Posted on 10/02/2009 6:51:07 PM PDT by NorwegianViking
After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system. Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government. The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe. Icann had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the underlying technologies used for connecting computers together. But the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet. Icann chief Rod Beckstrom, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Washington insider who took over running the organisation in July, said there had been legitimate concerns that some countries were developing alternative internets as a way of routing around American control. "It's rumoured that there are multiple experiments going on with countries forking the internet, various countries have discussed this," he said. "...He added that the changes would prove powerful when combined with upcoming plans to allow web users to use addresses with names in Chinese, Arabic or other alphabets other than Latin...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
wow, i understand that the other countries may get mad over the fact that most websites are mainly American, but what exactly are we relinquishing, are we just giving some control to other countries, or are we basically folding to other countries and just giving the internet rights away?
Cool graphics! Thanks for the post.
The South Park episode was precious! Thanks for bringing some humor to us. I wish everything were that easy. :)
Tamzee....good call! Are you seeing anything else ahead for us? I appreciate you sharing your future visions. If we know what to expect, it makes things a little easier. The “Unknown” is the hard part. Thanks again.
With the loons we’re up against, we will need to use ridicule as often as possible.
For example: On heath care- it’s not a tsx-tax, ‘cause the donks don’t call it a tax.
“Tamzee....good call! Are you seeing anything else ahead for us?”
Yes, seeing lots ahead for us - all bad. You, too, can be an amazing psychic... just understand that anything Obama can do to weaken the U.S. internationally, he will do.
Isn’t this good though. Obummer can’t control the internet like he planned?
You’re welcome. If you bear in mind the site has a very leftist lean, Google can be a good resource.
We are giving up freedom of speech and subjecting ourselves to international regulation. This will allow states to creepingly silence any voice on the internet they do not like. 1984 has come a bit late to our shores, but make no mistake about it freedom is being killed, not just for us, but for future generations as well.
Scary.
I had forgotten all about this.
According to Peter Coyote’s Hippies program on the anti-History Channel, it was the hippies that created the internet. Followers of Bigfoot, Jersey Devil, Ice Road Truckers, Al Gore, Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, and counter-culture multiculturists at the coo coo History Channel want to know if they will be clued into the concessions. And they want to know if the concessions kick in before 2012.
another piece of leftist multicrap insanity, in a long line of the same....
a fabulous instrument of freedom is developed in the USA, originally at US taxpayer expense, and now the global socialists and Islamists want to take it over, so Obama & co. begin the transfer.
OF COURSE they would not give it all over the CHINA, RUSSIA, SAUDI-LAND, IRAN et al in the very first step — they don’t want to make it that obvious what happens when UN-style international control moves in.
But we need only to look at the cesspool that is the UN General Assembly, all the depravity that issues forth from there, to know what is in store for the internet/web down the road.
Sure, right now they want to pretend that it is “only” a limited step to “advise” about how domains are assigned etc.
Granting this concession will make it harder to resist every subsequent concession: “well you see, America, ICANN already is an international body, and we simply want to bring the rest of the internet/WorldWideWeb into alignment with the “Global Community”
The Obamanation is well on its way to submission.
yes, and among the many travesties in this stinking pile is the new head of ICANN, who makes these ridiculous statements about how “rumored” efforts by some other countries to develop their own alternatives is a GOOD reason to bring them into oversight and control of the “real” Internet???
If China wants to sponsor its own “3rd world Internet” let them..... If repressive regimes are detemined to develop a version of the Internet in their own hideous images, that is NOT a reason to draw them into governance of THE Internet...... let there be a FREE Internet and then as many repressive, censorious “internets” as others care to develop and pay for...... but don’t bring the world’s worst regimes into positions of increasing control and veto-power over the FREE Internet..... that’s a really really stupid way to try to forestall the development of “other” internets.....
Agreed... This is the most likely outcome I would suppose. It would be nice if there was more information about exactly what “control” the US Government is relinquishing...
Excellent point... We may just have to go back to using stamps and regular mail!
“”In Canada, any person offended by a statement can file a lawsuit, and it remains up to the respondent to prove his innocence”.
No US citizen has to answer a stupid summons concerning “any person offended...” issued by a foreign court. If that were the case, George Bush would be running around the world appearing in a thousand different courts. He can send these jerks a big FU poster and there’s not a thing the foreign court can do.
Nobody would seriously think that a person in the US could issue a complaint against the Canadian court because he finds the Canadian justices “offensive” in its rulings. It’s a one-way street. The commies want you to appear in their court but would never appear in a US court.
The US court is very territorial and will protect its rulings and precedences to the death. No sane American judge wants his opinion stepped on by a drooling, knuckle-dragging 60 IQ foreign totalitarian.
Trust me...
Good evening. Here are some links. Hope they help.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/30/1633208/US-Relaxes-Control-Over-ICANN?from=rss
story plus comment thread
affirmation of commitments between US Dept of Commerce(DOC) and ICANN:
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30sep09-en.htm#affirmation
and commentary and background from Ed Hasbrouck
http://hasbrouck.org/icann/
I recommend starting with Hasbrouck especially if you’re not a geek or nerd.
excerpt from Hasbrouck’s blog: http://hasbrouck.org/icann/
1/4 page down
“Why does this matter?
ICANN is the poster child for those who believe in privatization and outsourcing to corporations not just of the provision of government services but of governance (government decision making) itself.
Authority to set policy for the Internet has been handed over by the USA Federal government to a private California corporation. In ICANN’s corporate world, corporate bylaws have replaced laws requiring open meetings, freedom of information, and due process. And arbitration by other private corporations has replaced law enforcement and appellate justice in the world of fee-based corporate “justice”.
As a private corporation, ICANN is exempt from open meetings laws, public records laws, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and other “sunshine” laws used by journalists and the public to obtain information about government policy-making activities. Journalists’ and others’ ability to observe and report on entities like ICANN, to which policy-making authority has been delegated, depends instead on enforcement of contracts and bylaws that guarantee access.”
Here’s a discussion:
http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2009/9/30/4337767.html
and another watchdog:
http://www.icannwatch.org/
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