EU/UN want shared control of the Internet

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Actually, St. James's analogy makes sense. And so does Tal's. The only problem with these analogies is that they describe a specific product that is being created and then used (and subsequently used up). Internet domains are more like parcels of land. Noone actually created it (noone mortal, for those of a religious mindset ), what they did is discover it and lay rightful claim. The Internet would then be a entire world unto itself.

It's as if one country claimed the rights to a specific (colonizable) planet, and then gave out the land as they saw fit. Even doing it in a fair and impartial fashion would make many people's ire rise. The thought of a monopoly on an entire world invites abuse of power, whether or not it's actually happening.

So long as all the EU/UN want is a share of the responsibility, I say they should have it. But if they're going to make money selling domains, then there ought to be a one-time buy-in that would make that country a business partner (in Internet Domain Sales). Of course it'd have to be small enough that after a number of sold domains, it'd pay for itself, but large enough to befit the enormity of the Internet's invention.

 

Actually, my analogy specifically stated that other countries built their own infrastructure, but apparently you (Taluntain) did not read it very closely.

Your roads analogy is interesting for the inherit anti-capitalism of it. You are actually stating that someone does not have a right to their invention if it is really, really important to the rest of the world.

I must point out that some are saying that they must have a share in control of domain names for national security reasons. They fail to realize that America giving up control of domain names is therefore giving up national security.

Why would anyone expect America to do this? How is that fair at all?

 

Just to clarify... If America owns all the domain names, does that mean that they have ultimate control over government websites? If that's right, then there's quite a big national security risk. And how would giving up the government domains of other countries be a security risk for America?

And how is the internet American? They created the first one, but the internet itself is just computers connected together, and wasn't invented by any one person or group. The roads analogy is the best one I've seen; whoever built the first road doesn't control the worldwide road network.

Sorry if this is all garbage, but it seems like a ridiculous situation. Who would be stupid enough to let another country have ultimate control over its websites?

 

Of course we can; we own the world. By copyright law, though, a product must be finished before it can be copyrighted. So if the rest of the world helped with the finishing process, then they have every right to shared control, and I've got no problem with this at all. But the US as a whole will have a significant problem with giving up such an advantage, so all I can say is good luck with it.

 

Better share a ICANN today and save the trouble tomorrow. Better have more authorities in this matter just so that everything keeps moving. Even though it grits me to admit this, Taluntain has a good point in that flood of text...

 

I believe that currently ICANN is operating as an independent corporation. The problem I see is that allowing bureaucracies like the EU Gov't, US Gov't, and UN to all have a say in it could stifle the ability for the internet to advance technologically. Think about how difficult the roll out of IPv6 has been. If you put multiple bureaucracies over it major advances will become almost impossible IMO.

 

As far as I know it ain't acting as an independent corporations and even if it would it would be a monopoly and most countries have laws against monopolies. Personally I think Europe should do all they can to pull themselves free from the ICANN system, I don't think the US is going to give up nor have they any obligations to do so. EU can pretty much blame themselves for this situation if you ask me.

 

Great, another debate about monopolies. Didn't we do this a couple years ago?

Some industries just do not lend themselves to competition or having the gov't run them. California tried to eliminate the power company’s monopolies, and it turned into a total cluster. The gov't took over airport security and the costs tripled while security actually was worse.

Monopolies are fine as long as they are regulated, and mean regulated, not dominated. I won't enter the debate, but I think everyone here knows my opinion on the gov't trying to run industries.

 

Well TCP/IP protocol was only invented by the MoD for the US purposes of secret and safe communication worldwide. This protocol was challenged by the ISO standard, and won. The www root is an invetion of CERN . IANA is responsible for global address allocation and registration (meaning ip networks 192.167.0.0/16). And ICANN is not the only one responsible for domain names in reality globally so why should they only hold the root DNS and have their control? I can't see the reason why.
Unless of course you look for excuses in controlling the Internet, which is a intention, since it is supposed to be free. How can something be free and fair if it being controlled, or worse is being controlled by one nation only?
P.S. The backbone existed in all countries but the technology of internet was unknown and costly. By the word backbone is defined the physical infrastructure (the active equipment routers, switches plus the connections between them) and in a network especially is the core of it, and the connections that outstretch from the core towards the access layer. (Core - distribution - access -> users)

 

Tal,

You either missed or glossed over the main point of my post, that being: allowing multiple gov't bureaucracies to have control over ICANN would be a disaster in that the sheer bulk of the oversight would stifle any major innovation. The only reason I could see that anyone would want this would be if they didn't want the Internet to advance, and had no issue with it rapidly falling into obsolescence as it was replaced by a new network that would rise within the shell left from a gov't run internet.

If you look at nations that had government run telecommunications systems, with only a couple of very small exceptions (those being in small nations) their systems were basically equivalent to the US POTS systems of the 1950s to 1970s. These nations either had to hire private firms to come in and modernize or turn over their networks to private industry in order to be able to carry dial up speed data traffic, never mind considering anything like a T-1 or T-3. As an example of current development that is being created in the private sector that would only be taken on by the gov't after it was needed (if ever) is the further development of the lasers that send signals down fiber optic cables. Last year a partnership between MCI and several other smaller corporations from various subsectors within the telecom industry rolled out OC-256 level circuits. That is 12,000Mbps! Or you could measure that by stating that it is 172K simultaneous telephone calls! I am sorry, but gov'ts only reacts to what people demand, does not do a good job forecasting what people will want in the future, and is inherently risk adverse in spending for innovation.

I can see why other nations would not want something that has become as important as the Internet under the control of the US gov't, but adding additional bureaucracies to govern it, or transferring it to another body that is just as likely to be politically motivated is not the answer, IMO.