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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.
from the not-going-anywhere dept.
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 30 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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One Good thing (Score:2)
Autonomous ICANN is a disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
*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? Sho
Re:One Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
In that case you need'nt worry.We know which country has the max influence on UN!
Weird Weird! (Score:2)
You want an ICANN Nation? (Score:5, Informative)
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
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)
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
International pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
ICANN's own press release plays up autonomy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe accountability leads to transparency and vice-versa. The word transparency in this case doesn't mean invisible, it means the fu
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re: (Score:2)
IRS?? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 t
Re: (Score:2)
Re:does not compute (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, the USPS became an independent entity that receives 0 taxpayer dollars, too...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NIST, the Postal Service, etc, etc. There are many examples, but your irrational US hatred blinds you to this.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:does not compute (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When compared to the alternative by anyone other than starry-eyed international idealists, the US Government starts
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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