Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 24th Jan 2008 22:43 UTC
Internet &amp; Networking ICANN, the group charged with overseeing the Internet's addressing system, has submitted a report to the US Department of Commerce in which it argues that the time has come to end US oversight. In October 2006, the Department of Commerce and ICANN signed the Joint Project Agreement, a three-year pact that extended Commerce's oversight of the body, while leaving open the possibility that the group would become independent as soon as April of this year. In the new report, ICANN argues that it has already met the requirements for independence and should therefore be freed from oversight.
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RE[3]: and about time...
by rayiner on Fri 25th Jan 2008 17:40 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: and about time..."
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The charges are of course all true, but that said, why don't you tally up the list of despicable things China and Saudi Arabia have done for comparison? The simple fact is that most large nations have a lot of dirt under their fingernails, and in comparison to the things other world powers did in the past, toppling a few Latin-American governments here and there is actually pretty minor.

Beyond that, we're talking about the internet here, not foreign policy. By all accounts, the people in the US in charge of the internet have done a pretty damn good job with it. Can you imagine what might have happened if China or Russia had invented the internet instead of the US? Do you think they would've done the same kind of job of promulgating the technology worldwide? Do you think it would be an open system like it is today, instead of a closed one with built-in mechanisms for censorship and content filtering?

I think one thing non-Americans have a hard-time coming to grips with is the fact that the "US government" is really a highly-heterogenous entity. It includes both cabals like the Haliburton gang that are happy to topple other countries for their own interests, but also a large, and by world standards competent and honest, civil service. The latter does a lot of good work, both within the country and outside of it, even while the former plans ways to enrich its members.

Edited 2008-01-25 17:42 UTC

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