ICANN moves to end US oversight

Thrax

<p>Every time countries get together to talk about the internet, the agenda is flung off of the table by countries angry at the US for other reasons. Instead, the topic du jour of ending US oversight of DNS lumbers along and wrecks everything else in its path, leaving another useless pow-wow in its wake.</p>
<p>The argument is that one country could not possibly control DNS and addressing responsibly, in spite of the fact that ICANN has never abused its authority. It's a miscellany of countries feeling threatened by having no control, and looking to wrest power from the United States where able. The ulterior motives are very plain. As Ars notes in <a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080124-icann-makes-case-for-freedom-from-us-oversight.html">its piece</a>, many of the countries arguing on this front already have their own Great Firewall of China, so to speak.</p>
<p>Recently ICANN has written to the US DoC to request that it be released from US authority so it can frolic merrily where it will and do as it is wont to do. Time will tell where this leads.</p>

Leonardo

I think some world-scale enterprises are worthy of cooperative-world oversight and administration. Other things, such as ICANN, should not be relinquished to the potential of endless political and power brokering. One reason the U.N. is effective with international issues is that it keeps many countries squabbling, crying, and shadow boxing with each other. Not much gets done - positive or negative. On balance, that can be good as the various players are spinning their wheels rather than wreaking havoc. Such an enterprise would be unsuitable for Internet administration.