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U.S. Government Retains ICANN Oversight

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 29, 2006 02:18 PM
from the not-going-anywhere dept.
The Internet Government United States Politics
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."
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[+] ICANN Wants To End Commerce Dept. Oversight In 2009 58 comments
Ian Lamont writes "ICANN's current Joint Project Agreement with the US Commerce Department is set to expire in September of 2009, and ICANN wants to become more autonomous and switch to a global governance model, says ICANN's executive officer. The agreement between the nonprofit ICANN and the Commerce Department has been in place since 1998, and was renewed in 2006 despite international protests. A few US-based groups named in the article — including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the trade group TechNet and a conservative think tank iGrowthGlobal — would like the agreement with the Commerce Department to continue, in part to provide 'accountability.' The ICANN officer quoted in the article says expiration of the Commerce Department agreement would not remove accountability, as ICANN still has a contract with the US to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and must follow California law governing nonprofits. The Register is running a related story about why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN. We discussed ICANN's request for independence a few months ago."
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  • I for one... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...welcome our old insect overlords...
  • The Commerce Department remains committed toward eventually giving ICANN full autonomy, it said.
    • An autonomous ICANN is even more dangerous than what we have today. We can easily predict that the autonomous ICANN would basically do whatever the registies want: granting them perpetual, unregulated monopolies with the ability to raise prices and otherwise screw customers at will. Internet users would have no say at all.
      • Agreed. The U.S. invented the Internet and should maintian the control over it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by doshell (757915)

          *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

      • We can easily predict that the autonomous ICANN would basically do whatever the registies want: granting them perpetual, unregulated monopolies with the ability to raise prices and otherwise screw customers at will. Internet users would have no say at all.


        In other words, basically the same as today.
        • Yeah, the US government has really neglected to use its authority over ICANN (except in the "OMG we can't say XXX" case), but at least in theory there is some oversight.

      • 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)

      by eln (21727) * on Friday September 29 2006, @02:40PM (#16250143) Homepage
      I don't get how that's a good thing. How would eliminating oversight make ICANN into a more stable and accountable organization?

      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.
      • 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.

        In that case you need'nt worry.We know which country has the max influence on UN!

  • On the other hand, others believe that continued U.S. government oversight of ICANN is necessary because ICANN hasn't proven it can handle the entire task of DNS management alone and that if the U.S. government withdraws, the Internet's security and stability could be compromised.

    Duh!

  • I wonder though... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I realize I'm going against "common wisdom" here on Slashdot, but is it really so bad that the U.S. retains control of ICANN?

    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?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by doshell (757915)

      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

  • The decision comes despite international pressure advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity.

    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 ;) Welcome to the Treehouse [wikipedia.org].

    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?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wfberg (24378)

      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
    • The cyberpunk authors were ahead of their time in many ways... they understood that in the era of global telecommunications, trans-national corporations, and very fast travel (anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours), that governments how we understand them would be outdated.

      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

    • 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.

      Falcon
        • How can the UN (which is made up of governments) be less accountable than the governments its made up of?

          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

  • International pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyYar (622222) on Friday September 29 2006, @02:40PM (#16250131)
    "The NY Times reports that John Derringer of 5th Ave. will retain his pocket change. The decision comes despite numerous homeless people asking him for money."
  • For all of ICANN's imperfections, the internet remains a largely free and unrestricted place.

    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.

    • 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.

      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?

      • I'd probably agree with you if I could think of a way to regulate child porn, terrorism, or any other content through the manipulation of DNS records. We are all quite adept at passing around phone numbers... presumably terrorists or child pornographers could pass around IP numbers. It's not like terrorist.com brings you to a centralized terror site or kiddie.com gets you a paid child porn site. I mean, I use opendns.com dns servers - it took all of about 30 seconds to set up. Certainly criminals are capabl

  • no way!! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by stewwy (687854)
    There is no way the US will EVER give up control .... especially in the present power crazed and fear driven attitude
    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
  • ICANN are announcing it as a move to much more independance and emphasising LESS US-DOC control. Spin or PR? I dunno. the press-release is here [icann.org]
    • Nothing ever has. You cannot be completely invisible and fully accountable. You missed a word though, more. They are looking for a greater sense of stability, transparency, and accountability. Completely different than absolutes.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by diersing (679767)
        And who mentioned anything about invisible? or it being an absolute? I think you're seeing words that aren't there.

        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.

        • Obviously, the words are just invisible.

          • 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.

          • And you think its the goal of a transparent organization to be invisible? Can you elaborate on this theory please.

            Transparency [wikipedia.org] has many definitions, please review and note differences between computing, business, material, etc.

    • The Internal Revenue Service. That organization seems to be very good at what they do.

      • IRS?? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nuggz (69912)
        You've got to be kidding.

        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.
    • The U.S. Postal Service does a pretty darn competitive job despite congressional oversight.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm sorry, but when has the US Government *ever* had a hand in something that turned into a stable, transparent and accountable organization?

      NIST, the Postal Service, etc, etc. There are many examples, but your irrational US hatred blinds you to this.

      • The postal service is "stable and accountable"?

        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.
    • Actually they are retaining oversight while ICANN works to improve it's stability, transparency and accountability. It doesn't say the US government is trying to turn ICANN into that. Simply cutting it loose before it's ready will cause chaos. The US government has transitioned other entities to outside control. I'm the first one to say the US government is a screwed up mess but this is probably the responsible way of handling the transition. They aren't going back on the transition they are adjusting the t

    • Re:does not compute (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Stonent1 (594886) <stonent.stonent@pointclark@net> on Friday September 29 2006, @02:46PM (#16250253) Journal
      Replace "US Government" with "Any Government"
      • Replace "any government" with "any large enough group of human beings". If you've ever worked for a large company, then you know what I'm talking about.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dfenstrate (202098) *
      I'm sorry, but when has the US Government *ever* had a hand in something that turned into a stable, transparent and accountable organization?

      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
      • The problem with Amtrak is that the U.S. government insists on running a railroad, when what they ought to be doing is just maintaining the right-of-ways.

        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
          • Like I said, that's a wholly different discussion from what I was trying to get at in my post; you're correct that infrastructure investments often pay dividends that are not easily quantifiable or taxable -- by lowering the cost of transportation you increase the amount and variety of goods that can be sold; the increase in economic activity benefits virtually everyone. This isn't a new concept, and it's been the motivation for public works projects for generations (I first read about it being used to just
    • Maybe nothing at all but then maybe someone else (a mix of nations) could do even better.
      • When has 'a mix of nations' ever run anything well?
        • What about one country controlling a World-wide resource?

            It's better to work together than to fight. Being xenophobic never fixed any problem I know of.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Guuge (719028)
          Then we'd veto. Besides, if fundamentalist christians in the US have been unable to censor the internet (despite having allies at the highest levels of the government) then I don't think it's going to happen in the UN.
          • Indeed - if you want the internet to be left well alone then the UN is the *ideal* place to put oversight, because any change will take so long to get out of committee we'll all be grandparents by then.

            At the moment ICANN is basically pulling random domains out of its ass (.museum? .travel? WTF do we need industry specific TLDs for? Just how many frikkin' museums *are* there that want their own domain anyway?) just in an attempt to make money. The *only* domains that should be created are the top level co
    • ICANN't believe it! Next thing you know, the US Govt. will start thinking it owns the world!

      You're new to this planet aren't you? :)

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