
“so is almost like a parent giving up it’s child”
I think you overplayed that one, huh? Tim Berners-Lee “gave up” the WWW (although his organisation, the W3C still controls it, it’s an international thing).
I’m not really sure what difference it makes to anyone anyway, so I don’t know why the US clings on to this. It would be a nice gesture to let others have a say.
I do know that ICANN hasn’t exactly made a great job of handing out domain names, turning it into this bizarre identity market place that makes vanity license plates seem positively sensible.
“I think you overplayed that one, huh? Tim Berners-Lee “gave up” the WWW (although his organisation, the W3C still controls it, it’s an international thing).”
Yeah, I did lol. Was in a mood
Tim Berners-Lee “gave up” the WWW
Tim Berners-Lee is not a government agency and WWW was not created by the government but the Internet was! And we know that governments never want to give up control on anything!
I hope it becomes more international, but if it operated like the UN, WTO, INF and other international orgs we in for a bumpy ride. 🙁
Ummm, durrr…the US has controlled ICANN since the inception of the internet, and all the “good stuff” is still there. ICANN has nothing to do with content, just with DNS and IP address assigning. How does this change anything exactly?
…over to Kim Jung Il?
lets not go down the whole who invented path… or for that sake the lets hand it over to [insert favorite country] statements – we’ve heard them all and they are still childish and naive.
Edited 2006-07-27 23:43
I hope this happens soon. ICANN is currently hopeless. They leave so many holes open for scammers. They need to take a cue from EURid.
I hope this happens soon. ICANN is currently hopeless. They leave so many holes open for scammers. They need to take a cue from EURid.
Cue from EURid? You sure?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2129650,00.html
no as in:
http://www.eurid.eu/en/general/news/eurid-suspends-74-000-eu-domain…
Thanks, Matzon. That’s exactly what I was referring to.
There seems to be much ballyhooing about the need for the US to give up control, but as the ars article pointed out, the countries involved all have different opinions of how that should play out.
I don’t think the situation with ICANN is exactly ideal, but I’ve also yet to see a solid, rational, well thought-out proposal on an alternative that would prove more effective under multi-lateral control.
Until I see a credible alternative instead of politicking, I’m quite content to stick with the status quo because it works well enough. I don’t want to see the internet break just because US-bashing is particularly in vogue right now.
As a side note, I’ll admit it would be nice if ICANN pulled their collective head out of their collective @ss and dealt with the domain name issue, it’s not like it hasn’t been brought to their attention. Facilitating scamming doesn’t help much with the credibility issue. But I’m not convinced problems like that would cease to exist under an international body. In fact I could imagine them being worse under additional layers of bureaucracy.
Just my 2c…
Can we please stop with the blow by blow about how the EVIL US EMPIRE OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION is DESTROYING THE INTERNET?
I know everybody wants a piece of the dns-control pie, but really, is there ANY problem with things right now? If not, then just suck it up and wait till your country of choice is finally in control of 2% of the root file, or whatever it might be.
I didn’t see any of you moaning 5 years ago, let alone 10 years ago about this. Why is it suddenly such a big issue? Other than your country’s mainstream media deciding how evil the US is and anything the US has control over must be split amongst all countries on earth.
Say what you like about how it should be could be would be – whatever – that’s fine. I’m not arguing any of that, I’m not saying anything bad or good about any countries. I’m simply saying right now things are running fine, they have been running fine, and likely will continue to run fine. Like most things in government, it’s going to be a while till it’s how YOU want it. If it starts actually *affecting* you (or me) I’ll be right there with you shouting to distribute control. As it isn’t, however, I’d rather it just continue to run how it is so *I* don’t have to put up with service disruptions due to clashing countries deciding to have electronic warfare with each other in the pretense of “oops it was a technical glitch.”
Have fun and all, but it’s hard to believe something nobody had a problem with 5 years is suddenly such a huge issue it needs to be sorted out NOW or the WORLD WILL END. (Sensationalist media has done this to the entire world, it’s disgusting, and I hate it with a passion.)
…rember back a few months ago when the wanted to asign all porn related sites with xxx so that way it would be easier to block such sites. Html was created by a England man(i think), do you see England controling how sites should be render.
That’s not entirely the same thing. HTML isn’t a physical thing that costs money to maintain, like the root nameservers. It’s a specification. The closest analogue would be TCP/IP , which is actually a much more complicated technology than HTML, and which DARPA spent a lot of money to create, and which the US has allowed the world to use freely.
Edited 2006-07-28 01:16
if everything is fine why US dont cooperate to make that better? :/ u know… democracy is always a better state.
How is the US controlling the root name servers undemocratic? I understand what you’re trying to get at, but the US not letting others control the root nameservers isn’t any more undemocratic than not allowing foreigners to vote in US elections.
I think what you mean is that international cooperation is better than the lack thereof, which is an argument that can be made.
“How is the US controlling the root name servers undemocratic?”
By vetoing the .xxx case ?
They should have proposed it as .sex, not .xxx.
Make *what* better though. Giving every country who wants it control of a portion of the root zone file or whatever isn’t going to make my surfing experience any better, nor is it going to improve yours. It does have the potential of making it worse though. The only reason for the change is idealogical, it makes countries _feel_ better to have some control over things. I can understand that, I’m human, and I enjoy control over my life. I just don’t know why the sudden media blitz and all this backlash and urgent DEMAND for it to occur *yesterday*. Nobody has given any good reasons yet, and there are plenty of reasons why it may not be a good idea in the short-term. It’s a neutral idea in the long-run, it really makes no difference, just short term consequences might cause issues (I want to avoid those, personally.)
To be honest, I don’t care if the control gets split to 200 countries or not as long as:
a) It continues working just as well, or better
b) Nobody screws with censorship or anything dumb like that
c) I don’t have to pay more tax to support another foreign governing body (UN being a good example.)
d) People will stop WHINING about it/about the USA.
To be honest, I don’t care if the control gets split to 200 countries or not as long as:
a) It continues working just as well, or better
b) Nobody screws with censorship or anything dumb like that
c) I don’t have to pay more tax to support another foreign governing body (UN being a good example.)
d) People will stop WHINING about it/about the USA.
Totally agree. If you want to see how this would NOT work well, just look at those countries, that are free and democratic, and yet, you can’t get a domain unless you have a company? What utter bullshit.
Whatever you might think about the US, .com, .org, .net domains are available to EVERYBOD, whether they have a company or not, whether they are citizens of the US or not – in fact, even Saddam can register his domain under .org, if he wishes so.
So in spite of any criticism you might have of the US, their internet domain policies beat those of my beloved country Finland (for example. There are much worse, also).
“In the case of the internet specifically: the US invented it, the US laid a lot of the basic infrastructure for it”
And? “The Internet” is no different from any other concept. Who invented, say, railroads? Surely not the U.S. Would you want to give up control of your railroads to whatever country it was first invented?
Didn’t think so and this is no different.
“American companies still own its major backbones.”
Yeah, because U.S companies really owns all the major backbones in Europe and Asia. No wait, they don’t.
“It is the prerogative of the United States to cede control of the internet”
Uh, no it’s not. Since it doesnt belong to you it’s not your to give up. Sure, you did the initial development of certain parts of it but all you own are your own parts.
“US power insulates European foreign policy from the vargacies of world politics (2).”
This has nothing to do with the internet.
The internet isn’t a concept. At least, this debate is not about the internet as a concept. It’s about the core of the internet (specifically the root name services), which is a physical piece of infrastructure, like the GPS satillite constellation. We invented that physical infrastructure, built it, and have maintained it all these years. Of course its our prerogative to cede control of it!
“We invented that physical infrastructure, built it, and have maintained it all these years.”
I would probably help if you understood how the DNS system works. The “U.S” does not operate or maintain any infrastructure for the DNS system, it is maintained and operated by companies, not all of them U.S companies. For example, the “i” root server is operated and maintained by a swedish company with anycast servers at sites all over the world, “m” is maintained and operated by the Japanese WIDE project and “k” by RIPE. The only thing ICANN/U.S is doing is some management and coordinating functions.
Also, you didnt invent the physical infrastructure, “only” the DNS protocol. While it is true that most of the initial infrastructure was built by U.S companies and located inside the U.S this is no longer the case.
The Internet does no longer need the U.S, the U.S needs the Internet.
Edited 2006-07-29 09:14
Great post tristan. Spot on mate!
“By vetoing the .xxx case ?”
Since the .xxx domain was an amazingly retarded idea to begin with it’s a good thing it didnt become a reality.
well, I beg to differ.
Creating an .xxx domain, I would be able to relatively easily create a porn filter for my kids. Now I know that it wouldn’t work 100% well, but at least its way better than what I have now! Especially if companies were forced to using .xxx domains.
besides – .xxx isn’t any more stupid than .info, .mobi and so forth…
It kind of amuses me that people think the U.S “controls” the internet. As junior above said, it’s not like it stops working if the U.S “take their ball and go home”. The only thing that happen is that there’ll be a slight shortage of transcontinental bandwidth for some time while the non-U.S carriers (Asia Netcom, BT, France Telecom, NTT, Telstra etc etc) upgrades the links that aren’t going via the U.S and yes, there are already transcontinental links that are not owned by U.S companies.
So it would appear that the U.S influence is limited to vetoing new TLD’s and deciding on what RIR is allocated what address space. It’s not like that enables them to shut down the Internet.
Replacing ICANN with an international body is the right thing to do but as bad a job as ICANN is doing the current situation isn’t all that dire and the Internet is not going to stop working any time soon (at least not for any of these reasons).
Waiting another year isn’t going to kill us.
This is getting off-topic.
“Creating an .xxx domain, I would be able to relatively easily create a porn filter for my kids.”
Yes, and that’s why it wouldn’t work. Do you think that the pornsite operators actually *want* that their sites can be easily filtered? Hint, they don’t.
Who would decide what porn is anyway? The U.S? The Vatican? Pakistan? Holland? Japan?
“Especially if companies were forced to using .xxx domains.”
The thing is that it isn’t, and won’t be, possible to force them.
“besides – .xxx isn’t any more stupid than .info, .mobi and so forth…”
It’s more stupid since it’s intended purpose isn’t practically possible.
“Who would decide what porn is anyway?”
Those filters do their job pretty much well deciding which is a porn site.
Oh,and who decide what organization is to deserve a .org domain? so for .net.com etc.
I mean everyone register his site with whatever domain he wants. Thats the right control that US offer?
Once it will be over, the transition will give some air to the ICANN administrator. The pressure they had by the US governement was disgusting to a foreigner point of view. The ICANN should be an international organisation as it take decision for the whole world and not just the US. Take the XXX domain. The porn industry lobbied the US governement for this domain not to happen, because they feared that they could be obligated to use only this domain. In my own, I think this would be a great idea, because it could ease child protecting and people who like to view porn wouldn’t mind to type an .xxx instead of a .com
“In my own, I think this would be a great idea, because it could ease child protecting and people who like to view porn wouldn’t mind to type an .xxx instead of a .com”
The only problem there is then the kids will know exactly where to go. Type in anything.xxx and they are assured of seeing the porn they want to get to anyway.
I did some searching, and stumbled upon this article. It’s written by a libertarian institute, but it makes a lot of sense regardless:
http://www.mises.org/story/2256
It’s about the ‘series of tubes’ comments by Senator Stevens. It also makes a good case why Net Neutrality would mean government intervention, as opposed to the alternative.
(Of course, belief in the desirability of a fully privatised internet is slightly inherent to being libertarian, but that’s another story)
“It’s written by a libertarian institute, but it makes a lot of sense regardless: ”
HEY! I’m a libertarian.
HEY! I’m a libertarian.
I’m sorry. But I can’t help you there
“Especially considering that the internet isn’t just a technology the US invented, but an infrastructure the core of which the US built and still maintains.”
The same time US was inventing internet and such technologies Europe was trying to stand up after WW2 but of course European projects like cern gave a great contribution. Sorry to say this, but you cant have the control of the inventions that succeed and for everything else that damaged world like nuclear power just throw it away and ask for attendance of other nations.
“It’s the first world power that even pretends to care about the well-being of the international community.”
Do you like someone who pretends? :/
“Am I saying that I should have control of your YOUR computer? ”
Patents… remember?
Oh and electrical companies need oil.Same jet planes to fly. Whats oil’s price before and after Iraq attacks? US actions affect everyone… You are not alone in this world.
…going on here.
Let’s face it, we are all biased in one way or another. I don’t think the change of hands will happen this year, but you folks do realize it WILL happen. Just be a little patient.
Switching to a globally run organization like that is probably better in the long run, but can anyone think of some reasons why it will NOT be better in the short run?
I think perhaps they should consider beginning to include panelists/members from other, non-English speaking nations…
“Not one of the 11 panel members, nor any of the 22 people that spoke during the meeting, had anything but English as their first language.”
I also agree with other comments in the article, stuff like the meeting minutes and providing a sort of “globalized (Oh, sorry, globalised)” responsibility to keep it’s “users” apprised of its goings-on.
It seems no one is commenting about the article, but instead we are all being petty and slinging mud at one another.
I am a patriot, and I can be obnoxious from time to time I know (altho’ in my defense I am emotional and when I get TOO emotional I sometimes exhibit a loss of self-control), but I would like to think that the PEOPLE of differing nations can at least get along even if our GOVERNMENTS don’t. I have friends in and from GB, France, Italy, Columbia, etc. I don’t think of them as anything but friends. Sure we may not agree on politics, but frankly I don’t always agree with my WIFE in matters of politics or anything else for that matter.
the issue here. Why yes, we did invent the internet. For which I profusely apologize. But the internet has long since become the inter(national)net, and the people who use it should have some say in how its namespace is managed.
Doesn’t matter whether xxx was a good idea as a TLD or not. What matters is that the time has come to solve the problem of internationalization of the name space, and that discussion can only be held by the international community.
There is a precedent for this. It is how the radio spectrum is allocated. Since RF doesn’t honor political borders, the international community had to come up with a way to coordinate spectrum allocation world wide.
Now is the time for a similar model for management of the Internet. Each country should have its own ICANN equivalent for local naming and each ICANN equivalent should have a representative vote on a world wide ICANN.
Oh, and like the world radio coordination body, the world wide ICANN should meet once a deacde. (Just kidding.)
“Now is the time for a similar model for management of the Internet. Each country should have its own ICANN equivalent for local naming and each ICANN equivalent should have a representative vote on a world wide ICANN.”
That’s actually pretty close to how it actually works. The only thing currently missing is the international representatives in ICANN.
“Oh, and like the world radio coordination body, the world wide ICANN should meet once a deacde.”
That would surely be a change from the yearly meetings in exotic locations.
Acting Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, John M.R. Kneuer, said that the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year.”
Sounds good enough for me, I don’t see any reason to rush into anything. If control of root name servers is to be shared, it needs to be well planned and executed.
Sometimes I get a little carried away I know. I’m just trying to break some backs.
No I don’t like that crap.:)