I'm probably the minority here, but I'd rather it just stay in the hands of the U.S. . Unless there is some sort of malice and ongoing misuse I don't really see how this improves the system.
Open to any explanation about how this will improve the system aside from "more involvement from other countries". Not that I'm discounting that as a good or bad reason, but I'd just like to see more information about why this would be good.
This implies there is someone who could take over that can be trusted. I'm not convinced there is, personally. The question then becomes "Who do you trust more than the US" in this context. I think the answer to that question would be more interesting.
You realize that the whole point of creating this huge complicated multi-stakeholder consensus-driven organization is exactly that there is no-one that can be trusted. Taking control away from US does not give it to anyone else, instead it put into this machinery that is specifically designed to avoid requiring trust.
Maybe it's how UN was supposed to work. Unfortunately, it's not how it works. And while I am very suspicious of US government, I'd better trust them with the future of the Internet than a pact between Russia, China, Iran and whatever voting block they could buy this week.
> Taking control away from US does not give it to anyone else, instead it put into this machinery that is specifically designed to avoid requiring trust.
At the end of the day, someone(s) will be in a position to "pull the plug" or just alter the machine in some way. I think your view is a bit naive. The machines have to be physically located somewhere and they're going to be open to vulnerabilities because someone needs to perform routine maintenance. There will also need to be a group or organization to oversee the day-to-day operations and handle things a machine can't. It's yet another avenue for corruption. Your ideal "control" simply doesn't exist and cannot exist. Someone has to be in control.
It reminds me a bit of the whole superpower conundrum. There are those who want the U.S to step down as the world's police. The question then becomes, who would replace them? This question confuses those people because they do not grasp the whole "nature abhors a vacuum" aspect of the problem. They also ignore the human element, which is that people are greedy, corrupt and power driven. Especially leaders of countries. These people want the U.S gone but won't connect the dots further to see what would happen, and what life would be like without them acting as the world's sole superpower. What would happen is another entity would step in and fill the role. That is guaranteed. It's a certainty because nations have been fighting wars for that mantle since before WW1. And I'm sorry, but I prefer the U.S to China or Russia. They're simply the lesser of the evils. And not by a small amount.
To deny it is to deny the fact that Russia and China would stand aside and not make an attempt to grab that power. Do you honestly believe China or Russia won't leap at the chance? Let's say you honestly do. Ok, so then the question becomes, "What about 25 years from now after Putin has died and there's a completely new administration at the helm. Can you say that they won't grab for power?" It doesn't require people not leaping to grab that power today, but for all time in the future. And believing that someone won't eventually grab for it is beyond naive because it's denying human nature.
I say stick it in Iceland... a country that's at least shown itself to stand for its convictions when they let the banking system hang themselves.
There is a perception of Switzerland's stance on privacy becoming increasingly weak as time goes by, showing that their convictions at the very least are becoming diluted in favour of international pressure.
Giving it to a country that can be invaded and handed over at will and for whose sovereignty even the good guys have no respect whatsoever [0] does not seem like a good idea.
There is no such implication. But in any case it seems wise to spread responsibility, given that the US has already abused the system and others haven't because they couldn't.
The problem I see is that since ICANN is located within the US, the system will still be abused, because ICANN falls under US jurisdiction with all its moronic justice system and draconian, though generally ineffective, "intellectual property" law enforcement.
Well most countries have the same or worse intellectual property laws. It's just that the U.S. is most prolific because when people are pirating movies, video games, music, or software they are very likely to be pirating American stuff versus, say, stuff from Malaysia. I understand the reaction from American media and software companies.
Now, with that being said I'm very much supportive of "pirating" in that I don't believe that it's stealing since that would mean corporations are entitled to potential future profits.
Another thing you pointed out was how ineffective it is. And you're right. Basically nobody cares anymore unless you're making a noticeable amount of money from doing so or just generally doing something other than pirating stuff.
Aside from questions about intellectual property, I think the U.S. generally has pretty great laws regarding the Internet. Compare that to, say, Australia where vaginas that don't look "normal" are banned, or the outright censorship in most of the world. With the U.S. being the epicenter of the software industry for the time being, it's very sensitive to any regulation or law involving the Internet.
Uhm, first of all, I don't have anything in particular against fighting piracy, at least not commercial piracy.
Unfortunately, the US has used the domain name system to fight piracy without due process in other countries rather than acting within their own jurisdiction and closing illegal servers within their own jurisdiction. That's an (a) abuse of the domain name system, which is (b) technically inefficient -- just use an alternative root server --, and (c) hitting the wrong people such as people who merely put links on their web server rather than those who actually infringe copyright.
Because of this documented and patently stupid abuse of the DNS system the US ought not control the root servers, not because of US laws or anything else related to piracy. I couldn't give a shit about piracy, but I do give a shit when some server that is perfectly legal in Spain suddenly becomes inaccessible and replaced by an FBI logo, just because some technically inept dumbass judge in East Texas thinks so.
Whether other countries would do better than the US is debatable. I'm glad you like the laws of the US so much, but have a hard time sharing your opinion about them and can think of various more worthy candidate countries for the label "best laws".
Can U.S. courts force ICANN to seize domains registered under ccTLDs?
My guess is not. gTLDs run by registrars not operating in the U.S. nonetheless probably sign ToS agreements with ICANN that effectively permit seizures by U.S. authorities. But for ccTLDs I doubt this is the case (it's hinted at in this white paper, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/guidance-domain-...).
If you want to run a Pirate Bay or something, you're probably safest registering a domain under a ccTLD for a country with a lax policy.
While reasonable gTLDs like .inc, .corp and .ltd get ignored, instead we have .aerospace and .google for reasons that have never been properly explained.
They've also handed over .app to Google simply because Google was willing to pay a stupid amount of money for the rights, and Google can't even figure out how to sell these yet: https://www.registry.google
Frankly I think the middle-road that we had for a while was pretty much the worst of all worlds, and I like the mostly-liberated relatively flat model better. You either have hierarchy or you don't, and DNS/ICANN never really manged to create (and enforce!) true hierarchy at TLD level.
Personally I would like a strictly hierarchical model (e.g. ccTLDs only with restricted 2nd level) more, but to enforce such system would have meant essentially a complete reboot of DNS which obviously would never happen. gTLDs were imho a mistake (probably caused by not being to able to predict the explosive growth of internet), but if we can't get rid of them then just liberating them makes lots of sense.
Is this really a problem? No alternate TLDs have ever caught on. .com continues to be the only TLD that most people care about. Even a .net domain makes you a second-class citizen on the web.
It's really a problem because there's no telling what might be a domain tomorrow. Will ICANN sell `.x` to buy everyone on the board a new car? Will they start issuing gTLDs in Klingon language? What about Emoji?
This makes writing code that vets a fully qualified domain name a lot more complicated. If anything could be a domain name they you need to lean on DNS to do testing, and if that's not producing concrete answers, you have no idea if it's valid or not.
Is clownpenis.fart a possible domain? Twenty years ago, no way that would ever happen. Now I'm surprised it hasn't.
Ideally you want a root namespace that's clean, orderly and predictable so that people can comprehend it. microsoft.com looks legit. microsoft4u.info feels sketchy, and it should. microsoft.xyz is...legit? Or not? I can't tell any more, the waters are so muddied.
Plus, ICANN doesn't seem to consider the ramifications of some of their decisions. The right-to-left gTLDs are obviously a great thing for speakers of certain languages like Hebrew and Arabic, but they also carry severe security hazards: http://www.rafayhackingarticles.net/2016/08/google-chrome-fi...
TLD/SLD should never have been a paradigm. I say merge SLDs from .com into TLDs and start selling TLDs only. With all pre existing TLDs grandfathered in.
So the USG seizes a small number of domains in decades of stewardship, and that's all you've got as your gripe?
That's like Warren Buffett making you $50 million over 30 years, and then you get upset with him when he loses you a few dollars.
Given the extreme risk of allowing censorship-heavy nations like China and Russia to have new influence over the system, it's very obvious this is a terrible move.
Do you think UN can be trusted on this? I can't remember anything from the history of the UN that would give me an idea they have better regard for property rights and freedoms of people than US government.
At least US politicians are susceptible to some minimal electoral feedback from the people. The only way to influence UN functionaries known to work is bribes.
Yes, just pointing out that the USG cannot be trusted, free speech laws or not.
In the 90s I considered the gTLDs (.com, .net, .org) most attractive, because I wasn't quite sure how local governments would react and USG seemed reliable.
Now the situation is reversed, I value domains in local ccTLDs more than the gTLDs. Of course, ICANN creating an insane number of gTLDs doesn't help either.
Technically, yes. The US government could directly change DNS entries for ccTLDs in the root zone (or sign alternate versions and use them for hacking).
However, that would be the nuclear option. And I guess most countries would see that as an act of war.
Creating alternate DNS roots isn't very hard.
So just like the US is technically capable of launching missiles in the direction of North Korea, but doesn't do it. It is very unlike that the US would directly mess with ccTLDs.
From a security point of view, locally installing trust anchors for all ccTLDs would be a good idea though.
That's an interesting point that you shouldn't credit me for making; I was just implying that other countries will also have arbitrary rules about what lives under their ccTLDs.
Yes, but you would have to comply with one set of rules instead of with the rules of the US as well. For example, in the Rojadirecta case, a Spanish .es domain would have avoided interference by the US. So that's why I consider local ccTLD domains better than gTLDs.
If the question is whether the US would be a good steward of international domains or other international aspects of the Internet, then the USG has proven that it cannot be trusted.
I'm not saying that any other government would do better, but the new structure reduces (at least in theory) the influence of governments to almost zero and puts oversight in the hand of the Internet community. For better or worse, the Internet community seems to have a better track record than the US government.
ICANN still operates on US soil. If you're concerned about ICANN itself exercising censorship, fair enough, but I don't see how other governments could pose a threat to freedom of speech in ways they couldn't before this happened.
Absolutely so! Any international org is subject to pressure and corruption, just look at UN, FIFA or olympic judges. Saudi Arabia is on UN council of human rights. So Russia will be very glad to see honest and independent representatives of certain African and Arabic countries control the Internet.
The US alone is abusing seizing of domains for a long time now. Latest example will be kickass torrent who never registered .com in US and owner never been to the USA himself (extradition on its way)
Of course third parties who make money helping in the process will fear-monger that giving away the control will most likely have you shut down Google and Facebook by Chinese overnight, or some sort of similar end of the world scenario.
Since the internet belongs to all, naming should be overseen by some sort of a non-profit consortium body that is made off of all or most nationalities. This is a good move!
>Other countries, particularly China and Russia, had put pressure on the UN to call for the DNS to be controlled by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union.
I'm no diplomat, but I suspect any move that's primarily advocated by Russia and China can't be good for [internet] freedom.
That's just such ridiculous bullshit. Pray tell me, what any country could have possibly imagined as the result that would have enabled them to have any sort of power for censorship?
Government controls which would enable censorship have been proposed at meetings of the International Telecommunication Union, and have gained significant support. Notably, the proposals are supported by countries known for internet censorship, and opposed by the United States.
It is a pretty obvious fact that internationalized control of internet governance will make censorship more likely, and acceptable, than US control does.
> Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to ITU member countries to preserve the Internet as a place of freedom, as a place for the free exchange of views and information.
Concern also focused on article 5B of the treaty concerning spam, which says:
“Member States should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services. Member States are encouraged to cooperate in that sense.”
The problem stems from the fact that, to block this kind of content, governments will first have to identify it and will therefore have to use Internet control tools. Some governments do this already, but such action has never been recognized in a UN treaty.
So this article sets a precedent which governments that have little interest in freedom of information would be able to use to justify the deployment of filtering and blocking mechanisms.
> A recently released ITU document summarizing various proposals to modify the existing ITU regulations (“ITRs”) confirms what folks have been saying and leaking for some time now. The Russian Federation, various Arab states, and others have submitted proposals that would expressly ratify the right of member states to disrupt communication in the name of national security, and to limit the ability of parties to route around censorship or communicate anonymously by providing members states the authority to determine routing paths and to prevent “misuse and misappropriation of numbering resources.” (See, for example, proposed MOD 30 & 31A – but there are numerous other proposals that could achieve the same end).
The US is the best government to oversee DNS in a way that isn't corrupt and awful. That said, the US has seized domains in the past without proper due process - so it's really that "for the most part" we expect our freedoms to be respected. I think the situation would be far worse if left to several countries who don't share our progressive values. The Internet is only as great as it is because it became a "thing" here first. It would be fucking awful having Iran or China manage DNS - even as partners.
I'll say what people have been dancing around, or unable to say; The U.S is the lesser of the evils. Is the U.S perfect? Hell no. But they're the "least bad" country to be handling the system. Any other country or entity would immediately be targeted and open to bribing, gaming, pressure, and corruption.
We can look at historical examples like mercantile law. Most countries, including the U.S., recognize mercantile law, a body of law that has been handed down from millennia ago and, like so-called international law, distinct from domestic bodies of law, even though many countries have explicitly or implicitly incorporated aspects of mercantile law.
If you look at the history of judicial decisions where courts ruled in favor of non-citizen claimants, or where they adopted rules less favorable to citizens, then the U.S. doesn't stand out as much as you think. It's certainly at the top, but other, smaller countries have legal and political cultures that have respected mercantile law at the expense of their homegrown legal principles, and against the immediate best interests of their citizens and industry, at least as well as the U.S. has.
The real question is how good is a country's political and legal system at respecting abstract legal boundaries, especially in the face of strong, competing interests. Being large and powerful can often be a detriment because domestic competing interests are more powerful, and threats of repercussions less worrisome. Some smaller countries often have a better track record at keeping perspective; they have to be more honest about what reasonable solutions look like if they want to maximize their own, long-term wealth.
Based on mercantile law we can exclude many countries with solid arguments supported by decades and even centuries of concrete evidence. But arguing that the U.S. is the best (or least worst)? Again, that would be hard.
> England? Canada? Switzerland? Brazil? S. Africa?
You feel those countries are strong enough, politically and even militarily to resist corruptive influences? England might be, maybe Canada since the U.S is next door, but Switzerland, Brazil and S. Africa? No way. People forget; the U.S is incredibly powerful. It has the strongest military in the world. Nobody has attempted to "mess with the internet" because it meant messing with the U.S. Take it away from the U.S and it immediately becomes more vulnerable by default.
The US might be well positioned to withstand outside influence, but how do you expect the rest of the world to put their trust in a country where an insane, unstable fascist who has expressed his clear intention to violate international law is a realistic choice as leader?
Pardon me to be so polemic, but what kind of progressive values do you have in mind? Political assassinations by drone strikes that kill hundreds of children and women as bystanders?
There's no relation between the two. The progressive values are things like freedom of expression and free journalism. These stand in contrast to nations like Turkey and China, and their internet policy.
What, which rights we foreigners have that the USA actually respect in practice is not important for judging how relevant American values are to the rest of the world?
Maybe no relation but there might be one... Do you know the reasons why they killed all those people with drones? It could be because of their speech... (but the reason why they did it is probably top-secret)
Which is a situation much more complicated than a holier-than-thou one liner. You're also forgetting that innocent men are killed in the strikes too, which is just as tragic (or maybe more tragic since apparently nobody cares about them).
There is nothing complicated about drone strikes. They are conducted without judicial oversight and without any process, let alone due process, and provably kill more non-combatant civilians than enemy combatants. They are well-documented and there are long lists of the victims with age, name and sometimes even pictures.
Therefore, naive as I am, I thought in my previous contribution: Why not judge a country's values on the basis of their actions rather than on the basis of internal propaganda or wishful thinking.
> "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet,” warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz.
For those of us in foreign (to the US) countries, I don't quite see the issue here.
Depends on the country! It's easy not to see the problem when one's home country's policies about permissible Internet content are no more liberal than those of the country that controls ICANN. But I can imagine some friction if the situation were flipped. If, say, China were to control ICANN, I think a lot of people should be concerned given its pervasive efforts to control Internet content. Other countries like Russia and India, while not in China's league, could also present censorship issues.
Maybe they would have the good sense not to enforce these policies at the ICANN level...but they also might not.
History I guess. After inventing it, inventing and deploying many of the devices and technologies it depends upon (including satellite communications and undersea cables), all that engenders a proprietary interest in its future. America may look dimly on letting Lichtenstein etc. have a say in its future.
But DNS is the keys to the kingdom. After beginning most of what we now call "the internet" hanging on to one last key doesn't seem like to much to ask. Can someone imagine France giving up the right determine if certain wines are Bordeaux? Or the Swedish Academy of Sciences getting final say on who wins the Nobel Peace prize?
The example is even worse than OP thinks, because American universities through better cooperation de-facto have control over the memorial prize in economics.
The key is only useful if you have something to unlock. The web is responsible for the extreme number of users we see today, and it was invented by a British guy. The funding came from an European laboratory.
Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.
In reality, any country can abuse it's position, but in regards the internet it doesn't really appear that it has ever happened. This is very much change for change sake without any real benefit to be seen.
>Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.
That statement is so absurd that this can only be Poe's law in effect. Freedom of Speech is a requirement for a functioning democracy, and consequently plenty of countries have freedom of speech codified into law.
Of course different countries limit this freedom differently. In a US cinema you can't shout "Fire" if there is no fire, or "I just got a national security letter" if there is a national security letter. In a German cinema you can't shout "The holocaust never happened" or "Kill all muslims". But within reasonable bounds both countries guarantee freedom of speech.
I would recommend reading a touch about freedom of speech in the US, particularly the 'Shout Fire' thing [0]. That quote comes from a Supreme Court justice in ruling the 1st Amendment doesn't protect criticism of the draft, and is regarded as one of the worst rulings on the 1st amendment from the Supreme Court. While you're broad claims are correct, the US is the most free / least restrictive country in the world in terms of what you can say without legal repercussions (I welcome being corrected here). So much so, that I've found myself shocked at some of the things that aren't allowed in other western democracies. For example, Germany and the ban against Holocaust denial. I understand why they feel that way, I understand denial is a stupid position to take, but I just can't wrap my head around it being illegal. Looking beyond western democracies, to places that seem nice to live in, you get Singapore, as an example. No thanks.
Yeah and in North Korea I can't call Kim Jong Un a fat piece of shit, but I guess that's just a reasonable limit to North Korea's freedom of speech.
> In a German cinema you can't shout "The holocaust never happened"
This is a legitimate example of why Germany does not have freedom of speech. Regardless of how verifiable the Holocaust is or how offensive it is to deny that it happened, disagreeing with the government's version of history should not be a crime in a free society.
> In a US cinema you can't shout "Fire" if there is no fire
A fraudulent statement designed to disrupt society. You don't get arrested because what you said is untrue, you get arrested because you're legitimately trying to hurt people by causing a stampede and desensitizing them to fire warnings.
>"Kill all muslims"
A specific incitement of violence.
> "I just got a national security letter"
I don't like that this is illegal either, but it's a far cry from making it illegal to express certain opinions. And at least there's a fair amount of disagreement within the US as to whether it should be illegal, different jurisdictions have taken either side of this issue.
How is disagreeing with history any different than disagreeing with a fact, like whether nor not a theater is on fire.
Setting aside other exceptions, like liable, the rule in AngloAmerican law concerns inciting or otherwise causing imminent harm. What constitutes imminent harm has varied widely over the course of U.S. history. Many people were sentenced by courts under the Alien & Sedition Acts, the argument being that seditious speech _might_ lead to imminent harm. The same things happened over 120 years later when people handing out anarchist and communist leaflets were regularly thrown in jail with even less pushback by society.
These days the interpretation and application of imminent harm is much narrower than it has ever been, and indisputably ahistorical. The conception of free speech that Americans enjoy today didn't exist for most of the history of the country and likely most of the history of the world.
In the context of Germany's history, it's not obvious to me (and shouldn't be obvious to anybody who gives it serious consideration) that their standard is intrinsically, objectively inferior.
I happen to disagree with it, but I don't think it's unreasonable on its face. And I'll be the first to admit that my preference for the modern, American conception is largely a function of my being an American and having internalized certain normative judgments unique to not just this country, but unique to the post-WWII political and legal context and in many respects unique to the past couple of generations.
I just watched Trumbo. The US seems to have a pretty bad track record of protecting different political opinions. Seems like you bought the government’s version of history, too.
The NPD by the way is to this day allowed in Germany, they are just not allowed to openly demand the violent parts of Nazism, because denying the Holocaust is a fraudulent statement designed to disrupt society. You don't get arrested because what you said is untrue, you get arrested because you're legitimately trying to hurt people by causing a stampede and desensitizing them to the sanctity of life.
> Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.
Even China has "freedom of speech" coded in their constitution. Granted, many of the countries with "free speech" in the books don't actually have it in practice, but that doesn't validate your claim.
As another interesting point, it's codified into American law that the rights outlined in the constitution (freedom of speech for example) are not granted by the laws, but a source outside them. The constitution merely recognizes those freedoms, but has no ability to grant or remove them.
This of course wouldn't stop the practical removal of said freedoms by a despotic regime, but as a philosophical point, I find it interesting, and it has mattered in court rulings in the past.
Domain seizures for what reason? Have they seized the domain of a blog site because it was critical of the government or did they seize domains that were used in criminal acts? I do agree that due process ought to always be respected however, compared to te due process track record of most other countries, the US is an angel. Any international organization where Russia, China or any non-Israeli middle eastern country has an equal vote is an organization that can't be trusted. Even Thailand puts people in jail for insulting the king. People put in jail over expressing opinions! That's just nuts.
Let China be in charge of the Internet for awhile. Or even France or Germany.
They actually go after people for their ideas -- not just their actions.
> Well there really is only one country in the world that has 'Freedom of Speech' codified into law.
What?? America's freedom of speech protections are strong and admirable, but this is surely an empty claim that you are unable and unwilling to defend.
I hate this statement because it usually means the person making it doesn't know very much about free speech laws.
As another user points out, the limits placed on our free speech are all directly related to actions that can harm other people. Like yelling fire in a crowded theater. That can/will result in a stampede which will hurt or even kill other people. It isn't limiting what you're saying because it's some dislike political opinion, it's limiting what you can say so you don't kill people. There's a huge, huge difference.
and there is a huge difference between not having free speech and having "reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society".
Well, except for the fact that you're attempting to lump the U.S in with countries like Germany who have what you describe. The U.S has "more free" speech. In Germany, you can't deny the holocaust. That isn't preventing harm, it's trying to stop a political statement. I'm no holocaust denier but I feel that if someone wants to parade their ignorance, they should be allowed. It makes idiots easier to identify.
Most other countries have similar limits on free speech. The U.S limits aren't of political origins, but actual physical safety. And I think that makes a world of difference.
It also makes it easier to shift the Overton window in favour of statements like "Hitler did nothing wrong" by recruiting more "idiots" to the Holocaust-denying cause. Or more accurately, recruiting ignorant and impressionable people who probably shouldn't always be expected to know better — but who might have otherwise. This is also a kind of harm, albeit a more indirect one.
And before you reply "that's what schools are for"; what difference does it make whether a body of beliefs is government-sanctioned and taught in schools or "merely" treated as a respectable opinion in the public square? A naive kid may have their opinion swayed just as strongly, if not more, by a street cultist preacher than by an overworked, burned-out schoolteacher. Would you be okay with Scientology being taught in schools? I assume not. Would you be okay with Scientologists luring children into a camp five metres away from a school? Fifty metres? Five hundred? At what point does it stop being harmful enough to be worth prohibiting? I don't think there is any.
I would rather live in Germany than in the United States, and one of the main reasons is precisely this kind of free speech absolutism.
The U.S doesn't enforce most of its obscenity clauses. With the exception of Child pornography, etc... And if you're asking what harm does that cause, well, it harms the kid getting sexually abused. Most of the obscenity laws are related to minors. Either in the the consumption of pornography or production.
> Communism Control Act
What about it? It's irrelevant here. In fact, anything that hasn't been challenged in the supreme court is irrelevant because the supreme court is the law of the land, not local, city or state governments. Per wikipedia: "the Supreme Court of the United States has not ruled on the act's constitutionality. Despite that, no administration has tried to enforce it. The provisions of the act "outlawing" the party have not been repealed. Nevertheless, the Communist Party of the USA continues to exist in the 21st century." It's quite obvious which way they'd rule if it were to be challenged, as even lower courts in NY ruled against it in the 70s.
And I think that's the most important thing here; In germany, for example, you can't challenge their free speech law regarding the holocaust. It's set in stone. In the U.S, unless the supreme court has ruled on it, it is not set in stone. And the supreme court of the U.S has an incredibly good track record when it comes to defending our freedoms. Sure, it's laid a couple stinkers here and there, but 99% of the time, its ruling is favorable towards those who value freedom, liberty and independence. It's kept us from fascism and helped keep us from turning into a theocracy.
> And I think that's the most important thing here; In germany, for example, you can't challenge their free speech law regarding the holocaust. It's set in stone.
Wrong. We have the constitutional court (essentially the US supreme court equivalent) and since the holocaust denial law is not part of the constitution, but freedom of opinion is, all the same arguments you presented about the US laws works just as well for Germany.
And in my opinion our constitutional court has an even better track record of defending our freedom than the US supreme court (from the rulings I hear about on this side of the pond).
Beyond country specific TLD's which every country already has, what exactly do other countries want in terms of controlling the internet that they don't already have? (edit: spelling)
Frankly ever since the issue first showed up on a news site, i have held that legacy gTLDs should be moved under .us, and that new gTLDs should not be issued.
Then it would be up to each nation to enact rules for their part of the net, and nothing more.
Right now, if i happen to access a .com that is operated by a non-US entity, am i subject to the rules of USA, the nation of origin of said entity, or where they happen to have their servers housed?
Again, I worry that the battle between nations is a mask for the real battle that is happening, and which we are losing, the ceding of power to large corporations.
I'm not worried about ICANN, here, I'm worried about Google. Specifically, now that ICANN is expanding top-level domains to include thousands of generics, the big players are going to make lots of grabs and become first-class citizens on the Internet. It is not better for the Internet if Google controls the .dev TLD and if Amazon controls the .shop TLD.
At the end of the day a democratic system of any kind is vulnerable to corruption from the influence of power and must actively defend against this influence. If ICANN is supposed to be a more democratic means of controlling the Internet than the US government, it has to be made invulnerable to the influence of large players like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
ICANN, despite its imperfection, is infinitely better than having control of the DNS by the UN or the ITU who are exceptionally self-serving and controlled by corporate interests.
Thought of course I'd have preferred it stay with DoC under its benevolent and almost entirely hands-off stewardship.
> "The proposal will significantly increase the power of foreign governments over the Internet,” warned a letter signed by several Republican senators, including former Presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz.
This article raises a rather serious political (but also philosophical) question mark over diffuse concepts like "government" and "foreign", in the context of Internet. I honestly don't know what is the current status of citizenship and territoriality nowadays in a "place" (is the Internet really a place? ) as fluid, fuzzy and multi-layered as this one we are discussing.
It feels like this is a battle (maybe "battle" is too strong of a word) over "who will control the single, traffic-coordinating bean". Where as we can instead create - by convention not law/authority - a whole new set of decentralized "beans", no? For example, can a competing, decentralized equivalent to DNS be leveraged which right out of the gate leverages ipv6, allows for easier-tom-implem,ent decentralized nodes, etc.? I'm not saying this is easy...but surely it could assuage any concerns over control of conventional DNS, no?
But the USA will bend the rules anyway, wether it lies within their jurisdiction or not.
Thing is, if it does not lie within theiir jurisdiction, the international fallout might be of more significance.
Yet with ICANN staying state-side, i doubt it will make any difference anyways.
Yeah. "Aggressive foreign policy" is probably not the right issue to be raising here for a variety of reasons.
I would think that the real pressing issue is Internet censorship. And on this issue the U.S. really does have a very good track record compared to a lot of the other countries who might want to control ICANN. http://map.opennet.net/
That good track record is because the US is so far ahead in pervasive large-scale Internet eavesdropping and intelligence gathering. It's counter-productive to block stuff when you want more data.
As much as I dislike excessive surveillance, it's worth pointing out that defenders of free speech far outweigh proponents of gathering data for eavesdropping. Of course, the USA enjoyed free speech before the internet existed. It's one of our strongest values. I partly grew up abroad and have friends in numerous countries where people do not have the right to speak their mind, and this should not be taken lightly. Again, I am not a fan of the extensive surveillance, but the "good track record" does not have its foundation in eavesdropping.
You're conflating two things here. The United States, despite it's many flaws (one of them being surveillance) has a pretty sterling record on freedom of speech. This predated the internet, and has survived, possibly even strengthened, in the face of a massive proliferation in the average person's ability to spread ideas and (mis)information.
You can rightfully criticize the surveillance state that has arisen, but it's just wrong to try and paint freedom of speech as an offshoot of that. Or even, frankly, to criticize the US stance on freedom of speech (unless you think it's too broad).
Presumably if you're used to the BBC's style (and this style is much more common generally in the UK than in the US - many of the major newspapers spell acronyms similarly) it doesn't look like a typo.
US might be becoming less and less free every passing year but is likely to remain far more freer than rest of world for years to come.
I think this is bad idea. The rest of the world consists of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, UK, Russia. I don't want them to have any say in the naming system.
Right, lets just forget about Canada, or South America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, the rest of the Middle and Far East, the other countries on the Arabian peninsula and pretty much most of Asia. Lets just pretend the other 252 countries don't exist, are all equally terrible and for whatever reason obviously don't deserve to have a say in any of this.
"Deserve" is a pretty big word to use here. No country deserves anything. And also I am not sure why USA should give up anything because some other country feel entitled. Congo or Myanmar will not have much of a say in how internet is managed compared to China or Saudi Arabia. But it would affect all internet users.
Once USA gives up this control it can not take it back and hence I think USA should not give it up.
Open to any explanation about how this will improve the system aside from "more involvement from other countries". Not that I'm discounting that as a good or bad reason, but I'd just like to see more information about why this would be good.