ICANN don't exactly "control" the internet, but I guess that they are the closest thing to its administrators. Aside from arguing about registering ".xxx" as a domain and whether or not to move to IPv6, I am not certain that they actually do anything .

Well, the American federal government paid for its deployment, and was more-or-less responsible for its structure, root naming conventions and other things. .GOV, .MIL, anybody? These weren't generic labels, but were relics of DARPANET.

The body is international in theory, but it's been American in practice- most of the domain-name authorities are here, too- most of the foreigners selling domains are actually just resellers. So we've proven to be pretty safe hosts- our political system being what it is, we're not likely to do anything terrible to this body's functions so long as it stays on our soil. And it has to sit somewhere.

That said... I'm not sure if anybody should control it, and I think our government should keep its hands off- which, thus far, it has. The US federal government has shown a remarkable level of restraint with this golden goose, and will probably do so in the future- very few politicians here are so blinded by ideology that they would want to upset this particular apple cart. As much as issues such as child pornography and copyright violations (among other criminal behaviors) gets on people's nerves, our politicians have restricted themselves to police matters involving criminal behaviors within the USA, instead of attempting to force the hands of the governing bodies such as ICANN, WEC3, etc. The fact of the matter is that very few politicians know enough about how all of it works to even attempt to redress the worst issues (security, privacy, blacklisting by hostile governments) so they're willing to let the wizards have their way.

hmmm. ICANN. Well they're all about DNS and IP so to me its really a combination of 2 organisations "controlling the internet", ICANN and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

W3C is the only truly, 100% international organisation laying down web standards, so in their own way they are "controlling the internet". Governed by good ole Mr Berners-Lee, they are globally standardising the web slowly but surely. Only the US with the less effective 508 standards are breaking away from them....which I am yet to understand a reason for. I can understand a reason for the law (and I'm wholeheartedly behind it), I just don't understand why they insisted on laying down their own version of the rules.

Would it be too political a comment to suggest that this is the US government attempting to "take control" of the internet? I've been away for a long time and I'm not sure what constitutes as political discussion around here nowadays.

I thought Arcon ruled the Internet? He told me he was an African president's son and that he'd inherited 33 billion dollars in uranium, and all i had to do to get a share of it was give him my bank details and £10K?

don't bother, I'm still waiting for my cheque

I do not have the knowledge to discuss the subject on a technological base - but I have recently read an article about an ongoing political debate on the US-controlled root-zone of the internet.

On an international expert-conference in Geneva in the first days of October 2005 preparing the World Summit of Information Society there were severe controversies about "Internet Governance". China, Brasil, Iran, but also NGOs want a broader control of the root-zone. Their argument: it is against the idea of a universal net that one government could close it.
Martin Boyle from the British Departement of Trade and Industry said his government feared that the "system" of internet could break if the central (i.e.US) control would change. And US Ambassador David Gross was "very disappointed".
These statements are pointed at the ORSN (Open Root Server Network) and other 'concurrence' for the 13 IANA-Root Servers (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority).

Sources:
Article 1
Article 2
(in German).

I gave as much info as possible that you can google for english content on the subject.

Personally I don't think that China and Iran are the best witnesses for independency in the web you can possibly imagine (mullahs might have other opinions here ).
But I don't see any reason why the 13 IANA-Root-Servers should not been under the control of a supranational authority like the UNO.
On the other hand if regional controls of the Root-Servers apply it is easier for governments to control access to sites and contents.

It scares me that America (and in particular the Bush administration) has so much control over the internet. But unfortunately, I can't discuss that here
But I have these links!

---

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The United States refuses to relinquish its role as the Internet's principal traffic policeman, rejecting calls in a United Nations meeting for a U.N. body to take over, a top U.S. official said.

---

Quote taken from this article.

---

"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."

---

Taken from this article

When are you Americans going to realise that the world is not all about you?!
One positive thing though, they didn't even mention the war on terrorism!

***Edit: big grammar screw-up corrected, added the quotes ***

Edited by - Wizard on 10/11/2005 7:21:50 AM

I am all for controlling the internet. We have held it for all these years. "If it aint broke dont fix it"

And thus censoring it? Deleting/removing sites that are critical about certain actions? Raiding people's houses when they're not there to confiscate their hardware (Secret Service)? Sticking to the old conservative way of live?

And it's not China I'm talking about...

the whole ethos of the internet is free-will. America or any other country governing it would be disasterous. I don't want some jumped up little boner in the white house telling me what is and isn't right...

...ooh its so hard not to get political *must resist*

The internet is global. Its free (well kinda ). Anybody with a computer can access a wealth of free information, share their lives with people across the world and add a piece of themselves to the ever-growing biggest encyclopedia ever conceived. Governing it would add censorship. How does one man have the right to tell another what he can or cannot read?

The beauty of the world wide web consortium, as painful as it is to follow their current guidelines, they want to preserve the internet for what it is. They don't want to change it - they just want it be accessible to every single living person.

"How does one man have the right to tell another what he can or cannot read?"

right? no, never a right - just an unalterable fact. it is the nature of power. mainstream internet activity will in the near future become far more tightly controlled and monitored than it is already. the legal and technological means to do so already exists, but currently limited in most Western countries to prevention of crime and *terrorism*

but as I've made you aware *in another place* that these powers exist at all and that they can be used to further curtail our liberties means that they will so be used, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, next week, who knows? if the British govt is prepared to suspend and dispense with such a basic principle as habeas corpus, and get away with it, how much attention do you think outraged internet users are going to command? the standard rationale will be trotted out; *if you aren't doing anything wrong what have you got to worry about?*

---

*if you aren't doing anything wrong what have you got to worry about?*

---

I want to vomit every time I hear this.

amen, lines like that make me want to take a railroad spike to someone

incresed protection= decresed liberty

Death to the salad eaters!