ICANN Wants To End Commerce Dept. Oversight In 2009 58
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."
who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
The Register is running a related story about why some people are uncomfortable with the United States' influence on ICANN.
Thanks to the US and the DoD we HAVE an internet. As long as the ICANN is located in America they will have to run as a non-profit. Simply put, they're not going to get an exemption just because they think they're some international entity which they really aren't. Come on, get real.
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I am so sick and tired of this attitude (Score:2, Insightful)
So, DNS? Well, America formerly, not any more, had an unimpeachable reputation as a free, reasonable country. I guess the rest of the world trusted the USA to responsibly steward such an important system, so everyone used that. Again, not any more.
For many reasons, including but not limited to size,
Let me get this straight. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hm (Score:3, Funny)
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Accountability (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Informative)
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What exactly do you think would happen if we just tossed those characters out of the UN. Do you think it might be a tad destabilizing and polarizing? Do you think it would be better if it was a club of the 'good guy' nations?
Its already a club of 'the good guy' nations. Your vote is symbolic unless you a permanent member of the security council.
>Maybe the same group they put on the Human Rights Committee a few years back, Syria, Lybia, etc. Yeah, this will w
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I hate this criticism because its just so lazy.
What exactly do you think would happen if we just tossed those characters out of the UN.
Straw man. No one suggested throwing them out of the UN. What was called into question was the rationality of a (would be) governing body that allows Syria, Libya, et al hold positions of authority on committees dealing with the very areas in which their records are quite poor--- i.e. human rights. It's like putting spammers in charge of a committee on email reform, or cigarette manufacturers on a committee on public health, or giving NAMBLA seats on a committee on paedophilia....
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
Which of course is entirely intentional. The League of Nations failed miserably at averting war, of course. The UN embodies the lessons of the League of Nations which is -- don't bother trying.
If the UN were about ending war, it'd have to be a world government with an army. But it's not. It just reduces the number, size and scope of wars, and by trying less hard, it succeeds more often.
The way the UN does this is by ratifying the imposition of the strong upon the weak, which is going to happen anyway. Thats why there are permanent security council members with a veto. Say you are superpower and you want some small country to do something or else. If you really want to do it, the security council can't stop you, because you've got a veto. But the other countries on the security council will be pissed at you, and you want things from them like having them lower barriers to your country's goods, or their support on some treaty or another. So you think twice about whether it's really worth your while. If you're smart that is. If you're really incredibly stupid, you believe your own rhetoric about how the UN is encroaching on your Liebensraum, which means you end up shooting yourself in the foot.
Contrarywise, lets say the rest of the security council is cool with your invading the little country to get what you want from them. Its like Koko says in the Mikado; it's all over for them, and the actual execution is a mere formality that, on balance, everybody would rather forgo.
An organization like the UN is exactly what is wanted here. But not the UN. It's too much of a political punching bag already. So you make another international organization that pretty much runs the same way: it appears to be for fairness, but really it just slows down rash actions enough so they can be reconsidered in terms of enlightened self interest.
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN was not designed to deliver us to paradise - rather to save us from hell.
I think that is a perfect description of what the UN does.
Re:Accountability (Score:4, Funny)
Just goes to show the world needs its cynics too. It may need them more even more than it needs its idealists.
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Fixed.
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Interesting)
There is absolute no reason each country can create their own core domain and then simply based upon treaties with other countries mirror which ever registered names they choose, where another country abuses the system, the simply override the mirror with their own names/IP entries.
If the internet balkanises it makes it more expensive for business so they will seek to keep the system under control, of course for business it again is showing signs of becoming expensive with one centralised group having total control. So a brohen up and distributed between nations ICANN makes more sense, no UN required at all, just a system of database mirrors and treaties.
Re:Accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the problem isn't that the UN doesn't have an army. The problem is that they are quite possibly the most corrupt organization the world has ever seen, and I'm sure there are a lot of countries (cough Iran Cuba China cough) that would just love to have ICANN be governed by people who love to take bribes.
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Although the United States may be known to screw up from time-to-time (no, really, sometimes they do), I think the free speech laws in the US are as strong as anywhere in the world, and I have far more confidence that right will continue under the US than that it will under the UN.
Your speech is as free as a (im)properly drafted National Security Letter will allow.
Bush's Administration, sometimes with the help of your public representatives and sometimes through signing statements or executive orders, has been systematically rolling back protections put in place over the last 30+ years. Protections specifically enacted in reaction to government abuse.
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If ICANN goes under the UN or some other international status, they *ARE* going to try to impose something stupid and evil to fsck up the
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"U.S. pulls the plug on Europeans who want to visit Cuba" - International Herald Tribune - http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03 [iht.com]
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The whole DNS vs Cuba thing
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Be careful what you ask for.
The groups that want to shut porn down ( as a legitimate business anyway ) are just crapping their pants to get this very thing done. At that point they can legislate that nothing even remotely resembling erotica MUST be on an XXX domain. After that its not a big leap to simply block out the entire domain.
International bodies are models of efficiency NOT! (Score:1)
I understand efficiency may not be the motivation here, but it should be. How are you going to get anything done with bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy? Just ask the UN.
Fact is that though we certainly have our faults, the US as a nation stands for openness and liberty. We certainly aren't the only ones but we're probably the largest. If we make this international, this will be subject to the same squabbles,
Re:International bodies are models of efficiency N (Score:1)
I agree that one can not enjoy the benefits of the US influence on the world without recognising them (as opposed to China's influence; I'm NOT saying there are only benefits to US actions).
BUT, checks and balances between countries could probably lead to a more neutral governance; especially, no single country would have the power to shut off an entire countries worth of d
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Look at the financial reports from varies projects.
And have many countries involved lowers the chance of any potential oppression.
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Dictatorships typically are good for business which is the driving force behind the internet nowadays. With all the cries of "freedom and democracy" the key players in the actual governance of such a dominant commercial infrastructure are the ones with the wealth.
The UN will be no different than the US in terms of monopolizing for the self interests of the few, the difference is other countries
If ICANN is released, who will control it? (Score:5, Interesting)
And ICANN has created a regime that restricts DNS on behalf of the trademark industry in ways that RIAA can only envy and wish they had such restrictions over music distribution on the net.
And despite that, ICANN has no means for the public to engage in its decision processes beyond remotely observing and trying joining an ICANN approved committee that, in turn joins another ICANN approved committee, that, in turn gets a seat on another ICANN committee, that gets to nominate members of the board of directors. Even citizens of the old USSR had a more representative system.
Once upon a time ICANN did have directors elected by the public - I was the one for North America - but when I wanted to look at ICANN's financial records, a thing quite proper for a director to do, ICANN reacted by erasing all elected seats.
So, if the US government drops its oversight, limited and self-interested as it might be, where will oversight come from?
Do we really trust that ICANN will be any more self-responsive to the community of internet users than was Enron or MCI/Worldcom to their shareholders?
It does seem that the quid pro quo that the US ought to require as the price of freedom is that ICANN adopt mechanisms that really and truly make it responsible to the public.
There is, of course, the further question of where ICANN might obtain immunity against anti-trust laws should the US gov't drop its protective cloak - ICANN does shape the domain name marketplace, set prices and product terms, determine who may and who may not be vendors in that marketplace, and in other ways restrains trade in the world's only viable marketplace of domain names. Several experts in the field feel that ICANN may be vulnerable as a combination that acts in restraint of trade.
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That seems to be the problem. Can it be fixed? I would assume our representatives could do something if motivated.
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Where would the accountability be, otherwise? The U.N., where the U.S.A. is in a minority as far as freedom of speech protections? ICANN itself? As broken as the current system is, I still see it as better than any alternatives put forward so far.
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There have been private bodies that have become legitimatized and have demonstrated that they can be trusted with authority - the Red Cross comes to mind as one example. (It's now a body that has treaties behind it, but that was parallel to the growth of its legit
Thoughts and musings.... (Score:1)
I think that generally the US finding a way to let ICANN move to an international governance model while continuing to be based in the US is a good thing.
That said I read the Register article, and maybe I am missing something, but it didn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me. The US government added him to their "bad guy" list. I might disagree with this, and the embargo in general, but that is governmental policy at the moment. His web host took him down, but it was a host outside the US. All the US gov
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Corrected title (Score:1)
There. Fixed.
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What oversight? (Score:4, Insightful)
I say they are failing miserably at this because they aren't actually demonstrating any meaningful control. If you look at the list of accredited registrars, you'll find it is many pages long. And how many of those are active registrars? Not many.
And even worse, the number of active registrars on that list that actively aid in spamming operations grows every year, and ICANN doesn't seem to care in the least. If ICANN is supposed to be in control of registration, why are they letting criminal co-conspirators do registration?
Internet must live (Score:1)
No Thank You (Score:2)
Lets vote on that, shall we? (Score:1)