US Control of Internet Remains an Issue

Hugh Pickens writes "A UN-sponsored Internet conference ended with little progress on the issue of US control over the domain name system run by ICANN, a California-based nonprofit over which the US. government retains veto power. By controlling the core systems, the United States indirectly influences the way much of the world uses the Internet. As the conference drew to a close, the Russian representative, Konstantin Novoderejhkin, called on the United Nations secretary-general to create a working group to develop ''practical steps'' for moving Internet governance ''under the control of the international community.'' The United States insists that the existing arrangements ensure the Internet's stability and there's little indication that the US government and ICANN plan to cede their roles over domain names anytime soon. ''I think (there are) a small number of countries that are very agitated and almost don't care what the facts are,'' said Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, who stepped down as ICANN's chairman earlier this month. ''It's a very small vocal group bothered by this issue. ICANN has existed for eight years and done a great job with its plans for internationalization.'' With no concrete recommendations for action, the only certainty going forward is that any resentment about the American influence will only grow as more users from the developing world come online, changing the face of the global network. The next forum will held next year in New Delhi, India."

Re:Australia

[McDutchie]

It would certainly be nice for Australia to have some part of the infrastructure here.

But you do [apnic.net], in fact.

Everything on the net we use seems to come from the states :(

Content is not infrastructure.

Re:Internet is USA property now

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting the ñ in .es domain names has nothing to do with ICANN. Go talk to the people at .es (for reference, .de already has support for some IDN). BTW, according to their web site they are nearly ready to use it.

Re:Not really an issue

[magarity]

I believe that a big reason a lot of people don't want the US in control
 
It's not "people" who don't like US control, it's "people who run oppressive governments". Look at the summary: a Russian is complaining about US control at the same time his government is busy trying to copy the Chinese filtering techniques.
 
Let's look at the Internet Usage By Region graph linked above that innocently labels by continental land masses as if all populations of the world yearn to be free from the USA's oppressive Internet policies. Compare it to the Internet Censorship worst offenders list [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. Oh, look, apparently as a suprise to many /. readers, the USA is at the bottom of the list, mainly for laws aimed at restricting offensive materials from children that are under constant attack in the courts. No one is in Chinese or Russian courts fighting to remove censorship there because it would just get the plaintiff disappeared. And don't be fooled by the Europeans. France and Germany are #8 and #9 of the top 10 list of Internet censors.
 
Of all the major players in the world, the US has the by far best track record (not perfect, just best) of keeping the internet open.

Re:Internet is USA property now

[OS24Ever]

Right now the packet shaping is happening at a consumer level, not at a backbone level. just because jim bob the file sharer in New York City gets his cable company to shape the local traffic so they don't have to buy a bigger link to their cable network.

L3, and all the backbone providers aren't shaping crap.

That being said, the UN handles the phones don't they? Somehow that's worked.

While yeah, I do get a littly snippy when my tax money was used to create the internet, at what point does it go from an interesting curiosity to a global information network? I'm sure the same thing happened to people with the telephony infrastructure when that started rolling out and they were dropping cables across the ocean floor in the mid 20th century.

Re:Not really an issue

[jujung]

The Internet censorship list, you are talking about, is based on alphabetical order!!