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Who could have guessed that 4.3 billion Internet connections wouldn’t be enough? Certainly not Vint Cerf. In 1976, Mr. Cerf and his colleagues in the R.& D. office of the Defense Department had to make a judgment call: how much network address space should they allocate to an experiment connecting computers in an advanced data network? They debated the question for more than a year. Finally, with a deadline looming, Mr. Cerf decided on a number — 4.3 billion separate network addresses, each one representing a connected device — that seemed to provide more room to grow than his experiment...

It was hardly noticed at the time, but its consequences could be catastrophic. Late last September, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which assigns internet domain names, approved a huge change in the way it operates. Europe and North America will now have five seats on its Board of Directors, instead of ten, and a new "Arab States" region will have five seats as well. How big a deal is this? ICANN at the same time took a reference to "terrorism" out of its Draft Applicant Guidebook. Why? Because Arab groups complained. And so now jihad terror...

It was hardly noticed at the time, but its consequences could be catastrophic. Late last September, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which assigns internet domain names, approved a huge change in the way it operates. Europe and North America will now have five seats on its Board of Directors, instead of ten, and a new "Arab States" region will have five seats as well. How big a deal is this? ICANN at the same time took a reference to "terrorism" out of its Draft Applicant Guidebook. Why? Because Arab groups complained. And so now jihad terror...

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonize global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet. Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks. The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet. India,...

Wow, those Arabs are clever. So clever--or devious, or dangerous--that they've managed to rearrange continents, to rearrange computer domain names to suit their political/religious/financial objectives. In The Lawfare Project, Aaron Eitan Meyer explains this latest Arab attack. "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the entity responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet. (snip) ICANN works 'in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems.'"[1] Formerly overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN has been under "international and multilateral control" for over a year. And this has brought about...

Trouble may be brewing in cyberspace a year after the U.S. loosened its oversight over the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN manages the Web addressing system that enables computers to connect to each other as well as Web site domains. Ahead of the International Telecommunications Union’s Plenipotentiary Conference in Mexico next month, there’s concern that Geneva-based ITU may try to get more involved in Internet governance

Internet porn sites may soon have the option to move off the ".com" main street of the Web to their very own adult-only domain: ".xxx." But industry experts say the adult world is divided over whether or not there is actually a need for a dedicated virtual red-light district. Internet domain names are expanding exponentially.The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an international Internet oversight group, announced Friday that it would proceed with a proposal to register ".xxx," after rejecting the same application three years ago. Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of ICANN's board of directors, told ABCNews.com that...

Dubai Electricity '&' Water Authority (DEWA) booked six Arabic domains for its official website within the internet domain of the United Arab Emirates in Arabic language ".Emarat", to be the first government department to use the Arabic domain. These domains will be activated very shortly enabling the possibility to write e-mail addresses in Arabic language for the first time, as well as doing all correspondence in Arabic without any need for English keyboards. Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer MD '&' CEO of DEWA stated: "The Arabic domain emphasizes DEWA's vision which embodies pioneering and excellent services. It also reflects DEWA's relentless...

Without the ingenuity of America’s brightest minds and the investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars, there would be no Internet, as we now know it today. Now, the Obama administration has moved quietly to cede control of the Web from the United States to foreign powers. Some background: The Internet came into being because of the genius work of Americans Dr.Robert E. Kahn and Dr. Vinton G. Cerf. These men, while working for the Department of Defense in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the early 1970s, conceived, designed, and implemented the idea of "open-architecture networking."

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...

The internet regulator has approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses, in a move that is set to transform the online world. The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.

Determining whether or not to apply the ultimate slur of Internet derision to a site — whether it’s “gay” or not — might become a lot more subjective a process, if two competing for-profit groups have their way. Each wants to spearhead the development of a .gay suffix for use in internet domains. The two groups aren’t very different.. One is the Dot Gay Alliance at dotgay.org, headed up by Joe Dolce, a longtime gay activist who got the idea when helped creating the .eco domain. When Al Gore said he would support .eco if half the proceeds from the...

POLITICAL power is rarely ceded without good reason. So eyebrows were raised last week when the US Department of Commerce decided to relax its grip on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for the naming system that ensures that when you type a web address, your browser knows where to go. In future, governments and other international organisations will be able to nominate staff to sit on one of ICANN's three newly created steering committees, something the DoC had resisted for years. "What it really means," says ICANN's chief executive Rod Beckstrom, "is that...

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...

The US government appears to be loosening its grip on the governance of the Internet, a move welcomed by many. But critics see the government shirking its obligations to support free expression and free trade. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the private corporation that coordinates the technical oversight of the Internet's Domain Name System through a longstanding agreement with the U.S. government, on Wednesday announced a new agreement with US Department of Commerce designed to make Internet governance less unilateral and more open to international input. Questioning NTIA's statutory authority, Auerbach suggests that if NTIA can...

NEW YORK -- As ICANN prepares to unleash a wave of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) on the world, it is seeking comment from Internet stakeholders. A series of meetings to be held around the world kicked off today in New York. The new TLDs are generic TLDs, known as gTLDs. According to reports, some have celebrity endorsements, with chef Wolfgang Puck endorsing a .food TLD and Shaquille O'Neal endorsing a .basketball TLD. But if today's events are a valid sample of world opinion, stakeholders are not pleased. Some expressed concerns involving trademarks -- both in their defense and in their...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission wants the US to dissolve all government links with the body that 'governs' the internet, replacing it with an international forum for discussing internet governance and online security. The rules and decisions on key internet governance issues, such as the creation of top level domains (such as .com and .eu) and managing the internet address system that ensures computers can connect to each other, are currently made by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private, not-for profit corporation based in California which operates under an agreement with the US...

STRASBOURG, France — The body in charge of assigning Internet addresses such as .com and .net should be shorn of its U.S. government links from October and made fully independent, the European Union's information society chief said on Monday. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a not-for-profit organization set up in 1998 but operates under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Commerce, a set-up that raises concerns for some as the Internet is seen as belonging to a wider constituency.

Excerpt - The organization that oversees Internet addresses is expected Thursday to approve a proposal to create an unlimited number of so-called top-level domains -- the familiar suffixes like ".com" at the end of Web addresses. Under the plan, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will allow organizations to apply for any top-level domain. Businesses, for example, could use brand names such as ".ibm" or ".ebay" in their Web addresses. Cities could sign up for names like ".nyc" or ".berlin." It will also be possible to apply to use more general terms, such as ".news" or ".sports," to...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Internet's key oversight agency is taking a preliminary step toward combating domain name tasting - the online equivalent of buying expensive clothes on a charge card only to return them for a full refund after wearing them to a party. Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample domain names, keeping the relative few that might generate advertising revenues and dropping the rest before paying. The grace period was originally designed to rectify legitimate mistakes, such as registrants mistyping the domain name they are about to buy. But with automation and...

NEW YORK - Debate over U.S. control of core Internet systems threatens to overtake an international meeting in Brazil next week that was meant to cover topics including spam, free speech and cheaper access. The Internet Governance Forum is the result of a compromise world leaders reached at a U.N. summit in Tunisia two years ago. They agreed to let the United States remain in charge. But they established an annual forum to discuss emerging issues, including whether control of how Internet addresses are assigned — and thus how people use the Internet — should remain with the U.S. government...

NEW YORK (AP) - New Internet addresses for general use could start appearing in the summer of 2008 under a timeline the Internet's key oversight agency announced Thursday. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invited public comment on procedures for creating new names, the first expansion for general use since 2000. Names added since then have been limited to specific regions or industries. "This is all about choice," ICANN Chief Executive Paul Twomey said in a statement. "We want the diversity of the world's people, geography and business to be able to be represented in the domain name...

The Chinese are rapidly becoming big net users Tests have been carried out to see if spelling internet domains with non-English characters will disrupt the smooth running of the net.The tests are a step towards the formal use of non-English character sets such as Chinese and Arabic in domain names. Internationalised domain names will make the net easier to use for the majority of net users who do not have English as their first language. The work to introduce these character sets should be finished by 2008. Dummy run The tests were carried out by the Internet Corporation for...

Excerpt - In a legal decision that stunned even the lawyers for the victor, a U.S. District Court judge on Mar. 8 handed over the embattled Web registrar Registerfly.com to the executive who was running it when it began to founder. Judge Peter Sheridan ruled in favor of defendant Kevin Medina, who had been chief executive of the parent company, Unifiednames, before he was fired by two other board members on Feb. 12. ~ snip ~ Naruszewicz, one of the two who had fired Medina and taken control of the company, doesn't plan to appeal the judge's decision. "We lost...

Last month, the Commerce Department said it would retain oversight of ICANN for another three years, although it agreed to be less actively engaged. Reding called that "the first step in the right direction." "We do not need governments to have hands on ICANN. That's why we have discussed this for years with the Americans in order to leave ICANN free, to leave ICANN independent, without government oversight," she said. "We will monitor very closely what will happen in the next months and years and hope that ICANN can be independent." The United States and other governments, she added, should...

Judge Denies Demand To Shut Down Spamhaus By Gregg Keizer Courtesy of TechWeb News A federal judge has rejected an e-mail marketing company's request that the Internet domain assigned to Spamhaus, a non-profit organization based in the U.K., be suspended, giving the anti-spam group's blacklist a reprieve and avoiding a clash over U.S. rulings against the Internet. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Kocoras denied the proposed motion from e360Insight, an Illinois-based company that sued Spamhaus for adding its domain to the blacklist, a database of spammers and suspected spammers that is widely used by spam filtering services and software. Spamhaus...

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Department of Commerce couldn't be cozier. ICANN and the DoC this week inked a five-year contract, renewing a deal in which the nonprofit group had managed technical details of the Internet since 1998. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it consists of five one-year options. ICANN will continue to conduct its Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) tasks, which include allocating IP address space, assigning protocol identifiers, and managing generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name systems and root servers. Most importantly, ICANN will...

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet. Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body. However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net's root zone file -...

There will be much to discuss (http://www.icann.org/meetings/marrakech/) at ICANN's Marrakech meeting which kicks off this Saturday, but one question rises about all others: what will happen to the internet on 30 September 2006? ICANN has its own agenda to discuss, but that agenda and what people actually want to discuss are a little different. As is the fundamental issue that everyone at that meeting should be talking about. This is our account of what is likely to happen, why, and what it all means. First off, here are the specific items on the ICANN check list: Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)...

Newly released e-mails allege U.S. government officials pressured a leading Internet authority into voting against creating a kind of red-light district for adult Web sites. The apparent involvement of the U.S. Department of Commerce, President Bush's chief political operative Karl Rove and others is significant. If true, it means the U.S. government violated terms of a complicated arrangement it has with ICANN, the Internet authority that voted 9-5 two weeks ago not to OK the .xxx proposal. What ICM Registry, the company that proposed the top-level domain, wanted was permission to distribute Web addresses that ended in .xxx to be...

See for example this thread first. Again, adult topics and situations, so clear the kids out of the room. And for those who are not computer geeks, ICANN is the "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers". They have something to do with defining and assigning internet domains and suchforth. ICANN has announced it rejects The web domain called .XXX (If you surf with one hand I'll bet you understand) ...but you still could type "Google" and "Sex"

A SPECIAL domain for sex websites has bitten the dust at an international meeting in New Zealand today, with Australia, the US and the European Union moving to kill off a proposal for ICANN to create a ".xxx" domain for pornography. Amid vociferous opposition, ICANN, the international body that is responsible for internet domain names, has been considering a proposal by US company ICM Registry for the new code. But governments have been fighting a rearguard action to have the plan canned, with the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission writing to ICANN opposing the proposal. Australia brought...

The body that oversees net addresses has approved a controversial deal over the future of the .com domain. The deal gives US firm Verisign control of .com until 2012 and lets it raise prices in at least four of the next six years. The board of net overseer the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers was split over the agreement. Critics said the deal virtually granted Verisign an everlasting monopoly over the iconic net domain. Final approval The deal agreed between Icann and Verisign signals the end of lawsuits filed by the organisations against each other. The legal action...

The American people simply have no idea what it’s like to live in a totalitarian society. We go where we want; watch movies and television shows or any kind; start new businesses on a whim; shop in huge supermarkets that carry any item imaginable; even sit in public places and say anything we want about political leaders. Today in our modern society, many of us sit at our computer for hours on end sending e-mails, corresponding, web surfing, researching, subscribing to web sites, gaining information, booking hotels and airline reservations, buying gifts, even creating personal web sites – or blogs...

Friends of freedom breathed a sigh of relief last November when the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis came to a close without control of the Internet being ceded to a collection of foreign governments under the auspices of the United Nations. Although the international confabulation was unsuccessful in wresting control from the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) -- a quasi-governmental non-profit organization -- Tunis was just the opening gambit in the UN’s drive for control. We face a long, drawn out battle to preserve the freedom and independence of the World Wide...

German computer engineers are building an alternative to the Internet to make a political statement. A Dutch company has built one to make money. China has created three suffixes in Chinese characters substituting for .com and the like, resulting in Web sites and email addresses inaccessible to users outside of China... The Internet...uses a so-called domain-name system, also called the "root," that consists of 264 suffixes. These include .com, .net, .org and country codes such as .jp for Japan. The root is coordinated by a private, nonprofit group in Marina del Rey, Calif., called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names...

2005: The year the US government undermined the internet And no, it's not what you're thinking Published Thursday 29th December 2005 19:34 GMT 2005 in review 2005 will be forever seen as the year in which the US government managed to keep unilateral control of the internet, despite widespread opposition by the rest of the world. However, while this very public spat went on, everyone failed to notice a related change that will have far greater implications for everyday internet users and for the internet itself. That change will see greater state-controlled censorship on the internet, reduce people's ability to...

The quasi-governmental organization that oversees the Internet has tentatively approved a ".asia" Web domain to unify the Asia-Pacific community, but the group has delayed a decision on whether to move forward with a ".xxx" zone for pornography sites. At its annual meeting this past weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers took up several topics related to the global administration of the Internet, which has become a heated topic because the U.S. has insisted on maintaining oversight. The new ".asia." domain would supplement suffixes available for individual countries, such as ".cn" for China and...

...The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator for global economic expansion and development in an environment free from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions on Internet governance(i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the European Union, the Presidency of...

The World Summit in Tunis last month was overshadowed by the global argument over internet governance. Its biggest controversy came with the proposition put forward by the EU a month earlier that there be a new inter-governmental body that oversee ICANN. The US government - which currently enjoys unilateral control over the internet infrastructure - was furious and launched an enormous lobbying campaign, both public and private, across the board to retain its position. Most significant among all those lobbying efforts was a letter sent from the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to the UK foreign minister Jack Straw...

Greetings, and a quick tip: Anyone in favor of censorship and internet taxes can skip the rest of this column. OK. For those still with me, who probably agree it is not a good idea to have Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe editing your blog and then charging you for it, it’s time to talk about the great UN internet grab. Thanks to the U.S. just saying no, the UN bid to get its hands on our keyboards failed this month at the United Nations Internet conclave in Tunis. But don’t drop your guard. The UN will be back. The pickings are...

TUNIS, Tunisia (CNN) -- At the recent World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunisia's capital, delegates from the 174 participating countries met with the aim of bridging the "digital divide" that separates rich and poor nations. But even higher on the agenda was the demand to reduce U.S. control over the Internet. And despite the summit bringing together more than 30 heads of state and government, and about 20,000 of their officials, the battle for control of what is seen as a commercial goldmine, ended in a declaration that allowed the status quo to continue. In theory, no...

The proposed .xxx porn domain has been kicked into the long grass just days before it was due to meet final approval. ICANN chairman Vint Cerf stunned an open meeting of the governmental advistory committee (GAC) in Vancouver late on Tuesday when he announced that the whole issue had been pulled from the Board meeting agenda - where it had been the first topic of discussion. The reason given (this time) was that the GAC needed time to review a 350-page ICANN report on the domain's feasibility before it could provide its approval (or disapproval). That's a red herring though....

Summary: Foreign governments want control of the Internet transferred from an American NGO to an international institution. Washington has responded with a Monroe Doctrine for our times, setting the stage for further controversy. As historic documents go, the statement issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on June 30 was low-key even by American standards of informality. No flowery language, no fountain-penned signatures, no Great Seal of the United States -- only 331 words on a single page. But the simplicity of the presentation belied the importance of the content, which was Washington's attempt to settle a crucial problem of...

We're hearing tales of two scenarios--one pessimistic, one optimistic--for the future of the Net. If the paranoids are right, the Net's toast. If they're not, it will be because we fought to save it, perhaps in a new way we haven't talked about before. Davids, meet your Goliaths. This is a long essay. There is, however, no limit to how long I could have made it. The subjects covered here are no less enormous than the Net and its future. Even optimists agree that the Net's future as a free and open environment for business and culture is facing many...

TUNIS, Tunisia -- Despite a late-night agreement averting a global showdown over continued U.S. control of the Internet's addressing system, many delegates to a U.N. technology summit did not believe the Americans emerged victorious. Representatives of a number of countries remained adamant that U.S. control must be tempered if the Internet is to fully reach its potential. And even traditional allies of Washington considered it to have opened the door to the possibility of more shared governance. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe spoke for the more radical opposition to U.S. control, saying Washington and its allies cannot continue to "insist...

The United Nations has lost its bid to take control of the Internet. That's a good thing, because it was a poor idea at every level. According to a CNN dispatch from a global summit in Tunisia, the U.N. based its argument on the need to close the "digital divide" that separates rich and poor nations. But it's hard to understand how U.N. control over domain names and technical issues would help poorer nations make fuller use of technology. The U.N. certainly hasn't been a factor in the growth of the Internet in the U.S. or Europe. And I doubt...

TUNIS, Tunisia — A U.N. technology summit opened Wednesday after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that direct the Internet's flow of information, commerce and dissent. A lingering and vocal struggle over the Internet's plumbing and its addressing system has overshadowed the summit's original intent: to address ways to expand communications technologies to poorer parts of the world. Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge, through a quasi-independent body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. That averted...

Efforts to replace U.S. oversight of the Internet with an international committee were defeated yesterday during U.N.-sponsored meetings. Hundreds of government, nonprofit and industry delegates meeting at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, Tunisia, agreed to establish a new international forum to discuss Internet issues, but it would not have any policy-making power. "No new organizations were created," said David Gross, the State Department's Internet policy chief and head of the U.S. delegation. "No oversight mechanisms were established by anyone over anyone. There was also no change in the U.S. government's role in relation to the Internet,...

Unnoticed by the public the fight for control of the only allegedly anarchischen InterNet escalates far away. The fronts are clear: the USA against the remainder of the world. With the information summit in Tunis this week hard arguments are approaching. Who travels in these days after Tunesien, already in the airport terminal by Postern and posters with strange abbreviations one welcomes. The "gate to the Orient", admits spectacular excavation places and Kamel-safari, welcomed on it proudly and wide the participants of the "WSIS 2005", for the beaches by Djerba or Monastir, for its the world summit of the information...