fixing the Internet?

Last week, the administration said the United States will begin negotiations to cede control of one of the Net’s most powerful institutions, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. Currently overseen by the Department of Commerce, ICANN will be taken over by an international agency to be assembled later. The process is set to begin next week in Singapore, where the current ICANN members are scheduled to meet.

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Who controls the Internet?
a short history & the future? Published on 24 Mar 2014

The Internet began as a Pentagon-funded project called ARPANET, a network linking computers in some American universities and government agencies. Eventually, it was opened up to become the world wide web, connecting everything from computers and mobile phones to tablets and video game consoles.No one government fully controls the Internet, but the US does regulate some protocols. Faced with pressures, it is now considering relinquishing some of it to global stakeholders.Al Jazeera's Gerald Tan reports.

US Government Admits It Has Seized Hundreds Of Domains Registered Outside The US

from the this-has-been-happening-for-a-while dept

After the US seized Bodog.com, we pointed to a writeup by EasyDNS that has created quite a stir, claiming that this was the first time that the US had seized a domain that was registered through a non-US registrar by going straight to the register (in this case VeriSign). But as wepointed out, that's simply untrue. Back in 2010 we wrote about how most of the federal government's domain seizures went directly to the register. 

For whatever reason, more and more people keep picking up on the EasyDNS piece, including interesting questions about whether or not these seizures could be seen as declarations of warby seizing foreign property. 

I'm glad that people are up in arms about this, but it's important to remember that this simply isn't new. In fact, the feds themselves seem bewildered by all these claims. In an interview with Wired, ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas admits that the government has seized approximately 750 domains this way, with the vast majority of them using foreign registrars:

Such seizures are becoming commonplace under the Obama administration. For example, the U.S. government program known as Operation in Our Sites acquires federal court orders to shutter sites it believes are hawking counterfeited goods, illegal sports streams and unauthorized movies and music. Navas said the U.S. government has seized 750 domain names, “most with foreign-based registrars.”

So, sure, speak up about this, but please, please recognize that this isn't new. It's been going on for at least three years. Hell, it's so common these days that PIR, who runs the .org register,has a dedicated page listing out all the domains they've handed over to the feds.

Original report

 

Web addresses up for sale

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on 12 Jan 2012 - Web addresses like dot com, dot org, or dot UK have shaped the way we navigate the web, but now that is about to change. Anyone can now apply for an address using pretty much anything in any language and script.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organisation which manages the addresses, says the changes will open the internet to the world. Applying for the suffix though is not cheap; you will have shell out a whopping $185,000 to buy an internet domain name ending in any word you like. Big corporate are expected to be first in line to register their brands.