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Networking Government The Internet United States Politics

ICANN Plays Down U.S. Influence 253

Posted by Zonk from the plays-up-smooth-taste-low-fat dept.
aychamo writes "The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations. For instance, the US was the only country able to stop ICANN from using .xxx for pr0n domains, instead of .com. The ICANN is planning events to show that it is not US influenced." From the article: "ICANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites. Approval of the new top-level domain could come during the ICANN board of directors meeting on Sunday. One other major development this week involves progress toward allowing the use of non-English language characters when steering a Web browser to a particular site. ICANN is now exploring a proposal to open Web browsers up to dozens of the world's other alphabets. Actual tests of just such a system are now in the works, Twomey said. "
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ICANN Plays Down U.S. Influence More

ICANN Plays Down U.S. Influence

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  • TLDs (Score:3, Funny)

    by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:08AM (#14165709)
    I think every 80s progrock supergroup should have their own TLD.

    • Re:TLDs (Score:3, Funny)

      by geminidomino ( 614729 ) *
      Why limit it to the 80s?

      We could solve the whole .xxx problem with .supertramp!

    • Re:TLDs (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Billosaur ( 927319 ) *

      The end result being something like:

      http://www.rush.group.eighties.progrock.band/ [progrock.band]

      or something similarly inane, because ICANN can't seem to develop any self-control when it comes to TLDs. The whole idea behind DNS and TLDs was so people didn't have to remember to type in http://327.45.189.2/ [327.45.189.2] all the time to get to their favorite web site. ICANN came along and took the original simple system and has been slowly obfuscating it to where pretty soon people will get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome just from typing in

      • http://www.rush.group.eighties.progrock.band/
        This somehow reminds me of some parts of the existing Usenet hierarchy, alt especially. Must not be such a bad idea then, eh? ;)

      • Why not do away with the dots altogether? URIs already have a way of denoting hierarchy - the slash. Why have http://org.slashdot.yro/articles/ [slashdot.yro]... when you can have /http/org/slashdot/yro/articles/...? That way cookies/robots.txt/favicons/P3P/HTTP OPTIONS/etc can have a clear hierarchy for authority that isn't tightly coupled to the host.

        • Sounds suspiciously like the "everything is a file" approach promoted by the Plan 9 [bell-labs.com] OS. Not that I think that necessarily makes it a bad idea.

          • Sort of, yes. Hans Reiser would probably describe it as unifying the namespaces. There's really no need to have two different ways of describing hierarchy within a single addressing system.

        • Re:TLDs (Score:2, Insightful)

          by mrogers ( 85392 )
          How would the DNS resolver know when to stop?
        • Why not do away with the dots altogether?

          Because the dots allow for the delineation of the server(s) the content exists on. When you request a URL, you're not usually interacting with a lone server, but a server farm or some load-balanced server setup. The dot form of server name enables the routing of requests to the appropriate places more readily I think, since you can associate each variation (apache.slashdot.org, yro.slashdot.org, etc.) with a particular DNS entry, which can be altered as servers shi

  • What good is it without enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Monoman ( 8745 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:10AM (#14165727) Homepage
    What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it? There will probably just be a rush to get their existing domain names as ADDITIONAL domain names before the squatters gobble them up.

    Slashdot uses a .org but should be on a .com! :-)

    • Another article [slashdot.org] (or its comments) says they are going to enforce it, or at least give the sites a time to change domain before they would fine XXX .com sites. I doubt that would ever work, though.
      • After say, two years, why not just refuse to resolve pr0n .com sites? The two years gives the pr0n sites plenty of time to migrate over.

        The .xxx TLD should not be about making money - The pr0n sites should be able to 'swap out' their .com domains for a .xxx for free (with the two year transfer time). Of course new registrations should pay in the usual way.

        How do we get a list of pr0n sites ? Well there are plenty of companies that already track this information (corporate Web-filter providers for example),
        • I always thought it would probably be better to allow them to keep their .com and just require them to forward the traffic to the .xxx before serving content. This would allow for filtering and avoid problems with porn sites declaring they are losing buisness because people can't find them.
        • So you think it's a good idea to hand over the decision-making process over DNS to the companies that make filter products? Wow. You know that "pornography" is subjective, right?

          Even the filters are usually user adjustable...but in this case you're saying that they should be "yes/no"...

        • Re:What good is it without enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JasonKChapman ( 842766 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @11:06AM (#14166177) Homepage
          After say, two years, why not just refuse to resolve pr0n .com sites? The two years gives the pr0n sites plenty of time to migrate over.

          Oh, good. So who gets to decide what is pr0n and what isn't? I suspect Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands, and China, as examples, would all give you radically different definitions. Hell, New York and Alabama would give you radically different definitions. Would there be an ICANN Decency Board? Would they "know it when they saw it," or would they spend a few years trying to define it objectively?

          So what other categories of speech should be forcibly banned from the .com realm? Hmmm? Should the next discussion be about .politics or .religion?

          • Please mod parent up.

            Fortunately I had the good sence to read the replies to the GP before I typed almost the exact same thing.

            ICANN should not be a regulatory agency, any attempt to make them become one only bastardizes the concept of the web. Any enforcement needs to be done at a local level applying local laws, or failing that a federal one.

            The GP's suggestion is one of many ironic comments suggesting that we make the internet more US centric in an article "playing down U.S. influence."
            • No, The US should not be more involved in ICANN, but whom ever 'controls' the handing out of TLDs should be more vigilent about who gets them.

              Picture this:

              1. ICANN say to registrars 'anyone can register .com's'
              2. AnalHorseLovingWhores.com registers 'HerLittlePony.com'
              3. Little Mary (aged 8) googles for her favorite toy, and clicks on HerLittlePony.com
              4. Little Mary (aged 8) is mentally scared for life, and can no longer look her Hasbro 'Starbrite' MyLittlePony in the eye.
              5. Marys Mother sues the registrar a
              • HerLittlePony.com would be a contested URL by Hasbro and would be taken to WIPO for a resolution since it's an existing trademark.

                A porn site running a .com is normal, they're a commercial money making group, and ICANN refuses to even make .xxx available for their use. Where are they supposed to operate their sites? Currently anything that's commercial should operate out of .com.

                Your description is totally flawed too. You missed "Mary clicks on the Yes I'm 18 button" and "Mary enters a valid credit card
          • 'Pr0n Site' is easy to define. Is it a pay-membership site or an amateur site, that has loads of images and/or videos for titilation or sexual gratification of the viewer. If the answer to that is 'yes' then they move over to the .xxx domain.

            That said, I agree with the reply to my previous post, where the poster suggested that the .com becomes a redirect (with no URL cloaking) to the new .xxx domain.

            Anyway this is all moot. ICANN is in the pocket of the US Government, therefore this idea will never be reali
      • Nobody seems to realize. How do we decide what is porn and what isn't. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a site is art, or port, or porn posing as art.
      • But who would enforce it? Isn't this kind of content management exactly the thing that the US has been accusing others of wanting to do?

        I have no objections if the US rules that porn sites hosted in their own country have to be under .xxx, but any kind of global enforcement (especially since the question of exactly what constitutes porn has a very different answer in differnt parts of the world) is just not on!

        • I have no objections if the US rules that porn sites hosted in their own country have to be under .xxx, but any kind of global enforcement (especially since the question of exactly what constitutes porn has a very different answer in differnt parts of the world) is just not on!

          It was the current US DoC that was opposed to he creation of the .xxx TLD. It was other countries (read Canadians) that wanted it.
          • It was the current US DoC that was opposed to he creation of the .xxx TLD. It was other countries (read Canadians) that wanted it.

            Yes, but I dont think they wanted it just for the purpose of regulating the hell out of it. Or at least, not for sites outside their own jurisdiction.

            By the way, did you really intend your audience to substitute "Canadians" for "other countries" ? If so, why not just write it that way in the first place? The way it is now, it looks like you are equating two concepts that a

    • There will probably just be a rush to get their existing domain names as ADDITIONAL domain names before the squatters gobble them up.

      There you have it! Instant money in the coffers of ICANN and their lackeys...

      /greger

    • " What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it? "

      I think the idea is not to force them to use .xxx but to allow them to use it. If a business is legitimately selling sex, I think they would be eager to have a .xxx domain.

    • Re:What good is it without enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:33AM (#14165912)

      What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it?

      Pornographers, who make far more money from adults with credit cards than kids, can choose to be filtered out more easily from kids, thus wasting a lot less bandwidth on the kids who can't pay for anything anyway.

      People often demonise pornographers as though their sole purpose in life is to corrupt innocent children. That's nonsense, of course, they care about the bottom line as much as any company.

      • Re:What good is it without enforcement (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tehwebguy ( 860335 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:44AM (#14166003) Homepage
        then why don't they take cases to court when people share passwords, spread files via p2p, etc? they know that it has a hook as good as a drug for some/most people. someone might not be a paying customer today or tomorrow, but once it is hard to find what they want via p2p they might become one..

        or when they turn 18..

        or when they get a credit card..

        or when they find their parents' credit card..
        • Who says they don't? I've seen people get slapped down, drop off the net and disappear, simply for posting 'for pay' content on Usenet.

          Just because they aren't in the news, doesn't mean they aren't doing it. It just happens that the *IAA's are more interested in publicity than most porn production groups.
      • they care about the bottom line as much as any company.

        Probably more... normal companies only care about the bottom line from the balance sheets, not an employee's bottom line.

      • Alas... you do forget? That with a .xxx it would then be easy to filter at work and thus you cannot watch pr0n and Slashdot while drinking at work anymore in the cozy little corner office.

        Thus the amount of subscriptions to the sites go way down.. they switch back to .com and all is safe again.

    • Easy. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:37AM (#14165949) Homepage Journal
      What good is it to have the xxx TLD if they won't enforce it?

      An intelligent filter COULD be used for sites that do use .xxx domains. Suppose you enter a .com domain and the site also has a .xxx domain. Follow all redirections until the site doesn't redirect anymore. You lookup the host name and get an IP. Then replace .com with .xxx, and lookup. Is it the same IP? Censor the other domain, or the IP. Ta-da.

      Also, let's position ourselves in the near feature, 5 years from now. .xxx domains are now used. A conservative senator launches a proposal ENFORCING the now voluntary use of .xxx domains. It gets approved.

      But how could such proposal be approved if no pr0n website has a .xxx domain?

      The problem with rejecting some measures because they're "not good enough" is stupidity. Not stepping forward is stepping backwards.
      • oh geez

        1. Filtering: It complicates things and puts the onus on someone else. Like spam and spam filtering.

        2. Senatorial proposal: The Internet is used internationally and although started in the U.S. is not governed by the U.S.

        3. Stupidity: Faulty logic. Not stepping forward is not the same as stepping backwards. Nice try though, maybe you should be in politics. :-)

    • Re:What good is it without enforcement (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JWSmythe ( 446288 ) * <jwsmythe@@@jwsmythe...com> on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:57AM (#14166110) Homepage Journal
      I agree completely. It's a bunch of BS. Porn will still show up on every domain that exists. The idea of trying to enforce it, while still theoretically feasable, means the almost certain death of every existing porn site. I'll use the site that pays my paycheck as an example. voyeurweb.com. According to Alexa, it's #319 of all web sites. With an average of close to 2 million unique visitors daily, or 9 million uniques weekly, it would be very hard to explain to them that there is a new name. Surely if we weren't in on the first minutes of the XXX registrations, people are going to be snagging up voyeurweb.xxx, right along with every slight variation of the name. There are hundreds of thousands of pages that link to some *.voyeurweb.com page. There are plenty of companies who are different with different TLD's on the same name, so it will be a huge name grab and years of threats and lawsuits before the dust settles.

      Along with that, we have several pay sites. The biggest headache will be proadult.com, which is a hosting service. There are roughly 80,000 sites which use proadult.com for authentication. Those 80,000 sites are either under the *.redclouds.com domains, or under their own domains, the majority of which are also .com's. There will be literally hundreds of thousands of pages to fix to make it work. Most webmasters are almost as bad as regular users. They created their site once, and don't have the technical ability to update all of their pages. If they do, they recognize that it would take a long time to accomplish it.

      Porn site users are your average user. Tell your average user to update their bookmarks, and they'll give you a technical blank stare. "How do I do that?" Judging by support emails, I'm surprised that most users can even get to a web page.

      The logistics nightmare has little to do with this story though. The US government has millions or even billions in tax dollars at risk. I know just our companies pay out millions in taxes.

      The move won't "kill" the adult industry, but it will sure make for headaches for some time. Every link on every site will need to be changed. All the search engine rankings will go away for a short time, which is probably a good thing considering the abuses so many webmasters have done over the years.

      The control issue for the US is a biggie. The US Government loves to have the power to tell the world what to do. For the Bush administration, they love the power to say "put this on the back burner for a couple years". Back at the tax dollar issue, if it goes past this administration, the sudden drop in tax money will be the next administration's headache, and for a federal budget that's already screwed, they can blame the next administration for any headache's that it brings on itself.

      We all know perfectly well that there will be plenty of .com sites running porn after any mandated change. We'd be more than happy to comply, and we'd ensure all of our hosted sites complied, but there will always be some winner who wants to stay with a .com for whatever reason. The biggest one I can think of right off is spam. When .com is now a "safe" TLD, spammers will get bigger returns by advertising a .com. Sure, they can lose the domain within a few days, but spammers work under that assumption now. They give themselves a window between 1 and 3 days, from when they start a spam campaign until they either have the site or their internet connection shut down. For us, if we receive a valid spam complaint, the webmaster will get their site shut down. Any provider in a major country who likes to keep in good terms with their provider does the same thing.

      All in all, it will do very little to clean up the Internet. The best way to clean up the Internet is for **USERS** to do it. Don't spend money on sites that us

  • .Asia (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 )
    CANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites.

    Translate: They all look alike so we should give'em one domain.

    Honestly, what the hell is this? It seems like this would be far more useful in Europe where most people speak another European language.

    What is Asia? Is it from India to Japan? Just north-east Asia (Japan, China, Korea, and the smaller nations - which was my first guess)? South

    • Re:.Asia (Score:3, Insightful)

      by code65536 ( 302481 )
      What's so dumb about the idea? ICANN creates the TLD. Website visitors and owners then decide for themselves what is "Asian" and what is not.

      If you look at .com, a lot of .com sites are not commercial. The de facto meaning of .com is determined freely and organicly by the masses of operators and visitors, and the ICANN specs only provide something of a suggested meaning. I think that the same can work here to great effect.

      • it's poorly defined (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fantomas ( 94850 )
        My criticism is that .asia would be a poorly defined TLD. There are many opinions about what constitutes "asia" - is Australia included? how about Israel? what about eastern Russia?

        The existing .com may be poorly policed but that's a different issue: perhaps ICANN needs to learn lessons about how to hand out TLDs. The new .eu seems to be allocated with a little more caution as we speak.

        Also I think the hierarchy of domains needs to be sorted out. It would be a lot easier if all USA based sites used .us for
        • Yeah, what I dislike most about ICANN is their inconsistency.

          They're now opening for .eu -- European Union, in other words. Not the continent, the organization. Countries belong to Europe may not be able to register under .eu if they aren't members of the EU. There's no .euro. There may be a .asia according to these news. There are no plans for a .africa, despite the entire Africa is far from "deserts and poor people". There's nothing for North America or South America. There are for museums and airports.

          Wh

          • Re:it's poorly defined (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Ostien ( 893052 )
            Of corse its poorly defined! The more you add to this the more complicated it is going to get. In short people are never going to be happy. Some people will want things to be more specific while others would prefer a broad definition. Do we split things up by type? (.com, .org, .net) do we split things up by country? (.us, .uk, .cn) Do we split things up by continent? (.euro, .asia, .africa) a combination? (.us.com) The trick is to be able to regulate when enough is enough. To regulate when you have ste
        • Should .asia sites have country.asia? like .cn.asia? if so should US companies have .com.us.[continent - I guess .na?

          What would be the point? Is there another China on another continent?

  • ICANN is US. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dascandy ( 869781 ) <dascandy@gmail.com> on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:16AM (#14165785)
    From the article: "CANN's board of directors appears to favor a proposal for a new set of Internet addresses that end in .Asia, which would more easily identify Asia-focused Web sites."

    So... if I understand correctly, the closer people are to the USA, the easier their domain names will be. Compare:

    XYZ.com -> US company
    XYZ.co.uk -> UK company
    XYZ.co.cn.asia -> Chinese company

    What about universities in other countries? Governments? Militaries?

    ICANN: Start getting a little bit international, postfix all .com, .gov, .edu etc. domains with .us. That at least makes it fair for the rest of the world. What's the point of .asia btw? just keep using .cn.
    • If that isn't favouritism towards their own country I don't know what is. Hoggin all the best tlds. They're biased up to their eyballs!

        Let's see... http://www.mit.edu.us.americas/ [edu.us.americas]

    • Re:ICANN is US. (Score:3, Informative)

      by C10H14N2 ( 640033 )
      What about universities in other countries? Governments? Militaries?

      The existing tld system works just fine for this, we just don't use ".us" much in this country so it isn't as apparent. For instance, the city of Los Angeles website is "www.ci.la.ca.us" rather than "los-angeles.gov," much the same way Imperial College is ic.ac.uk or Stellenbosch University is sun.ac.za or the Australian Football league is afl.com.au.

      Each country code tld is controlled by the country thus assigned and they can do what they

  • Reasons not to do .xxx (Score:4, Insightful)

    by code65536 ( 302481 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:20AM (#14165814) Homepage Journal
    If ICANN wants to play down the influence of the US government, something that it could do is to provide rationale for what it is doing that come from a neutral and respected source. For example, the US Gov't says .xxx is bad. ICANN agrees. People are in uproar. ICANN then says *why* they agree with the US Gov't and state reasons that are neutrally-rooted as to why. For example, they can cite this thing by the IETF (on last check, a fairly neutral group, not tied with the US Gov't): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3675.txt [ietf.org]

  • So The Anti-English/US Foot-Shooting Begins (Score:3, Funny)

    by RobotRunAmok ( 595286 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:21AM (#14165828)
    When your Continental Pride results in less traffic to Ninglenongle.asia than it did to the original, KoreanGameCompany.com, you'll just have to compensate by taking out bigger, longer, more expository ads on the *.com sites. Works for me. Or maybe you'll need multiple sites, one from which to promote your product and make money, and others through which your political correctness and cultural diversity may be flaunted. All Good, as far as our Western tech economy resurgence is concerned.

    Vive le Difference! or something...
    • ...or even about cultural diversity. Granted the british empire anglicized as much of the world as they could and it's been beneficial to their economy and the economy of their offshoot (america).

      There are a whole lot of people who don't speak english in this world and as their economies grow and become technologically advanced they want to enjoy being able to do things in their own languages.

      What is this if they don't do it in our language they are against us mentality?

      Fine you guys came up with the
      • Lose the attitude, boss, remember Rome, greece, egypt? they were great too....

        I've no doubt the American Empire will fall, as did Rome, Greece, and Egypt before it. I don't think it will be in my lifetime, however, or the lifetime of my grandchildren. In the meantime, I'm really not inclined to go out of my way to ensure that the bath signs indicating which spout is hot water and which is cold are engraved in both Latin and Pictish.

        How do you say "Just Call Me Old Skoool" in Taiwanese?

  • Why does the rest of the world object? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:22AM (#14165840)
    The U.S. government is only trying to protect the children [com.com]. (CNet story about Bush admin putting a halt to .xxx TLD)

    Seriously, if the TLD structure is subject to influence from 6,000 "letters of concern" from the U.S. Christian Right, what is the message to the rest of the world? That's right - "you have every reason to be concerned about sole U.S. control of ICANN".

    • Seriously, if the TLD structure is subject to influence from 6,000 "letters of concern" from the U.S. Christian Right, what is the message to the rest of the world?

      Well, there's influence, and then there's control.

      For example, read this [slashdot.org] excellent post on why the XXX domain would be horrible for porn sites. It would be highly chaotic to switch over, and many porn sites would go down in the ensuing confusion and resulting lack of income. But do the fundies think that far ahead? No. They're blinded by thei
    • If the .xxx domain is created, it will most likely serve no purpose whatsoever, except to be a new income stream for domain registrars.

      If it were to be enforced and thus useful, however, it would instead require international enforcement of the lowest (in terms of freedom) common denominator of anti-free-speech laws. In other words, every participating country would be ensuring that the "community standards" of, say, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and China were enforced on the web sites of, say, Sweden, France,

  • The rest of the world seems to be forgetting... (Score:3, Funny)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:23AM (#14165844)
    If you're not with America, you're against us.

    //too subtle?

  • However... (Score:5, Funny)

    by AthenianGadfly ( 798721 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:24AM (#14165853)

    "The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations."

    Immediately after the denial, however, they added, "But please don't tell the government we said that."

  • Further news (Score:5, Funny)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:26AM (#14165868)
    Today ICANN announced that they would create a ".arab" top level domain name, to reassure the world that they were not overly influenced by the US government. "We think a .arab domain name would allow arabs to more easily identify arab focused web sites, and demonstrates that at ICANN we don't just focus on the US, but also we try to accomodate less significant countries, like Europe, Canada and Arab places like Iraq." The spokesman added "I'm sure it will also help the fight against terrorism".
     

  • Who pays the bills (Score:3, Informative)

    by canuck57 ( 662392 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:26AM (#14165872)

    is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations.

    ICANN seems to forget some things, it is wholy supported by the US government on US soil. The UN does not contribute a red cent to it's operations.

    I would not underestimate the US influence, but nor do I fear it.

    • Re:Who pays the bills (Score:3, Informative)

      by Yokaze ( 70883 )
      > ICANN seems to forget some things, it is wholy supported by the US government on US soil.

      What do you mean by supported? If you mean by "supported", the current state of things is supported (preferred) by the US government, then you are right. If you mean with "supported" paid, then maybe you can show me in the budget [icann.org] the paycheck is listed, because I can't find it.

      From what I've heard, 2/3 of the funding [ripe.net] of the ICANN comes from Europe.

      > I would not underestimate the US influence, but nor do I fear i

  • .Asia? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Generic Guy ( 678542 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:26AM (#14165875)
    Does anybody else find it as preposterous as do I, that to identify far eastern sites they want to use .asia which is a completely western-centric delineation and uses a western alphabet?
    • But what alphabet would you use? Who the hell is going to use this domain anyway? Each country has its own domain already, and its not like there's an Asian Union of cooperating states. It looks pretty patronizing to me to suggest this as a solution to anything.
  • In light of the comments about my comments on the .xxx TLD, I now agree that .asia would be stupid, as would .xxx for all the good reasons stated. ICANN will no more be able to pigeon hole web content by TLD than the USPTO will be able to issue intelligent decisions on software patents. It will work a little, but the consequences are more likely to be bad. Even if these special TLDs allow site owners to pigeon-hole their content by identifying with the .xxx or .asia domains, it does not mean that these woul
  • Am I the only web domain name holder that hates having to shell out an increasing amount of $$ for each new popular domain extension? Which results in my having to buy up the info, biz, etc. domains ad nauseum because I want to keep my core domain name(s) essentially unique. Will I have to register and park the .xxx domain names to prevent them from affiliating? What if ICANN decides that developing a TLD setup where country "YY" domain extension "XXX" is a good thing?

    When does it end?

    • Re:Oh great. More TLDs = more $$ from my pocket (Score:4, Insightful)

      by radja ( 58949 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:46AM (#14166017) Homepage
      you don't have to. in the city I live, there's a heerestraat, a heereweg, a heereplein, a verlengde heereweg. (all street names, meaning approximately: lord's street, lord's road, lord's plaza, lengthened lord's road). no company I know of buy property on heerestraat 2, heereplein 2, etc.

      the web is no different: you only need 1 adress, the rest is pure choice. your choice.
      • Not registering in all TLDs can sometimes be embarassing. My girlfriend couldn't remember what TLD I used (.org) and guessed .com. I then had to spend some time showing her the whois records (apparently someone registered .com exactly a year, to the day, after I got the .org) to prove I wasn't running a porn site...

  • Hypocrisy (Score:3, Informative)

    by meisenst ( 104896 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:43AM (#14165991) Homepage

    Even in the introductory paragraph, we can see that there is some confusion here.

    The ICANN (the company that distributes most of the world's internet addresses) is denying that it gives the US government too much control over its operations.

    And yet...

    For instance, the US was the only country able to stop ICANN from using .xxx for pr0n domains, instead of .com.

    So, the US doesn't have much control over its operations, and yet it was the only country that was able to step in and strike down an ICANN resolution. Isn't this kind of like saying "1 + 1 = 2, but 1 + 1 = 3"?

    • I think it was more the submitter's slick way of saying that because ICANN ruled in a way that the US was arguing for (and aparently no one else at all was for, though that seems unlikely), that this proves that ICANN really is controlled by the US (which I guess is somehow a bad thing from the submitters POV).

  • Good intentions (Score:2, Funny)

    by Venik ( 915777 )
    Why not move all US-based sites to the .www domain (Wild Wild West). It will make just as much sense as creating .asia for the "Asians". What about creating .east and .west domain and hand out every Web surfer a compass?
  • I think this would be a better article to read about US influence:
    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1888417,00.a s p [eweek.com]

    ICANN is under the administration of the US Department of Commerce, so ultimately the US will control it. As to whether they are giving undue influence, that is to be debated. I would assume that many countries who are unhappy with the US influence are also unhappy with the current Bush administration. President Bush is currently unpopular in the US as well as the world, and this may

    • Re:Inventions and politics (Score:4, Informative)

      by basshedz2 ( 771482 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @11:02AM (#14166143)
      Who invented the world wide web? Tim Berniers-Lee - An Englishman working at CERN in Switzerland (Thats Europe for all you Americans)
    • I see your point, but what does computer components have to do with Internet control?

      I can give you that DARPA could be seen as a "defense" for having US to retain a large control over things, but bringing up "essential peripherals" doesn't give much weight to the argument IMHO. They're different things, and using that logic, wouldn't it have been hard to develop it without CRT screens originally invented by Ferdinand Braun, etc, or what about electricity theory from people like Georg Ohm, Alessandro Volta,

    • Re:Inventions and politics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @11:21AM (#14166293) Journal
      Who built the first calculating machine? Charles Babbage - English.
      Who was responsible for most of the fundamental mathematics behind modern computing? Alan Turing - English.
      Where was the first stored-program computer built? University of Manchester - England
      Who invented the WWW? Tim Berners-Lee - England.
      Who wrote the Linux TCP/IP stack? Alan Cox - Welsh

      Is any of this relevant? No. Not to mention the fact that a large number of the fundamental protocols used by the Internet are a result of the IETF process, with international researchers contributing.

    • Good points and thanks for responding...the internet is too big for anyone's britches right now, it is an entity on to itself.

      You forgot to mention another wonderful British invention for internet geeks....Altoids.
    • Who invented the internet? DARPA, US

      And Nazis invented jet propulsion, the British invented the English language, China invented black powder, I think the Web was invented in Switzerland, the moving picture camera was invented in France (despite US propaganda that reminds me of Checkov in Star Trek claiming everything to be russian), the telephone in Canada (Chekov'ed again), etc.

      These examples are not a reason that the US should control it, just some things to think about.

      I think about it: The place wher
    • Who should control the domains and the naming rights? Why would anyone/country/business want to relinquish control of something they created/initiated/started just because it is something that everyone now uses? Is it illegal to retain control of something that you invented, that is now extremely popular? Would they do it for the good of the world? (not that I am against that, just trying to make a point)

      For example, it could be argued that the Windows O/S must now be under international control sin

  • ICANN needs a Theory (Score:5, Insightful)

    by firewrought ( 36952 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @10:56AM (#14166104)
    Seriously, why does ICANN keep coming up with proposals for TLD's like .travel and .asia? This is not a useful ontological breakdown for organizing the world's organizations. It's like going into your local library and finding that the books are divided into three sections: Anvils, Horseys, and Everything Else.

    ICANN needs a Theory. The original TLD's (com/org/net/gov/mil/edu/int) had a pretty good theory that met the needs of the net at that time. Today those distinctions are less useful since .gov/.mil are U.S.-centric, .com has become the defacto standard that people expect, and there are many organizations which don't seem to fit the classification at all (e.g., personal-use domains might be one example). The ccTLD's (us/uk/jp, etc.) let individual countries have more autonomy, but it also semantically diluted the namespace (especially with opportunist looking for TLD's like .tv/.to).

    I can't say what a good theory would be. Maybe the original TLD's could be cleaned up and administered better. Maybe the ccTLD's could be integrated with trademark law so that, e.g., foobar.jp means that Japan recognizes the owner of foobar's trademark. At any rate, the theory should have a few characterstics: it should be complete [cover all reasonable use cases]; it should be predictable [if I know of an organization or entity with a website, I should be able to predict the exact 1 TLD they exist in]; and it shouldn't require that most organizations feel obligated purchase multiple names to protect their trademark.

  • TheyCANN'T (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @11:18AM (#14166279) Homepage Journal
    Creating .Asia without creating .Europe , .Africa , .NAmerica , .SAmerica , .Australia (and .Antarctica ) is insanity, and shows that ICANN is a gang of hacks. They can't even pull off geopolitical favoritism and apologies without underscoring their orientation along those lines. Preferential treatment of a subgroup is just as bigoted as opposition, just as "racism" means bias with respect to race, regardless of whether positive/negative. But then, what to expect from a gang which compensates for letting the US override consensus for .xxx by throwing a few parties?

    I miss Jon Postel [postel.org].
  • could anybody explain more on "One other major development this week involves progress toward allowing the use of non-English language characters when steering a Web browser to a particular site." ?

    i suppose idn is already working, opera, firefox support it, several countries already are registering these domain names - are they considering allowance of extended characters in top level domains ?

  • I'm right (wing) and for .xxx (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alta ( 1263 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @11:37AM (#14166417) Homepage Journal
    Ok, I'm really missing this argument.

    I'm a Christian, very right wing. Also, as sysadmin. I know most righters are against this but I don't really see why.
    I would love to have a single TLD to block. I would love to see the original domain rules enforced, and have the XXX sites forced on to .xxx. (as well as have the .org's and .net's enforced)

    Someone tell me what the other righters argument is. This isn't going to create MORE xxx sites. I think all porn sites should be given first rights to their equivelent .xxx domain, then make them move.

    Then I put "127.0.0.1 .xxx" in every host file I ever see ;)
    • I would love to have a single TLD to block. I would love to see the original domain rules enforced, and have the XXX sites forced on to .xxx

      I too consider myself aligned with the right and I am religious as well (non-Christian, call me a heathen all you like). While I agree that the XXX should exist I think an attempt to force all "porn" to the XXX domain would have some bad implications. For us the term may be cut and dry but other cultures may embrace and promote what you and I may call porn as normal.
  • What else are they going to do?

    This is why "ad-hominem" arguments are so unfair. They're irrefutible by the target who is often dismissed as arguing from self-interest. The proper action is for others to speak up in defense.

  • Too many questions for ICANN? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by baadger ( 764884 ) on Friday December 02, 2005 @12:58PM (#14167126)
    1. Why .asia and yet no .europe? We have .eu on the way, are we limiting TLD's to 4 characters? What about the existing .museum?
    2. Where are .africa, .australasia and .america?
    3. Why do we have .com, .co.uk and .com.us?
    4. How will we/everyday Joe make a reasonably clear distinction between the multi-TLD part in a domain, which are under the control of various DNS authorities, and the 'actual domain bit' under the control of the domain owner?
    5. Isn't there a risk that more depth in TLD's means more authorities between the owner and the root, potentially more control points and therefore potentially more political points of failure in the chain?
    6. Will there be proper country/purpose/target based sub-TLD's of .asia, like .jp.asia? .biz.asia, .com.asia?
    7. Wouldn't this make the .jp TLD redundant?
    8. Maybe 'slightly more global' companies/organisations/websites be able to have "companyA.jp.asia" and smaller localised ones "companyA.jp"? Oh sorry, thats "companyA.com.jp.asia", and "companyA.com.jp" Or is it "companyA.jp.com.asia"?
    9. What's the bloody point of this faux-heirarchial structure if they don't keep it clean and logical anyway?
    10. Is ICANN just trying to turn the DNS system into something that gives people a nice aesthetic choice but renders it totally unstructured and illogical? Won't this increase dependence on search engines, or alternatively make Google's site: operator, for example, LESS powerful?
    11. What about educating the masses on how to use a a heirarchially structured domain name system?
    12. This is going to be a mess like usenet isn't it

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